Summary of an Introduction by Kamala Das

An Introduction is perhaps the close to famous of the poems written by Kamala Das in a self- supposeive and confessional intuitive feeling from her maiden publication Summer in Calcutta(1965). The poem is a signifi so-and-sot remark on Patriarchal Society prevalent today and brings to decrease the miseries, bondage, pain suffered by the fairer sex in such cartridge holders. The poet says that she is non arouse in politics but claims that she can name every(prenominal) the battalion who have been in power right from the time of Nehru.By saying that she can repeat them as fluently as days of week, or name of the month, she indirectly states the feature that politics in the country is a mealy of few chosen elite who ironically rule a democracy. The item that she remembers them so well depicts that these multitude have been in power for crying cycles. Next, she describes herself saying that she is an Indian, born in Malabar and very br give in colour. She speaks in three la nguages, delivers in two and dreams in one, articulating the thought that Dreams have their proclaim universal language.Kamala Das echoes that the medium of writing is not as noteworthy as is the comfort level that one requires. People asked her not to write in English since isnt her mother tongue. Moreover, the fact that English was a colonial language prevalent as medium of communication during British times drew even more criticism every time she had an encounter with a critic, friends, or visiting cousins. She emphasizes that the language she speaks becomes her own, all its imperfections and homosexuality become her own. It is half-English, half-Hindi, which waits rather amusing but the point is that it is honest.Its imperfections only get in it more human, rendering it close to what we call Naturality. It is the language of her expression and feeling as it voices her joys, sorrows and hopes. It is as integral to her as cawing is to the crows and roaring to the lions. Tho ugh imperfect, It is not a deaf, blind speech like that of trees in storm or the clouds of rain. Neither does it echo the incoherent mutterings of the funeral pyre. It possesses a coherence of its own an emotional coherence. She moves on telling her own story.She was a child, and later people told her that she had grown up for her corpse had started showing signs of puberty. But she didnt seem to downstairsstand this interpretation because at the heart she was still but a child. When she asked for love from her soulmate not knowing what else to ask, he took the sixteen-year-old to his bedroom. The expression is a rugged criticism of child marriage which pushes children into such a predicament magic spell they are still very childish at heart. Though he didnt beat her, she felt beaten and her body seemed crushed under her own weight.This is a very emphatic expression of how unprepared the body of a sixteen-year-old is for the assault it gets subjected to. She shrank pitifully, as hamed of her feminity. She tries to overcome such humiliation by being tomboyish. And thereafter when she opts for potent clothing to hide her femininity, the guardians enforce distinctive female attire, with warnings to fit into the socially determined attributes of a woman, to become a wife and a mother and get confined to the domestic r push throughine. She is threaten to remain within the four walls of her female space lest she should make herself a psychic or a maniac.They even ask her to hold her part when rejected in love. She calls them categorizers since they tend to categorise every person on the basis of points that are purely whimsical. She explains her encounter with a man. She attributes him with not a proper noun, but a common noun-every man to reflect his universalitythe fact that in such a patriarchal society, this is a nature inherent to every male by the sheer fact that he belongs to the stronger sex. He defined himself by the I, the supreme male ego. He is tig htly compartmentalized as the sword in its guinea pig.It portrays the power politics of the patriarchal society that we thrive in that is all about control. It is this I that stays long away without any restrictions, is unthaw to laugh at his own will, succumbs to a woman only out of lust and later feels ashamed of his own weakness that lets himself lose to a woman. Towards the end of the poem, a role-reversal occurs as this I gradually transitions to the poetess herself. She pronounces how this I is also sinner and saint, beloved and betrayed. As the role-reversal occurs, the woman too becomes the I reaching the pinnacle of self-assertion.