Introduction of the Poem:
Kamala Das here gives a brief account of a sexual experience she had but which put her in a dilemma. The lover made love to her with much fervour and much passion, but still the end she could not decide whether it was sheer lust which motivated him, or he had any feeling of love in his heart for her. She felt that the chances of love were rather thin.
Critical Summary:
The poem opens with an expansive image of burning sun in the sky, symptomatic of the spiritual and physical symbiosis. This master image, in turn, evokes a series of other remarkable images. The lover, whose mouth is like “the burning mouth of sun”, spreads his limbs like “carnivorous plants reaching out” for the poet and draws her up in his embraces which are like “a finished jigsaw”. However, irrespective of the ecstasy of love, the poet's “moody mind” hears the sobs of anguish lurking behind the “gaiety trumpets”. When the lust has been quenched, the undercurrent comes to the surface. She distinctly hears the words “Bol / Hari Bol” from the men carrying a dead body to the creation ground.
A million questions then arise in her mind as she sits silent in the room. The answer to these questions is that real love is quite elusive and, therefore, hard to find anywhere. What she had felt in the course of the sexual act was that the lover was only a “skin - communicated thing” or purely a physical desire; it was the sublimation of “my unending lust” into eternal fulfilment through physical annihilation. Kamala Das here does not suspect only her lover wanting merely to satisfy his lust without feeling any love for her. She also suspects herself of being lustful at the time and having no love in her heart for the man.
Devoid of any musical or melodic effects, this poem too, like others by Kamala Das, reads like prose. However, the words have been well chosen, as are metaphors and similes. The lover's limbs, for instance, have been compared to carnivorous plants which stretch their stalks and twigs towards a human being to draw him towards them in order to suck their blood. The man's embrace is described metaphorically as a “finished jigsaw”, and the crows flying in the sky are compared to “poison on wings”. Lust is aptly described as “this skin - communicated thing” as Kamala Das analyses the anatomy of lust and love. It must be noted that, in poem after poem, Kamala Das has given an outlet to her feeling of disappointment on not receiving and love from the men she had sex with. This frankness and candour is not to be found in any other Indian poet writing in English.
.webp)
