EXTRACTS FROM: 'ANAMALAI POEMS' BY
LATE Ms KAMALA DAS
{ KAMALA DAS, THE NOTED MALAYALAM & ENGLISH
WRITER PASSED AWAY IN A PUNE HOSPITAL ON THE
NIGHT OF 30 th MAY 09. SHE WAS 75.}

(I)
“….If I had not learnt to write how would
I have written away my loneliness or grief?
Garnering them within my heart would have
grown heavy as a vault, one that only death
might open, a release then –
I would not be able to feel or sense ….”
(II)
“..If only the human eye could look beyond
the chilling flesh, the funeral pyre’s rapid
repast and then beyond the mourner’s
vanquished stance, where would death be
then, that meaningless word,
when life is all that there is, that raging
continuity that often the wise ones recognize
as God? ”
(III)
“…No, not for me the beguiling promise of
domestic bliss, the goodnight kiss, the weekly
letter that begins with the word dearest,
Not for me the hollowness of marital vows and
the loneliness of a double bed, where someone
lies dreaming of another mate, a woman perhaps
lustier than his own! ”
(ONLY THREE SMALL RANDOM EXTRACTS ARE PRESENTED;
IT ONLY SHOWS THE DEPTH AND RANGE OF HER POETIC
MIND AND THOUGHTS! MAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE!)
- RAJ NANDY
NEW DELHI
01 JUN 09

RAJ NANDY

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/extract-from-anamalai-poems-by-late-kamala-das/