The Moving Finger

Of Love and Betrayal: Kamala Das's “Letter from Radha”

Image courtesy:nickyskye.blogspot.com Kamala Das’s short story “Letter from Radha” from the collection of stories Sandal Trees is a prose poem on the Radha--Krishna love. Unlike the Bhakti poets who celebrate the Radha--Krishna love of the Vrindavan days as an ideal love beyond the norms of traditional courtship and are silent about Krishna’s later desecration of that love, Das, in her story, prefers to interrogate Krishna’s change of heart after he left Vrindavan. She demystifies the Radha--Krishna love and shows it to be what it really was—a love that ended abruptly in betrayal and abandonment, a love that left Radha broken-hearted. Das's story shows how cruel a man can be even to the woman he loves. Krishna,when he becomes a king , man-like, deserts Radha, and she, woman-like, lives like one dead pining for her beloved for in true love there is no such thing as “getting over it.” Even if a wound...

She Pens to Protest

I write Because I cannot bite It’s the way Image courtesy: uk.pinterest.com ...

Breaking the Seventh Commandment: Nisha da Cunha’s Short Story “One Summer Meeting”

Nisha da Cunha. Photo courtesy: epaper.timesofindia.com The Supreme Court's recent verdict decriminalising adultery makes me post this review of Nisha da Cunha's story that was written in 1991 and is narrated from the point of view of the adultress. Nisha da Cunha’s short story “One Summer meeting” is from her collection of stories Old Cypress .Through long lyrical and meandering passages of interior monologue, the protagonist goes down memory lane recalling the heady days of her tempestuous extramarital affair with a man whom she compares to a sun bird that is vibrant with beauty and movement. The protagonist’s grown up son comes in search of her after years of separation. The story is in the form of a baring of the soul, a sort of confession to the son about the affair that caused the break up of her marriage. In poetic language, the mother recalls the pain and disillusionment of an unfulfilling marriage and the agony and ecstacy of extra-marital love. W...

The Moving Finger

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