My Mother at Sixty-six PDF

My Mother at Sixty-six d Kamala Das An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum he T s POETRY Stephen Spender R l Keeping Quiet...

My Mother at Sixty-six d Kamala Das An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum he T s POETRY Stephen Spender R l Keeping Quiet i E b Pablo Neruda C u A Thing of Beauty p John Keats N re A Roadside Stand Robert Frost © eAunt Jennifer’s Tigers b Adrienne Rich to o t n  1 My Mother at Sixty-six About the poet Kamala Das (1934) was bor n in Malabar, Kerala. She e d h is recognised as one of India’s foremost poets. Her works T s are known for their originality, versatility and the i indigenous flavour of the soil. Kamala Das has published l many novels and short stories in English and R Malayalam under the name ‘Madhavikutty’. Some of b her works in English include the novel Alphabet of Lust E (1977), a collection of short stories Padmavati the Harlot u and Other Stories (1992), in addition to five books of C poetry. She is a sensitive writer who captures the p complex subtleties of human relationships in lyrical idiom, My Mother at Sixty-six is an example. N re Before you read © e Ageing is a natural process; have you ever thought what our elderly parents expect from us? b Driving from my parent’s home to Cochin last Friday o morning, I saw my mother, beside me, t doze, open mouthed, her face t ashen like that of a corpse and realised with o pain that she was as old as she n looked but soon put that thought away, and looked out at Young Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling out of their homes, but after the airport’s security check, standing a few yards 90/Flamingo  away, I looked again at her, wan, pale as a late winter’s moon and felt that old familiar ache, my childhood’s fear, but all I said was, see you soon, d Amma, e all I did was smile and smile and smile...... T sprinting : short fast race, running s h i wan : colourless Think it out R b l E 1. What is the kind of pain and ache that the poet feels? C u 2. Why are the young trees described as ‘sprinting’? p 3. Why has the poet brought in the image of the merry children N re ‘spilling out of their homes’? 4. Why has the mother been compared to the ‘late winter’s moon’? 5. What do the parting words of the poet and her smile signify? © e Notice that the whole poem is in a single sentence, punctuated by commas. b It indicates a single thread of thought interspersed with observations of the real world around and the way these are o connected to the main idea. t t no My Mother at Sixty-six/91