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Shvoong Home>Books>Poetry>Abstract on “the Wild Bougainvillae” by Kamala Das Review

Abstract on “the Wild Bougainvillae” by Kamala Das

Book Review   by:akso6o175     Original Author: Andy Kester Sawian
  • Summary rating: 4 stars (16 Ratings)
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Feelings of loss, longing and anguish pervade the poem ‘The Wild Bougainvillae’. Included in the volume ‘Summer in Calcutta’, the poem recalls a certain time in the life of the poet when she suffered from extreme emotional turbulence and yearning as she did ‘for a man from another town’. The poem also shows the poet’s attempt to rise above private anguish and depict a larger view on experience. ‘Sad in Calcutta’ is the probable allusion to Kamala Das’s own experiences in Calcutta during the early part of her marital life, but the reference can be understood as indicating any urban location where it is not easy to sustain the mood of comfort and ease. ‘Moodily, like mourners behind a bier’ is an image of mourning which enhances the opening emphasis on the feeling of sadness. ‘Walked roads I had never, Seen before’ as the travel’ metaphor is extended to indicate that she now has to negotiate situations she wasn’t quite expected to face.
Here the poet is presented as a prisoner of her own loneliness, agony, anguish and longing. Finally, exhausted with days of groaning and moaning, she decides to take ‘long walks’ and look beyond the narrow confines of her heart and home. A lonely sojourn into the unknown areas of the city brings her face to face with life in its manifold aspects, which assures her; she feels that it is a good world, full of beauty and happiness. As she walks along the sea, she notices stagnant rotten things, undersides of barges rotting, ‘dead fish rot’, ‘smelling of rotting dead’, and the transience of all earthly things dawns on her. She becomes oblivious to the pain when she sees marigold and wild red Bougainvillae-vibrant, fresh and colorful-climbing the minarets, and growing unaffected by the surroundings. The zest for life, insignificant of personal loss in the midst of life inspires her to move on undeterred, even with pain of loss and longing.
‘The garbage Rot, and the dead fish rot, And, I smelt the smell of dying’ are some of the images of decay and death and are meant to show the extremely difficult and frustrating circumstances in which the speaker is placed. ‘Night girls with sham Obtrusive breast sauntered’: she is not like the prostitutes who make the pretence of desire, moving about without purpose; her movement, on the other hand, is a kind of quest. ‘Are pale now and yellowed like grotesque teeth’ where all things show signs of decay and decline with the passage of time, whether they are stones or the human body, epitomized here by the teeth; yellowing also indicates the lack of attention, which resulted in the layering of the surface. ‘A dreamless sleep’ is a peaceful and quiet sleep. The Bougainvillae flower assumes a symbolic meaning in the poem. It is the flower that grows in adverse and extreme conditions. In its beauty and serenity, this flower symbolizes the renewal of life. The message that one has to rise above all forms of pain and suffering and look at life as a promise for moving forward comes clearly through in the poem.
Published: November 10, 2010   
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