AN INTRODUCTION by Kamala Das

I don’t know politics but I know the names

Of those in power, and can repeat them like
Days of week, or names of months, beginning with
Nehru. I’m Indian, very brown, born in
Malabar, I speak three languages, write in
Two, dream in one. Don’t write in English, they said,
English is not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? The language I speak
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernessess
All mine, mine alone. It is half English, half
Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human, don’t
You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes , and it is useful to me as cawing
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
Incoherent mutterings of the blazing
Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they
Told me I grew, for I become tall, my limbs
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair. When
I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask
For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the
Bedroom and close the door. He did not beat me
But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my breast and womb crushed. I shrank
Pitifully. Then…I wore a shirt and my
Brother’s trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl,
Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook, be a quarreler with servants. Fit in. oh, belong, cried the categorizers. Don’t sit
On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.

Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or better
Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a role. Don’t play pretending games.
Don’t play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho. Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love…. I met a man, love him. Call
Him not by any name, he is every man
Who wants a woman, just as I am every
Woman who seeks love. In him….the hungry haste
Of rivers, in me….the ocean’s tireless
Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,
The answer is, it is i. anywhere and
Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself
I ; in this world, he is tightly pack like the
Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely
Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,
It is I who laugh, it is I who make love
And then feel shame, it is I who lie dying
With a rattle in my throat. I am a sinner,
I am saint. I am beloved and the
Betrayed. I have no joys which are not yours, no
Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.