The changing writer
Kamala Surayya is wary of journalists. ‘‘Recently, a reporter came to see me. He wanted to know how many men I had slept with. I asked him to get out. Reporters always hurt me. I have stopped meeting them,’’ she says, sitting in an executive chair at her flat in Ernakulam. Her head is covered with a sky-blue scarf, secured by two hairpins. Years ago, when I first met her, Kamala Surayya was Madhavikutty; for her English readers, she was Kamala Das. She wore a sari and a bunch of keys hung from her waist. There was sindoor on her forehead. Today, at 72, there are new additions to her life—a name, a walker, a magnifying lens and a swelling on one of her eyes.
‘‘I had a stroke last year and was not able to talk. The right chin had been badly affected. I was bedridden. I’ve done physiotherapy for months. I still haven’t fully recovered from it,’’ she says.
‘‘And writing?’’ I ask.
‘‘Yes, these days I mostly write poems. In India, we have only two magazines publishing English poems, Kavyabharathi and the Little Magazine. Once in a while I contribute poems to them. I will be publishing my new book of poems soon.’’
‘‘Why only poems?’’
‘‘I am not getting the simplicity which I had in my younger days. The reason for that, I think, is my knowledge. I studied a lot. Naturally, my knowledge increased.’’
Kamala’s love for literature began at an early age. Her uncle and prominent writer, Nalapat Narayan Menon, influenced her. Kamala was also deeply touched by the poetry of her mother, Nalapat Balamani Amma. She was educated until the age of 15, when she was married to K Madhava Das.
It all began with My Story (Ente Katha), Kamala's controversial autobiography that portrayed extreme personal experiences, including her growth into womanhood, her quest for love and her life in matriarchal rural South India after inheriting her ancestral home. ‘‘When I wrote My Story, I was very young. At that time, the love between man and woman was alien to Malayalam literature. What we had was lust, looting of women, not love. And I had a vocabulary suitable for the young. So it happened. I won’t be able to write such a work now. Things have changed,’’ says Kamala.
A poet, short-story writer and novelist, Kamala was shortlisted for the Literature Nobel Prize in 1984, along with Marguerite Yourcenar, Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer. Some of her prominent works in Malayalam include Narichirukal Parakumbol, Manasi and Balyakalasmaranakal. Kamala writes in Malayalam, her mother tongue, as well as in English. Summer in Calcutta, The Descendants, and Only the Soul Knows How to Sing are her collections of poems in English. In 1964, she was awarded the Asian Poetry Prize for her anthology The Sirens; in 1965, she received the Kents Award for Summer in Calcutta; In 1969, her short story, Thanuppu, won the Sahitya Akademi award.
‘‘A writer always changes. And change is a kind of growth. Five years ago, when I professed Islam, some said I was abandoning my tradition. This is purely baseless. Even if I have abandoned a tradition, I have inaugurated a new one. Mine was an evolution, not an overnight change,’’ she says. I never believed in God, she continues. ‘‘But when you grow old, loneliness creeps in like a fog. So you need someone to trust. That’s why I chose Allah, the Supreme Being. If you go to a Hindu temple, there will be hundreds of Gods around. The burden of carrying Gods is hectic. I am very upset seeing educated people coming and telling me he or she is having a sarpadosham (serpent’s eye). Blind belief is like kidney stone. A society with such people will never progress. So I believe in one God, and my
God doesn’t have religion or nationality. If I hadn’t professed Islam, I could have been a Buddhist by now.’’
The phone rings. A lean, middle-aged lady comes into the room and informs Kamala that it’s from some magazine. Kamala picks up the phone. ‘‘Assalamu Alaikum.’’ The conversation on the phone goes on and on. ‘‘Women journalists are good for proofing and other office work. They are jealous when they see other women who are more beautiful than them. It reflects in their stories. So please don’t send such people any more,’’ she tells the caller. The reason for her anger? A woman reporter from that magazine had interviewed her, and she had a rather unpleasant remark about Kamala in her story.
‘‘There is nobody to protect writers in our society,’’ she says upon hanging up. ‘‘We are tortoises whose shells are removed. After my conversion to Islam, Hindus started threatening me. They have stopped. Now it is the turn of the Muslims. They say I am not taking the religion seriously. But I don’t care. I have readers not only in India but abroad as well. It will continue to be the same.’’
Reading and writing has become difficult for Kamala, especially after her stroke. Her eyesight is poor, so she uses a magnifying lens to read. She still writes; from her shelf, she pulls out a 200-page notebook. It is a draft of a collection of poems yet to be published. The white pages of the book have big letters written in red sketch pen. She reads out some of the poems from it. ‘‘Muslim women are not supposed to write. So I don’t know about the consequences when I publish it. I might get some warnings similar to Sania Mirza. But I am not scared.’’
I notice henna on her palms. ‘‘Yes, during the Ramzan day, a newspaper wanted a photograph of my (henna-ed) palms carried on its main page. Some girls came and designed it,’’ smiles Kamala, turning her hands. The annoying sound of a mixie cuts in from the kitchen, spreading the smell of onion and coconut. It’s 11 in the morning. ‘‘I am a vegetarian,’’ she says. ‘‘I can never think of eating flesh. How can one eat a dead body? It’s horrible. I am totally against killing animals and eating them.’’
Her walker now dominates her life. ‘‘I can’t walk without it. And I have stopped going out these days. But you know how much I loved travelling. I was a great traveller. It was fun walking down the roads of New York, Manhattan, Paris, Jamaica, Melbourne and Montreal. Paris is a wonderful city. The roadside cafés are spectacular. The smell of garlic is everywhere. I used to have onion soup from there. If you ask me which country I like the most, I would say Canada. Australia is also equally beautiful, with its vast vistas and exotic beaches. In India, I like Delhi. If I had money, I could have bought a flat there,’’ she says.
‘‘Even though I am not able to walk, if you put me into the water, I might be able to swim. I love swimming.’’ She remembers how she learned swimming at the pond in Nalapat, her ancestral home. ‘‘Ammamman (uncle) used to tie together two coconuts baskets and let us lie on them. I was very scared. But slowly I learned. Then it was difficult for them to keep me away from the pond!’’ she laughs. It sounds like her soul is singing.
‘‘I had a stroke last year and was not able to talk. The right chin had been badly affected. I was bedridden. I’ve done physiotherapy for months. I still haven’t fully recovered from it,’’ she says.
‘‘And writing?’’ I ask.
‘‘Yes, these days I mostly write poems. In India, we have only two magazines publishing English poems, Kavyabharathi and the Little Magazine. Once in a while I contribute poems to them. I will be publishing my new book of poems soon.’’
‘‘Why only poems?’’
‘‘I am not getting the simplicity which I had in my younger days. The reason for that, I think, is my knowledge. I studied a lot. Naturally, my knowledge increased.’’
Kamala’s love for literature began at an early age. Her uncle and prominent writer, Nalapat Narayan Menon, influenced her. Kamala was also deeply touched by the poetry of her mother, Nalapat Balamani Amma. She was educated until the age of 15, when she was married to K Madhava Das.
It all began with My Story (Ente Katha), Kamala's controversial autobiography that portrayed extreme personal experiences, including her growth into womanhood, her quest for love and her life in matriarchal rural South India after inheriting her ancestral home. ‘‘When I wrote My Story, I was very young. At that time, the love between man and woman was alien to Malayalam literature. What we had was lust, looting of women, not love. And I had a vocabulary suitable for the young. So it happened. I won’t be able to write such a work now. Things have changed,’’ says Kamala.
A poet, short-story writer and novelist, Kamala was shortlisted for the Literature Nobel Prize in 1984, along with Marguerite Yourcenar, Doris Lessing and Nadine Gordimer. Some of her prominent works in Malayalam include Narichirukal Parakumbol, Manasi and Balyakalasmaranakal. Kamala writes in Malayalam, her mother tongue, as well as in English. Summer in Calcutta, The Descendants, and Only the Soul Knows How to Sing are her collections of poems in English. In 1964, she was awarded the Asian Poetry Prize for her anthology The Sirens; in 1965, she received the Kents Award for Summer in Calcutta; In 1969, her short story, Thanuppu, won the Sahitya Akademi award.
‘‘A writer always changes. And change is a kind of growth. Five years ago, when I professed Islam, some said I was abandoning my tradition. This is purely baseless. Even if I have abandoned a tradition, I have inaugurated a new one. Mine was an evolution, not an overnight change,’’ she says. I never believed in God, she continues. ‘‘But when you grow old, loneliness creeps in like a fog. So you need someone to trust. That’s why I chose Allah, the Supreme Being. If you go to a Hindu temple, there will be hundreds of Gods around. The burden of carrying Gods is hectic. I am very upset seeing educated people coming and telling me he or she is having a sarpadosham (serpent’s eye). Blind belief is like kidney stone. A society with such people will never progress. So I believe in one God, and my
God doesn’t have religion or nationality. If I hadn’t professed Islam, I could have been a Buddhist by now.’’
The phone rings. A lean, middle-aged lady comes into the room and informs Kamala that it’s from some magazine. Kamala picks up the phone. ‘‘Assalamu Alaikum.’’ The conversation on the phone goes on and on. ‘‘Women journalists are good for proofing and other office work. They are jealous when they see other women who are more beautiful than them. It reflects in their stories. So please don’t send such people any more,’’ she tells the caller. The reason for her anger? A woman reporter from that magazine had interviewed her, and she had a rather unpleasant remark about Kamala in her story.
‘‘There is nobody to protect writers in our society,’’ she says upon hanging up. ‘‘We are tortoises whose shells are removed. After my conversion to Islam, Hindus started threatening me. They have stopped. Now it is the turn of the Muslims. They say I am not taking the religion seriously. But I don’t care. I have readers not only in India but abroad as well. It will continue to be the same.’’
Reading and writing has become difficult for Kamala, especially after her stroke. Her eyesight is poor, so she uses a magnifying lens to read. She still writes; from her shelf, she pulls out a 200-page notebook. It is a draft of a collection of poems yet to be published. The white pages of the book have big letters written in red sketch pen. She reads out some of the poems from it. ‘‘Muslim women are not supposed to write. So I don’t know about the consequences when I publish it. I might get some warnings similar to Sania Mirza. But I am not scared.’’
I notice henna on her palms. ‘‘Yes, during the Ramzan day, a newspaper wanted a photograph of my (henna-ed) palms carried on its main page. Some girls came and designed it,’’ smiles Kamala, turning her hands. The annoying sound of a mixie cuts in from the kitchen, spreading the smell of onion and coconut. It’s 11 in the morning. ‘‘I am a vegetarian,’’ she says. ‘‘I can never think of eating flesh. How can one eat a dead body? It’s horrible. I am totally against killing animals and eating them.’’
Her walker now dominates her life. ‘‘I can’t walk without it. And I have stopped going out these days. But you know how much I loved travelling. I was a great traveller. It was fun walking down the roads of New York, Manhattan, Paris, Jamaica, Melbourne and Montreal. Paris is a wonderful city. The roadside cafés are spectacular. The smell of garlic is everywhere. I used to have onion soup from there. If you ask me which country I like the most, I would say Canada. Australia is also equally beautiful, with its vast vistas and exotic beaches. In India, I like Delhi. If I had money, I could have bought a flat there,’’ she says.
‘‘Even though I am not able to walk, if you put me into the water, I might be able to swim. I love swimming.’’ She remembers how she learned swimming at the pond in Nalapat, her ancestral home. ‘‘Ammamman (uncle) used to tie together two coconuts baskets and let us lie on them. I was very scared. But slowly I learned. Then it was difficult for them to keep me away from the pond!’’ she laughs. It sounds like her soul is singing.
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