My Grandmother's House

MY GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE

INTRODUCTION

The poem, My Grandmother’s House, first appeared in Kamala Das’s first anthology of verse titled Summer Time in Calcutta (1905). It is also an autobiographical poem in which the poet’s longing for her parental house in Malabar is movingly described. She is reminded of the ancestral house where she had received immense love and affection from her grandmother.

ABOUT THE POEM

My Grandmother’s House is a nostalgic poem written by Kamala Das (Kamala Surayya). Though it’s a short poem its meaning is vast and wide. The undercurrent of the poem is Kamala Das’s childhood life with her grandmother where she felt more love and peace than she enjoys in her present life

The poet’s feminine sensibility finds its clearest loveless relationships in it. A note of pessimism runs throughout the action of the poem. It reveals the poet’s painful unfulfilled desire to visit her grandmother’s house to which she is deeply and emotionally attached. The poet is shocked to learn that the house is all in ruin after the death of her grandmother. She suffers in silence due to the wear and tear it has undergone in her absence. A death-like silence reigns in her grandmother’s house.

.The poem My Grandmother’s House has only 16 lines, very short poem. The opening line tells the readers about her grandmother’s house, where she lived when she was very young. We can read line by line explanation My Grandmother’s House.

Moreover, the intensity of her grief is suggestively conveyed by the ellipses in the form of a few dots in this section of the poem. It was her disenchantment with her loveless marriage which reminded her of her grandmother’s pure and selfless love. Her heart is itself like a dark window where the fresh air does not blow. The image of the house has stuck to her mind. The poet has also used the similes of a brooding dog show her inability to pay a visit to her grandmother’s house. She has also used suggestive visual imagery of ‘blind eyes of the windows’ and ‘the frozen air’ to convey the idea of death and desperation.

INTRODUCTION OF POETESS

Kamala Das (1934-2009) born in Kerala, Kamala Das began her literary career, like her mother, as a short story writer in Malayalam. She, however, achieved wider recognition as an Indo-English poet with her widely read works like Summer in Calcutta (1965) The Descendants (1976) and The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1973).

 Reflecting a feminine sensibility and feminist understanding, the writings of Kamala Das reflect the tensions of modern India and a quest for fulfilment. She questions, asserts and defies through poetry of polemics and emotional intensity foregrounding a body of woman-specific experience. Her conscious rejection and adoption of various identities and names reflect an impassioned search for a comfortable persona in a highly divisive society.

She was noted for her many Malayalam short stories as well as many poems written in English. Das was also a syndicated columnist. She once claimed that "poetry does not sell in this country [India]," but her forthright columns, which sounded off on everything from women's issues and child care to politics, were popular.

Das’s My Story, as Scroll. It has previously written, was “one of the most brutally honest telling of what it was like to be an independent-minded woman in India, catapulting Das to The status of an icon for women yearning to escape the domestic oppression and forge a sexual identity”.

SUMMARY OF THE POEM

“My Grandmother’s House” is a constituent poem of Kamala Das’s maiden publication summer in Calcutta. Though short, the poem wraps within itself an intriguing sense of nostalgia and up rootedness. In her eternal quest for love in such a ‘loveless’ world, the poet remembers her grandmother which surfaces some emotions long forgotten and buried within her-- an ironical expression of her past which is a tragic contrast to her present situation. It is a forcefully moving poem fraught with nostalgia and anguish.

The poet says that there is a house, her grandmother’s home, far away from where she currently resides, where she “received love”.  Her grandmother’s home was a place she felt secure and was loved by all. After the death of her grandmother, the poet says that even the House was filled with grief, and accepted the seclusion with resignation. Only dead silence haunted over the House, feeling of desolation wandering throughout. She recollects though she couldn’t read books at that time, yet she had a feeling of snakes moving among them-- a feeling of deadness, horror and repulsion, and this feeling made her blood go cold and turn her face pale like the moon. She often thinks of going back to that Old House, just to peek through the “blind eyes of the windows” which have been dead-shut for years, or just to listen to the “frozen” air.

The poet also shows the ironical contrast between her past and present and says that her present has been so tormenting that even the Darkness of the House that is bathed in Death does not horrify her anymore and it is a rather comforting companion for her in the present state of trials. The poets says that she would gladly (“in wild despair”) pick up a handful of Darkness from the House and bring it back to her home to “lie  behind my bedroom door” so that the memories of the Old House and its comforting darkness, a rather ironical expression, might fill assurance and happiness in her present life.

She wraps up the poem saying that it is hard for one to believe that she once lived in such a house and was so loved by all and lived her life with pride. That her world was once filled with happiness is a sharp contrast to her present situation where she is completely devoid of love and pride. She says that in her desperate quest for love, she has lost her way; since she didn’t receive any feelings of love from the people whom she called her own, she

Now has to knock “at strangers' doors” and beg them for love, if not in substantial amounts, then at least in small change i.e. in little measure at least.

The poet has intensified the emotions of nostalgia and anguish by presenting a contrast between her childhood and her grown-up stages. The fullness of the distant and absence and the emptiness of the near and the present give the poem its poignancy. The images of “snakes moving among books”, blood turning “cold like the moon”, “blind eyes of window”, “frozen air”’ evoke a sense of death and despair. The house itself becomes a symbol - an Ednic world, a cradle of love and joy. The escape, the poetic retreat, is in fact, the poet’s own manner of suggesting the hopelessness of her present situation. Her yearning for the house is a symbolic retreat to a world of innocence, purity and simplicity.

ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

There is a house now far away where once

(…)

To read, and my blood turned cold like the moon

 That house is far away from the poetess’s new house. In that house she enjoyed much love and pleasure. Kamala Das was too young to remember those happy moments, still she recollects her experiences.

……. That woman died

Unfortunately those happy lives didn’t last for long. The death took her lovely grandmother to heaven!

The poem, My Grandmother’s House, which can be read in full here, shows Kamala Das’s intense love and attachment to it. She suffers from an acute sense of alienation after having left this place after her marriage.

The poet now lives in a big city after her marriage, a remote place from her grandmother’s house. She is reminded of her grandmother’s house where she spent her memorable childhood. Ironically, it is the only place where she received love from her grandmother. The death of the grandmother is even mourned by the house to which she was emotionally attached. A death-like silence reigned in the house after her exit from this world. It seems that the grandmother was the very soul of this house. Being deserted, the snakes cold be seen among books in the library of the house. At that point of time she was too young to read those books which looked quite horrible and repulsive like snakes. She was almost frozen with fear at the passing away of her grandmother and seemed cold like the moon.

The house withdrew into silence

In the 3rd line, it’s clear that the grandmother was the only source of entire happiness of that house as the whole house withdrew into silence.

Snakes moved
Among books, I was……….
………………….
and my blood turned cold like the moon

Kamala Das was very young girl at the time she spent her days with her grandmother. Thus she was not able to read books. After grandmother was gone to heaven the books in the

library of that house left unread. Snakes started to move among the book stacks. Seeing the little Kamala Das felt fear. And her grandmother’s death frozen her and turned her blood cold like moon.

How ………………
……………………………………..
To peer through blind eyes of windows
……………… frozen air

After Grandmother’s death, she moved to another house. But still she likes to visit that old house where she enjoyed much freedom and unlimited love. She thinks of going there and to peep through the window of that house and to listen to that frozen air there.

Peer through means look through. Poet used the phrase ‘blind eyes’ it means the house is filled with darkness and nothing inside the house is clear to her eyes. The frozen air is used to mentioned the unmoved air filled in the house because of no inhabitants

The very opening lines of the poem capture alive the poet’s mood of nostalgia. She is reminded of the happiest days of her childhood which she spent in the company of her grandmother. She was deeply attached to her grandmother who was very caring and affectionate to her. She was emotionally destabilized after the death of her grandmother and felt almost heart-broken. The intensity of her grief is suggestively conveyed by the ellipse in the form of a few dots in this section of the poem. It was her disenchantment with her loveless marriage which reminded her of her grandmother’s pure and selfless love.

How often I think of going

(…)

Dog…

   In the above lines of the poem, My Grandmother’s House, the poet defines her relationship with her grandmother in a very moving manner. Kamala Das is reminded of the happiest days of her childhood which spent with her grandmother. The poet was deeply attached to her

grandmother who was very caring and affectionate to her. She was emotionally shattered after the death of her grandmother who had  been the chief source of inspiration in her life.

The poet often longs to visit her grandmother’s house to which she was emotionally attached since her childhood. It has been a place of security and protection which is sadly missing in her new house in the city. She would like to peep through the dust-ridden or coloured panes of windows which were shut after the death of the grandmother. She would like to listen and feel the still atmosphere prevailing in the house.

It is this longing to revisit her grandmother’s house that adds to her sense of frustration and hopelessness. The darkness of her grandmother’s house can have no terrifying impact on her. She would like to gather some darkness, some memories of the grandmother’s house and bring them to her present city residence. The very memories of her grandmother’s house will have a soothing impact on her loveless and hopeless married life.

The poet is in a mood of reminiscence and recreates the plight of the grandmother’s house after her departure from the scene of life. She gives us the very feel of the house in its state of neglect and desertion. The poet has used the simile of a brooding dog to show her inability to pay a visit to her grandmother’s house. She has employed suggestive visual imagery of ‘blind eyes of the windows’ and ‘the frozen air to convey the idea of death and desperation.

You cannot believe, darling,

(…)

Receive love, at least in small change?

In these lines of the poem, the poet says how her frustration and disenchantment in the marital life forced her to go in for extra-marital relationship. The poet often longs to visit her grandmother’s house to which she was emotionally attached since her childhood. Unlike her miserable city life with her husband, it had been a place of security and genuine love for her.

Here the poet informs her dear husband that he can never believe the intensity of love that she received from her grandmother. He can never realize that she was extremely proud of her grandmother’s house where she was deeply loved by her grandmother. It is her separation from her grandmother’s house after marriage that has ruined her life forever. It is loveless and

Hopeless married life that has crippled her sense of pride and love which she used to have in her grandmother’s house. She has become a beggar for love who knocks helplessly at strangers’ doors to receive at least in a small measure. She has almost lost her way in search of genuine and selfless love.

Kamala Das exposes the futility of loveless and hopeless marital relationships in these five concluding lines of the poem. It shows the agony and humiliation of a married woman who is forced to seek extra-marital relationships to seek love for her emotional satisfaction. It is the mood of nostalgia that dominates the closing phase of the poem. The poet is reminded of her grandmother’s house where received love and safety in her childhood. She has lost all her identity and freedom in her loveless relationship.

THEME OF THE POEM

Kamala Das recalls her ancestral house that was filled with the all-pervading presence of her grandmother And this is why her grandmother’s house is singular: Kamala Das received ‘love’ there. When the poetess speaks of ‘love’ in particular she ascertains that it is unconditional and selfless. With the death of the Grandmother, the house ceased being inhabited. It now became an isolated and remote entity, echoed by the phrase ‘far away.’

The poetess asserts that with the death of her grandmother silence began to sink in the house. Kamala Das, at that juncture, was too small to read books, but emotional enough to comprehend the true feeling of love.

With the death of the Grandmother, her life that was hitherto filled only with emotions becomes numb. Her veins thus become cold rather than warm. It is as cold as the moon, the moon being an emblem of love. The worms on the books seem like snakes at that moment, in comparison to the size of the little girl; and in keeping with the eeriness of the situation. The poetess also implies that the deserted house is like a desert with reptiles crawling over. The poetess now longs to ‘peer’ at a house that was once her own.…