Kamala Surayya (March 31,1934- May31,2009)
The sad demise of the writer was an irreparable loss to the world of letters, not only to Kerala but the whole world.Kamala's language was the ''language of love'' which she penned both in her novels and poems, he recalled that she had courageously announced that women were not weak or slave, but equal to men.she had made lot of fans across the world.
India's foremost poetess Kamala Das born on March 31, 1934 at Punnayurkulam in the Malabar area of Kerala. She born in the great Kerala literary household Nalapattu, as the daughter of M.K Menon and well-known Malayalam poetess Balamaniyamma. She acquainted with the great writers in Malayalam literature at a tender age and had enough exposure due to her stay at Calcutta and Kerala. The young Kamala read the Malayalam translation of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables by Nalapattu Narayanamenon at a tender age of eight. This ancestral house and the love of her grandmother influenced the young 'Amy' to grow into the Malayalam writer Madhavikutty as well as English poet Kamala Das.
Kamala Das' first poetry collection Summer in Calcutta promised the rise of a revolutionary woman poet in India. Her writings mainly reflected woman's longing for love and her restrictions in the society. Her stories and poems were greatly misunderstood and criticized by a section of Indian critics. Her poems like An Introduction, The Descendants, Alphabet of Lust and Only The Soul Knows How To Sing were open voices of restricted women in an orthodox society. Her autobiography My Story, published in 1976 put her on the centre of controversies. When this confessional work has been translated to more than 15 languages, Inadian critics accused for spreading the idea of unmarital relationships.
Controversies have always dogged the writer, who created a storm when she published her autobiography My Story and later embraced Islam in 1999 and adopted the name Kamala Surayya. She began wearing a veil, saying it offered dignity and comfort to women and continues to do so even now.
The poet who always wrote about Lord Krishna and imagined to be his Radha suddenly started to address Allah. Her statement "I converted my Krishna to Islam" evoked much opposition from conservative Hindus in Kerala. However she was bold in her decisions and continues her life according to Muslim beliefs.
And the ripples set off by the conversion were visible even on Sunday as her death certificate was made in the name of Kamala Madhava Das and the accompanying smasan parvana was filled with the venue for funeral at Vaikunth (city crematorium) and the date for the funeral as 31/05/09. Clearly, the decision taken in the morning was changed later in the day.
“My mother was a Muslim for many years and died a Muslim. She had converted to Islam happily and of her free will. It doesn’t matter what I or my brothers want. It was her wish (to convert to Islam) and we will respect it and abide by it. There is no way a posthumous reconversion can be held. So her funeral will have to be as per Islamic norms. It was also her wish that she be returned to Kerala,” Monu Nalapat, Madhavikutty’s eldest son, said.
