2. A LOOK IN TO THE LIFE AND CAREER
OF QUEEN OF LOVE
KAMA LA DAS
3.
4. Kamala Das
BORN : 31 March 1934
PLACE : PUNNAYURKKULAM
THRISSUR
FATHER : V.M.NAIR
MOTHER : BALAMANI AMMA
SPOUSE : K MADHAVA D
5. CAREER
OCCUPATION : POET,NOVELIST,SHORTSTORY WRITER
PEN NAME : MADHAVIKUTTY
NOTABLE AWARDS : EZTHUTHACHAN AWARD
VAYALAR AWARD
SAHITHYA ACADEMY AWARD
ASAN WORLD PRIZE
ASIAN POETRY PRIZE
KENT AWARD
6. FAMOUS WORKS
1965: Summer in Calcutta (poetry; Kent's Award winner)
1967 : The Descendants (poetry)
1973: The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (poetry)
1976: MY STORY (autobiography)
1977: Alphabet of Lust (novel)
1985: The Anamalai Poems (poetry)
1992: Padamavati the Harlot and Other Stories (collection
of short stories)
1996: Only the Soul Knows How to Sing (poetry)
2001: Yaa Allah (collection of poems)
1979: Tonight,This Savage Rite (with Pritish Nandy)
1999: My Mother at Sixty-six (Poem)
– : My Grandmother House (Poem)
8. THE TATTEREDBLANKET
Madhavikutty’s ‘The Tattered Blanket’ exposes the bitter truths of life in a stunningly simple manner. After five years
Gopi comes to Kerala to see his mother. Gopi is a big officer in Delhi living with his wife Vasantha and four children. He
has come to Thiruvananthapuram as a part of his official assignment. He ‘Just dropped in his way back’ to meet his
mother. His mother is very old. She lives with his eldest sister Kamalam who is a widow. When he arrived unexpectedly at
his home in the countryside, his mother was lying in an armchair on the veranda. Mother fails to recognise her son Gopi.
She believes that Gopi is still a school boy. She doesn’t recognise anybody. Sometimes her
memory is quite sharp, sometimes she forgets the present, but remembers the past.
When her memory is very sharp she asks about Gopi’s letters from Delhi. Kamalam tells her a lie that everything is fine
with Gopi, his wife and kids. But Gopi doesn’t write any letters to his mother. Mother doesn’t recognise her son. She asks
her son Gopi ‘Who is your Amma? What is her name? Where does she live? Is it far from here?’ But mother has the
picture of her son in her mind. She says, My son ‘is in Delhi... a Government Officer. He has Kesariyogam.... He draws a
salary of two thousand five hundred rupees’. Mother tells Gopi if he meets her sons ask him to send her a blanket. A red
one. She has a blanket, the one Gopi bought for her when he was studying in Madras.
9. It is all tattered now, just a ball of knotted yarn. Gopi has come home to ask his sister to sell his share of land
and get some money for him. Kamalam knows that Gopi has come only for money, not to see his mother. It
took more than five years for him to find time to come home. Kamalam says, ‘Amma is eighty three now. I
don’t think she will pull on much longer. It took you so long to visit her after the last time.’ But Gopi has his
excuses for not visiting Amma. He says ‘But Amma can’t remember who I am.’ The story ends with Kamalam’s
question to Gopi, ‘But do you remember your Amma?’ Amma doesn’t recognise her son because she has lost
her power of memory. In fact forgetfulness is a blessing for her. Her son doesn’t have any love for his mother.
This is one of the brilliant short stories penned by Madhavikutty in Malayalam. Her focus has always been on
the tormented female self craving for love. She is concerned with the condition of women and the way in
which they are betrayed by society. In ‘The Tattered Blanket’ mother craves for her son’s love. Her son is
evergreen in her memory.
But she has been overpowered by forgetfulness. She needs a red blanket because the old one is tattered. Here
blanket represents the warmth of her son’s love. She actually needs her son’s love. The tattered blanket
symbolises the tattered soul of the mother. Madhavikutty’s stories are a re-affirmation of women, woman
reclaimed of body and spirit. In ‘The Tattered Blanket’ Madhavikutty portrays the poignant voice of wounded
womanhood against the value systems of a male-dominated society.
