Pune, Sunday 31 May 2009: Well-known writer Kamala Surayya (Madhavikutty) died in a private hospital at Pune on Sunday early morning , family sources said. She was 75. She had been undergoing treatment in the hospital for the last few months.

Kamala Surayya, well-known Indian writer who writes in English as well as Malayalam, her native language. She is considered to be one of the outstanding Indian poets writing in English, although her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography. Much of her writing in Malayalam came under the pen name Madhavikkutty.

Recognized as one of India’s foremost poets, Kamala Das was born on March 31, 1934 in Malabar in Kerala (Dwivedi 297).

Kamala Das spent her childhood between Calcutta, where her father was employed as a senior officer in the Walford Transport Company that sold Bentleys and Rolls Royce, and the Nalappatt ancestral home at Ponnayoorkulam in south Malabar region. Her husband often played a fatherly role for both Kamala and her sons. Because of the great age difference between Kamala and her husband, he often encouraged her to associate with people of her own age.

Like her mother, Kamala Das also excelled in writing. Her love of poetry began at an early age through the influence of her great uncle, Nalappatt Narayana Menon, a prominent writer. However, she did not start writing professionally till she was married and became a mother. When Kamala wished to begin writing, her husband supported her decision to augment the family’s income. Being the housewife, she could not use the morning-till-night schedule enjoyed by her great uncle. She would wait until nightfall after her family had gone to sleep and would write until morning:

“There was only the kitchen table where I would cut vegetables, and after all the plates and things were cleared, I would sit there and start typing” (”Warrior” interview). This rigorous schedule took its toll upon her health, but she views her illness optimistically. It gave her more time at home, and thus, more time to write.

She is famous for her many Malayalam short stories as well as many poems written in English. This Keralite is recognized as one of the foremost poetesses of India. She is also a syndicated columnist. She has moved away from poetry because she claims that “poetry does not sell in this country (India)”, but fortunately her forthright columns do. Her columns sound off on everything from women’s issues and child care to politics.

Her first book, Summer In Calcutta was a promising start. She wrote chiefly of love, its betrayal, and the consequent anguish, and Indian readers in 1965 responded sympathetically to her guileless, guiltless frankness with regard to sexual matters.

Ms. Das abandoned the certainties offered by an archaic, and somewhat sterile, aestheticism for an independence of mind and body at a time when Indian women poets were still expected to write about teenage girlie fantasies of eternal, bloodless, unrequited love.

Musing of a lonely heart is a common theme in her poems. It seeks love with never ending passion. Lust, greed and hunger never satiate and finally the mind becomes an old playhouse with all its lights put out. For Das, poetry (or love?) is “The April sun squeezed like an orange juice”, the heat permeates into the reader’s mind. When she is moving to a new city, “Sadness becomes a silent stone in the river’s unmoving core”.

She bid farewell to “the shadows behind the windowpane, the rain, the yellow moon, the crowd and the sea”. This sensitivity is the strength of her poetry.

At 42, she published her autobiography, My Story, baring the secrets of her heart. It creates a lot of interest and controversies though not for any literary value.She herself later made it clear that it WAS after all a work of fiction and should not be read that literally.She alleges that many translators have not done justice to the original and it is one of the reason that complicated the whole matter. The book was translated into many foreign languages—about 15.

Kamala Das, better known as Madhavikutty is one of the foremost short story writers in Malayalam. In any listing, she figures among the top 5 writers, even after considering the personal choices and socio-cultural background of the readers. She writes, with dexterity, the story of poor old servant in Punnayoorkulam or the sexual disposition of upper middle class women living near a metropolitan city or in the middle of the ghetto.

Her writing style is economical and the use of language is very precise. Her widely acclaimed stories include Pakshiyude Manam, Neypayasam, Thanuppu, and Chandana Marangal. She wrote a few novels, among which Neermathalam Pootha Kalam stands out, which was received favourably by the reading public as well as the critics. It recreates the nostalgia of an old ancestral home with it adjacent snake shrine.

It is often said that even her casual talks falls in the genre of short stories. Such is her creative genius that even after succumbing to several unwanted controversies, she remains a widely popular figure.

Awards

Kamala Das has received many awards for her literary contribution. Some of them are
· Asian Poetry Prize
· Kent Award for English Writing from Asian Countries
· Asan World Prize
· Ezhuthachan Award
· Sahitya Academy Award
· Vayalar Award
· Kerala Sahitya Academy Award

Conversion to Islam

Born in a conservative Hindu Nair (Nallappattu) family having Royal anscestry, she embraced Islam in 1999 at the age of 65 and assumed the name Kamala Suraiya. Like the themes of her stories, conversion too, kicked up much heat and dust in the social and literary circles. [5]
Her statements like “I’m converting Krishna into Allah and making him the Prophet after naming him Mohammed. If you go to Guruvayur now Krishna will not be there he will be with me” infuriated many conservative Hindus. They cannot digest when some one who has written
“
Krishna, I am melting, Melting, melting
Nothing remains
But you
”
Starts writing,
“
Ya Allah I perceive the Prophet’s features, as
yet unrevealed, on my beloved’s
mien…

”
Her serious readers observed the same undercurrents lying beneath both lines, this time more lively.

She was also active in politics in India, and has launched a national political party known as the Lok Seva Party, to concentrate on humanitarian work as well as to provide asylum to orphaned mothers and promote secularism. In 1984, she contested election to enter parliament, but lost.