Tuesday 8 February 2011

The Love Queen

               When “My Story” by Kamala Das (aka Madhavi Kutty) was being serialised in a Malayalam weekly, it shook up the somnolent, cosy and staid society of Keralites in general and the elitist Malabar Nairs in particular. Having lived there in those times, these ripples did not escape me. There were furrowed brows, wrinkled in distaste  and revulsion among the elite. There were knowing winks from those not part of the high society. She had broken a few taboos. Considering that she was born to a famous poet and was the grand niece of a famous writer, it took immense courage to speak of things which her class always did but never mentioned.
          For me, a 15 year old adolescent then, it was different. I would quickly rush through the magazine to spot any ‘scenes’. The scandalised looks of readers convinced me that the book contained erotica that was close to pornography. She unabashedly describes her body, its’ development and her nudity. I was flummoxed by the depictions of paper flowers, colour of walls, snake shrines and clothes and other general descriptions of trivia but very little of the real hot stuff that we were looking for. 

     I followed her life closely. She was always surrounded by controversies. I forgot what contained in “My Story”. She became many things to many people. Still a heretic to the elite, she was variously the lover, mother, sister, niece, poet, celebrity, wife and enemy to Hindu hardliners (for converting to Islam during the last lap of her life). I remember looking for Yasunari Kawabata’s works after reading an interview by her in which she mentioned his works with great admiration. Then one day she died after a long bout of illness.
  
       I read “My Story” again- in Malayalam. I also read “The Love Queen of Malabar” by Merrily Weisbord, a story of the friendship of a Canadian journalist with Kamala Das. Merrily has tried to be as honest to the subject as she could. She finds her stories of sexuality alternating between delusions and a smattering of reality. In "My Story", there are places where the reader might pause and think”could this be true? Or is she making it all up?” Kamala Das describes her literary career as a search for words all the time, in the dark night, during lazy afternoons. Her words were simple yet effective. Her humility struck me as a wisp of fresh air in a world of literary pretenders- filled with writers  who try to obfuscate and make reading an intellectual instead of an emotional, soul stirring exercise. She was humble about her abilities but was greatly successful in her craft.

              Her life had been a quest for elusive love. Where she found it, she gave it unconditionally. She was ahead of her times. Things that continue to mildly shock us- like live-in relationships, open marriages, homosexuality and bisexuality-  You could find all of these in “My Story” and remember, this was the 1970s Kerala and not the swinging 21st century. Years from now, tomes would be written on her literature and the social milieu she lived in. Maybe a couple of Phds would be awarded on the impact of her literature in society and much else.

    But doctoral studies might  miss the enormous reservoir of love within her. Love flowed within her  like a wild choppy ocean, or to borrow a term from her, like a river in spate- brimming at its’ seams and threatening to devour all it came across. There was no animosity in her tortured soul. She approached life with a rare honesty. She disdained hypocrisy. Her body was just a vessel to contain her love.  The only real love affair of her life, she claims was with a much older man (her husband’s boss, to whom she was pushed) with whom she never had penetrative sex. Somewhere I have read that once when the private love letters of a famous literary figure (in Malayalam) were stolen and published in a magazine, she called him up to say how sad she was that no one wrote her such beautiful love letters.

        There is this small vignette from “My Story”. One of the youngsters who lived in the neighbourhood rapes her one night in a drunken stupor. She sees him many months later. He passes a very crude remark about how sexy she looks. Her answer was a long nerve racking laugh which scared him away. Her young son kept telling her not to laugh like that. Her answer to this whole world filled with masks and pretensions  was a long deranged laugh.

             She converted to Islam for a man’s love. If you heard that man speaking, one would perfectly understand her. It was love she found in old age, while bones creak, varicose veins sprout and joints ache. A time when one would be soaking in the presence of children, grand children and others dear ones. Love came at a heavy price. She found it not too high to pay in her eternal quest for it. A decision she made and faced social ostracism and (albeit briefly) the overpowering love of a whole new world. The symbolism contained in her religious conversion is not lost on the reader.  Isn’t religion just  an invisible cloak or a purdah, isn’t  love the ultimate gift at the end of the rainbow?