What love was worth. In the end.

When I die
Do not throw the meat and bones away
But pile them up
And let them tell
By their smell
What life was worth
On this earth
What love was worth
In the end.

(Kamala Das)

I wept. I wore black. I went wordless. I hadn’t spoken to her in a year, I heard news of her failing health, but I had not prepared myself to hearing this.

Specially not in this season of sorrow. When the number of the Tamils killed in a few days touches five-figure tolls, when every piece of news from down south is so distressing. This is not a time of courage. This is a time when I have stopped doing even the casual things. I am feeling broken within, and crushed. I run away from the regular things, from the routine. I have been chasing every escape route: silence, starvation, sleeplessness. It is not exactly consoling, but it is good enough to keep me from thinking too much. From taking things to heart.

All this helplessness was naturally pushing me towards writing, towards poetry. I was thinking a lot about Kamala Das in these past few days. And then this news comes, of her death, and I feel guilty. Perhaps this is pessimism.

What I shared with Kamala Das was an extremely special relationship. All through my angst-ridden teenage years she was my role model (she still is). I read her poems with all the pain and the power that I could muster. I loved her committment. I loved her flamboyance. Only much later, I realized that she could be an accesible person after all. Not just a name on books, a name in the papers. I was only twenty-one when I first wrote to her. I had struggled about six months to get her address.. Nothing happened, and I didn’t expect anything to. Then, I went to Kerala, and a friend of mine was her doctor. He promised to pass my poems to her. Kamala Das couldn’t read the script, the words because her eyes were failing her…. So, my doctor friend read the poems. At least some of them. The remaining were read to her by her assistant.  Then, much later, there came this courier from Kerala. In two pages, in thick black felt pen, she had written a foreword to my poems. I cried when I read those words. I had not expected so much love and so much appreciation and so many blessings. And on that letterhead, I noticed her phone number. I called her immediately. And when I first heard her voice, it was another revelation. I will honestly say that I have never heard a sweeter woman’s voice. It was all woman. And the first  thing she said, after I identified myself was, “You will win many, many awards. You will certainly become a great poet. Keep writing.” and I was in tears, and I didn’t know what to say with all this happiness. First she writes this mindblowing foreword (and she who hasn’t done that so far at alll) and then she continues saying these lovely things. I have never felt so blessed. Or so priveleged. And since I was tongue-tied, she kept talking. “People write such absurd trash these days, and they call it poetry.” and about her health “I was never a very healthy person, so I am used to this.” So much, so much more.

Our conversations continued for two years, until last summer. May be, after she moved to Pune, I couldn’t get to talk  as much as earlier. But, everytime we spoke, I promised to her that I will come and see her. And that was something I was putting off all my life. There was a lot of domestic drama that I had to negotiate (love-shove and stuff), there was this job I was into, there was this goddamn phd I was doing.  Convenient and stereotyped excuses for which I will never forgive myself. I still feel I should have somehow put all my preoccupations behind and met her just once. Even if we never spoke, we should have just come close to each other. She was the most special influence all my life, but I just let that be. I never ventured to go to where she lived. And I cry my heart out for that. She was not just my inspiration, my greatest influence, my icon; not just the woman who made my career as a poet. She motivated me even outside poetry. Her actions gave me the courage to rebel. The conviction that I need not conform. The integrity to stand up for what I thought was right, irrespective of how much the world was going to mock me, censure me, set me apart and set me aside.

I write this post because I am shattered on so many levels. Not just her death, but so much happening elsewhere. So much happening around me. To those who don’t know me personally, none of this will make sense. This is not a homage, even if it has ended up reading like one. My real homage to Kamala Das will come from my work. And I pray to her: give me the faith to be as fearless and fiery and flamboyant as you were.