MADHAVI KUTTY

Kamala Surayya

Kamala Suraya
Born	Kamala 31 March 1934 Punnayurkulam, Trichur, Cochin
Died	31 May 2009 (aged 75) Pune, Maharashtra, India
Pen name	Madhavikutty
Occupation	Poet, novelist, short story writer
Nationality	Indian
Genre	Poetry, novel, short story, memoirs
Notable awards	Ezhuthachan Puraskaram, Vayalar Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, Asan World Prize, Asian Poetry Prize, Kent Award
Spouse	K. Madhav Das
Children	Madhav Das Nalapat Chinnen Das Jayasurya Das
Relatives	Balamani Amma (mother) V. M. Nair (father)

Kamala Surayya (born Kamala; 31 March 1934– 31 May 2009), popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and Kamala Das, was an Indian English poet as well as a leading Malayalam author from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the poems and explicit autobiography. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics including women's issues, child care, politics among others.
Her open and honest treatment of female sexuality, free from any sense of guilt, infused her writing with power and she got hope after freedom, but also marked her as an iconoclast in her generation.^[1] On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a hospital in Pune.^[2]
On 1 February 2018, Google Doodle by artist Manjit Thapp celebrates the work she left behind, which provides a window into the world of an engrossing woman.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Literary career
• 3 Conversion to Islam
• 4 Politics
• 5 Personal life
• 6 Awards and other recognitions
• 7 Works
  • 7.1 English
  • 7.2 Malayalam
• 8 See also
• 9 References
• 10 Sources
• 11 External links

Early life

Kamala was born in Punnayurkulam, Thrissur District in Kingdom of Cochin (present-day Kerala, India) on 31 March 1934, to V. M. Nair, a former managing editor of the widely circulated Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi, and Nalapat Balamani Amma, a renowned Malayali poet.
She spent her childhood between Calcutta, where her father was employed as a senior officer in the Walford Transport Company that sold Bentley and Rolls Royce automobiles, and the Nalapat ancestral home in Punnayurkulam.
Like her mother, Balamani Amma, Kamala Das also excelled in writing. Her love of poetry began at an early age through the influence of her great uncle, Nalapat Narayan Menon, a prominent writer.
At the age of 15, she got married to bank officer Madhav Das, who encouraged her writing interests, and she started writing and publishing both in English and in Malayalam. Calcutta in the 1960s was a tumultuous time for the arts, and Kamala Das was one of the many voices that came up and started appearing in cult anthologies along with a generation of Indian English poets.^[3] English was the language she choose for all six of her published poetry collections.^[4]

Literary career

She was noted for her many Malayalam short stories as well as many poems written in English. Das was also a syndicated columnist. She once claimed that "poetry does not sell in this country [India]," but her forthright columns, which sounded off on everything from women's issues and child care to politics, were popular.
Das' first book of poetry, Summer in Calcutta was a breath of fresh air in Indian English poetry. She wrote chiefly of love, its betrayal, and the consequent anguish. 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 poets were still governed by "19th-century diction, sentiment and romanticised love."^[5] Her second book of poetry, The Descendants was even more explicit, urging women to:

Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of

Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts,

The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your

Endless female hungers ..." – The Looking Glass