Introduction of the Poem:
“Ghanashyam” appeared in Kamala Das’ Stranger Time (1977). Ghanashyam is another name for Lord Krishna, who used to play, frolic and flirt with women all of whom adored him; they would be ecstatic when they heard the notes he produced on his flute. A married woman Radha fell in love with him and another married woman. Mirabai, a princess, worshipped him as her husband. Mirabai composed poetry to celebrate her love for him . It is against this background that. Kamala Das, after numerous disappointments and frustrations in marriage as well as extra - marital relations, seeks to sublimate her desire by visualizing Lord Krishna as her ideal lover.
Critical Summary:
The poetess tells Ghanashyam that she has built a nest in the garden of her heart and that her life, which was till now, a silent and sleeping jungle, is now stirring to the sounds of music. Ghanashyam, she says, has been leading her along a route she had never known before. But every time she is about to come close to him, he simply disappears. Life, she says, is moisture, it is water, and it is semen and blood. Death is the want of moisture and water, it is the hot sand bath, it is the last sob of a relative of the person who lies dead. The poet is using words to weave a garment for Ghanashyam; she is composing songs to produce music which would have the power to make the oceans dance.
The poet describes her married life as a failure because her husband would merely satisfy his lust while having sex with her; he was unable to give her any real love or affection. The only way she could survive was to reconcile herself to her desolation and loneliness. She tries to imagine that whenever her husband made love to her it was Ghanashyam making love to her. She consoles herself with the thought that Ghanashyam appears to her in many shapes even when any other man, besides her husband , makes love to her.
The poet seeks peace so that wisdom can come to her imperceptibly and silently. He (Ghanashyam) has, like a fisherman, cast his net in the depths of her mind; her thoughts rush towards him like a fish which briskly enters the fishermen's net under some mysterious urge.
Ghanashyam reveals to us Kamala Das’ spiritual longings which have been lying dormant in her and which have surfaced as a consequence of her sexual disappointments and frustrations. She keeps thinking that every man she makes love to is Ghanashyam in disguise. Then she is confused about the real identity of the several men she has made love to. She is disillusioned with all those casual lovers and finally she feels cleansed of the desires of the flesh and wants only Ghanashyam as her lover.
As Iqbal Kaur says, Kamala Das here speaks not only of physical evolution but also of spiritual evolution. Her poems on the Radha Krishna myth - Ghanashyam, Radha and The Maggots - are witness to her spiritual evolution. In Radha, for instance, Kamala Das speaks of spiritual love and spiritual evolution through total surrender, with Radha in the poem representing the spirit of surrender. For the consummation of spiritual love, Kamala Das mingles her complete self with the self of Lord Krishna. Every Hindu girl, says Kamala Devi, is in reality wedded to Lord Krishna and in this admirable poem she presents Lord Krishna as the ideal lover of every woman, much in the same way as Mirabai projects in her poems and songs.
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