LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 7 July 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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A Kaleidoscopic View of Kamala Das’ My Story

R. Tamil Selvi, M.A., M.Phil.

Abstract

My Story is a best-selling woman’s autobiography in post-independence India. It follows Kamala Das’ life from age four through British colonial and missionary schools favored by the colonial Indian elite; through her sexual awakening; an early and seemingly disastrous marriage; her growing literary career; extramarital affairs; the birth of her three sons; and, finally, a slow but steady coming to terms with her spouse, writing, and sexuality.

The objective of this paper is to present the readers a kaleidoscopic view of My Story, encompassing the multifarious world of emotions a woman experiences. In the point of view of the narrator, the readers get an opportunity to travel through the story, giving us a glimpse of every event that happens in her life.

As the novel proceeds, we come to know about Kamala’s several contradictory accounts of the genesis of My Story. In her preface to the autobiography, Kamala claims that she began to write the text in the mid-1970’s from her hospital bed as she grappled with a potentially fatal heart condition. She wrote the autobiography, she states, “to empty myself of all the secrets so that I could depart when the lime came, with a scrubbed-out conscience” and in order to pay mounting hospital bills. Since the publication of her autobiography, Kamala has repeatedly changed her stance on this topic in interviews and essays. However, calling Kamala Das queer in itself provides no grand resolution to the myriad challenges posed by her work; rather, it serves as an initial vantage point from which one can glimpse the changing English-language literary terrain of this new century.

Keywords: Kamala Das, autobiography, kaleidoscopic.

Kamala Das’ Statement on Her Autobiography

“My Story is my autobiography which I began writing during my first serious bout with heart disease. The doctor thought that writing would distract my mind from the fear of a sudden death and, besides, there were all the hospital bills to be taken care of.... Between short hours of sleep induced by the drugs given to me by the nurses, I wrote continually, not merely to honour my commitment but because I wanted to empty myself of all the secrets so that I could depart when the time came, with a scrubbed-out conscience... The serial had begun to appear in the issues of the journal which flooded the bookstalls in Kerala. My relatives were embarrassed. I had disgraced my well-known family by telling my readers that I had fallen love with a man other than my lawfully wedded husband...This book has cost many things that I held dear but I do not for a moment regret having written it.” (Das, Preface in My Story)

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

R. Tamil Selvi, M.A., M.Phil.
Assistant Professor
Department of English
PSG College of Technology
Peelamedu
Coimbatore 641 004
Tamilnadu, India
tamilkiriya@yahoo.co.in




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