Appreciation of the poem My Grandmother’s House by Kamala Surayya

            My Grandmother’s House is a nostalgic poem written by Kamala Surayya. This poem will create a feeling in us to return to our sweet days of childhood. In this poem she recalls her ancestral house (the home owned and preserved by the same family for several generations) in Malabar where she was unconditionally loved by her grandmother. She begins the poem by describing the condition of her ancestral house after her grandmother died.

            In order to show the grief of her grandmother’s departure, she describes that the house itself withdrew into silence. Here she uses the figure of speech of ‘personification’ in which human qualities are given to nonliving things. Later on, when she goes on to describe that snakes moved among books (visual image) we get the feeling that the house was like a haunted one. She then tells us that she wants to go back to the house where her grandmother pampered (താലോലിക്കുക) her affectionately with her selfless love. She announces her wish to peer through the blind eyes of the windows or listen to the frozen air (auditory image). Blind eyes and frozen air gives us the feeling of stillness and death. We can understand that the poet’s heart was like a dark window where fresh air never blew after her grandmother’s death. This dark window is a link between her past and present.

            Since she is a confessional writer, (എല്ലാം തുറന്നെഴുതുന്ന  വ്യക്തിത്വം.) we understand from her lines that her present life is suffering from her loveless marriage. In order to compensate (പരിഹരിക്കാൻ ) this she uses a strange connection with the memories of her childhood. She wants those beautiful moments she had with her grandmother (described here as darkness) to be picked and kept behind her bedroom like a brooding dog. Here she uses the figure of speech ‘simile’. We then realize that she had been talking to her husband whom she calls ‘darling’. We pity (സഹതപിക്കുന്നു) her desperate (നിസ്സഹായ  അവസ്ഥ) present condition where she has to beg for love in small amounts at the door of strangers. This is a wonderful poem which is like a door to the emotional side of a very sensitive poet, Kamala Surayya.