NAME- KAUSHAMBEE JANARDAN DAVE

CLASS- XII TH B

ROLL NO.- 09

EENGLISHNGLISHPPROJECTROJECTWWORKORK

MY MOTHER AT SIXTY- SIX POETESS- KAMALA DAS

Born- March 31, 1934Punnayurkulam, Malabar District, Madras Presidency, British India

Died- May 31, 2009 (aged 75)Pune, Maharashtra, India

Penname- Madhavikkutty

Occupation- Poet, short story writer

Nationality- Indian

Genres-Poetry, Short story

Notable award(s)-Ezhuthachchan Puraskaram, Vayalar Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, Asan World Prize, Asian Poetry Prize, Kent Award

Spouse- Madhava Das

as a poet of the first waterKamala Das is a tale weaver – weaving the rhythm of lifeinto a tale of soul – a poet who loves to be loved in silence.She says, "I wanted to fill my life with as manyexperiences as I can manage to garner because I do notbelieve that one can get born again".

Kamala DasKamala Das – –

This poem is anexample of such experience with oozing agony andmelancholy – beleaguered with modern economic system.

KAMALA DAS

Summary of “My Mother at Sixty-Six”

On a gray day, the speaker leaves her mother as well as her home to win her bread, while her mother with a long face stands and stares. The speaker easily filters her glimpses through the plethora of unfamiliar faces. When a bouquet of cheerful children is caught fluttering in the open with sheer alacrity, revives in her the smarting childhood agony of a mysterious premonition,

that is, losing her mother. Reviving from the psychological flickers at once, she sees her mother is shieldedinside a pal of benumbed silence. Still the airport hums, as the passengers are requested to filter through the custom's care. Still a helpless mother, with wrenching heart and swelling emotion, bids a helpless goodbye to her helpless daughter.

The readers are proud of having read such a poem built on the agony of awrenching heart that resides in a child for her mother. The poet looks into the gray olden age strumming the strings of childhood life. Bringing of the sportivechildren restores vivacity into the relationship. So we may without having a tinge of hesitation say, a mother's.

Strangeness added to beauty-

love is helplessly trampled under the technological

terror of airplane wheels

Mother stands in her life like a tree, on whose branch swings the childhood of the daughter.1. Relationship – Relationship is the nucleus

of the poem. It seems lovecreates an unfading relationship and it wields

its brush over at least twosouls and assigns a meadow of agony with a

river of fecundity.

Focus-

2. Nostalgia – The speaker is carried away by her childhood premonition of

losing her mother.

3. Sense of isolation – A deep sense of never-happened-before isolationcreeps into the heart of the speaker.

4. Time of being nuclear – Poet Eunice de Souza claims that Das has"mapped out the terrain for post-colonial women in social and linguisticterms". We fear of losing the mother's touch and smell in time of thisnarrow domestic life

5. Establishment and Ambition – Just to satisfy her economic appetite sheis bound for some handsome income. Poet Eunice de Souza claims thatDas has "mapped out the terrain for post-colonial women in social andlinguistic terms". Yet, a slight touch of establishment and a grown-upambition cannot cut off the branch of relationship.

6. Transport of filial piety – A transport of filial piety is observed filtering through the unfamiliar faces, fettered with custom officers‘ mandatory checking.7. A silent agony – The speaker is overtaken by a terrible numbness. An awkward silence creeps into her being. She fears looking back at theslinking childhood of losing her mother's magnanimous shadow. Her

mother is presumably taken to be motionless and still – 'dead' to say in brief. The destination is worthy of its name too – Cochin – signifying 'sleep' – clearly signifies that the speaker would soon see her mother to be a denizen of the other world.

8. Vitality of relationship – Children spill over, and yet again spring outvitality, vivacity and velocity of life. The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. So losing her mother is nothing but an idiosyncraticoutlook? Her mother is not going to sink in death, since her child keeps breathing – since other children are still there to make the earth rotate.

The daughter evinces her mother silently suffer. She finds her mother

heartbroken... she smiles away her agony though... she accepts her future

loneliness... bereft of mother... having the unluckily lucky opportunity to love her absence, tread her shadows, and swing into the painfully happy nostalgia of a hallowed past. At the fag end of the poem, we see the mother stay as a

Reading between the lines-

never ending song in the speaker's heart of comfort, happiness and being. The destination

is worthy of its name – Cochin – signifying 'sleep' – clearly signifies that the speaker

would soon see her mother to be a denizen of the other world.

The debilitated mind of the mother is experiencing a serious symphony. The airport on goings of checking and rechecking cannot

even drift away the slightest.