ALL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS OF THE POEM AN INTRODUCTION BY KAMALA DAS

AN INTRODUCTION 

Kamala das

1. “I was a child, and later they 

Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs 

Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair”—Explain. 

/OR/ 

2. “He did not beat me 

But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.”—Explain. 

3. “I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar, 

I speak three languages and write in 

Two, dream in one.”—Explain. 

/OR/

4. “Why not let me speak in 

Any language I like? The language I speak,

Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses

All mine, mine alone.

It is half English, half Indian, ”—Explain. 

/OR/ 

5. Describe the Indianness of the girl mentioned in the poem An Introduction. 

6. “Dress in sarees, be girl 

Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook, 

Be a quarreller with servants, Fit in. Oh, 

Belong, cried the categorizers. Don't sit

On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.

Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better

Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to

Choose a name, a role. Don't play pretending games.”—Explain. 

/OR/ 

7. “Don’t play pretending games”—Explain.

8. “The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and 

Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I 

In this word, he is tightly packed like the 

Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely 

Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns”—Explain.

OR

9. "The hungry haste

Of rivers, in me . . . the oceans' tireless

Waiting"- Explain