Feminine Sensibility or Femininity in the Poetry of Kamala Das

Feminine Sensibility or Femininity in the Poetry of Kamala Das

Her Feminine Sensibility, the Governing Force: 

Kamala Das is regarded the Singer of feminine sensibility; she stands against the orthodox conventions and traditions formed by society. These conventions do not make any welfare of the women, but they exploit them badly in this male dominated world. The women's tender feelings and emotions are utterly suppressed under man's rule. K. R. S. Iyengar writes: "Kamala Das is a fiercely feminine sensibility that dares without inhibitions to articulate the hurts it has received in an insensitive largely man-made world." In her poetry she is intensely conscious of herself as a woman. Her vision is vitally particularised by woman's point of view. Men do not see women as women but as objects or playthings. She says : - 

“….these men who call me 

Beautiful not seeing 

Me with eyes but with hands." 

Her feminine sensibility is the motivating and governing force behind her poems, and it is this sensibility which has given to her poetry a distinctive character. Her poetry is essentially the poetry of a woman. This poetry centres round Kamala Das as woman—as a wife, as a sexual partner for many men besides her husband, and as a mother.

Her Feminine Sensibility Craving for True Love, but the Suppression of this Sensibility: 

Kamala Das' feminine sensibility is extremely hungry of true love or love of emotions, but it cannot get its colours. She is always pining for fulfilment in love. She is deeply hurt when she is denied from true love. Mere sexual union, devoid of love, tries and sickens her: 

"Who can 

Help us who have lived so long 

And have failed in love?" 

Feminine sensibility is badly bruised and tortured by masculine callousness, heartlessness and sexuality: 

"Even now his 

Killings are unintentional; 

Each hurting word a stone that did not mean to 

Kill, but killed all the same and each kindness 

A snake that reared only to hiss, 

But struck." 

Her Feminine Sensibility's Suffering for Want of Love: 

In Kamala Das' love poems, it is seen how her feminine sensibility has suffered poignantly in want of love. There are various poems of Kamala Das which illustrated her feminine sensibility, particularly those poems which she writes in the garb of Radha waiting for Krishna to redeem her suffering love. Like all women the poetess too is sad to think that happiness and beauty are short lived: 

"Happiness 

Yes, 

That was a moment or two 

And beauty 

A short season....... 

For what hazy cause we outlive 

Live gnarled fruit trees 

The fecund season."        (Beauty Was a Short Season) 

The Revolt of Her Feminine Sensibility: 

Kamala Das' feminine sensibility appears most emphatically and forcefully in poems in which she has described the temperament and disposition of her husband. The Old Playhouse is one of the poems which are permeated by her feminine sensibility. Her feminine sensibility revolted against her husband's manner of making love to her. His love-making involved only lust and showed no love at all. Only a bold woman would thus express her disgust with a husband who seeks only the gratification of his lust, neither giving any love to, nor expecting any love from, her. The man who allowed his saliva to flow into her mouth and had penetrated every nook and cranny of her body did not feel the least love or affection for her. 

Her Complaining Her Husband's Sexual Activities: 

In the poem entitled The Freaks, Kamala Das complains that her husband's finger-tips can do nothing more than awaken her skin's lazy hungers, and that, though she has lived with him so long, love has evaded them, and her heart is therefore, like an empty cistern. She then calls herself a freak, adding that it is only to save her face that she flaunts, at times, a grand, flamboyant lust.

Her Calling Her Husband a Selfish and Coward: 

In the poem entitled The Sunshine Cat, it is Kamala Das' feminine sensibility which compels her to describe her husband as a selfish and cowardly man who neither loved her nor used her properly. She says that her husband had been treating her as a prisoner with only a yellow cat (or a streak of sunshine) to keep her company. His treatment of her had reduced her to 'a cold and half-dead woman' no longer of any use to a man needing sexual satisfaction.

Her Expressing Woman's most Precious feelings at the Time of Birth of Child: 

The poem entitled Jaisurya is an expression of a woman's most precious feelings when she is about to give birth to a child and subsequently when she has actually given birth to the expected child. This poem has maternity or motherhood as its subject and only a feminine sensibility could have done justice to this theme. How happy was the poetess at the birth of her son! What a fine expression of feminine sensibility: 

"And then wailing into light 

He came, so fair, a streak of light thrust 

Into the faded light." 

Her Advice to Womanfolk : 

In the poem entitled The Looking Glass, she has some valuable suggestions to make a woman who wishes to please a lover. A woman should stand nude before a mirror, with her lover also standing nude by her side. She should also give to a lover whatever she is capable of giving him. She should tell her lover all her "endless female hunger', meaning her deepest longings so far as the sexual act is concerned. 

Thus, it can be observed that Kamala Das' poems are feminine in theme and feminine in tone. She is sensitive, sensuous, and sentimental. She is intensely emotional, sometimes emotional without restraint. For instance, her forgiving attitude in her poem entitled Composition is typical of the Indian feminine sensibility.