1. NAME- KAUSHAMBEE JANARDAN
DAVE
CLASS- XII TH B
ROLL NO.- 09

2. EENGLISHNGLISH
PPROJECTROJECT
WWORKORK

3. MY MOTHER AT SIXTY- SIX
 POETESS- KAMALA DAS
 Born- March 31, 1934
Punnayurkulam, Malabar District, Madras
Presidency, British India
 Died- May 31, 2009 (aged 75)
Pune, Maharashtra, India
 Penname- Madhavikkutty
 Occupation- Poet, short story writer
 Nationality- Indian
 Genres-Poetry, Short story
 Notable award(s)-Ezhuthachchan Puraskaram,
Vayalar Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, Asan
World Prize, Asian Poetry Prize, Kent Award
 Spouse- Madhava Das

4. as a poet of the first water
Kamala Das is a tale weaver – weaving the
rhythm of life
into a tale of soul – a poet who loves to be
loved in silence.
She says, "I wanted to fill my life with as many
experiences as I can manage to garner
because I do not
believe that one can get born again".
amala Dasamala Das ––

5. This poem is an
example of such experience with oozing
agony and
melancholy – beleaguered with modern
economic system.

6. KAMALA
DAS

7. Summary of “My
Mother at Sixty-
Six”

8. On a gray day, the speaker leaves her mother
as well as her home to win her bread, while
her mother with a long face stands and stares.
The speaker easily filters her glimpses through
the plethora of unfamiliar faces. When a
bouquet of cheerful children is caught fluttering
in the open with sheer alacrity, revives in her
the smarting childhood agony of a mysterious
premonition,

9. that is, losing her mother. Reviving from the
psychological flickers at once, she sees her
mother is shielded
inside a pal of benumbed silence. Still the
airport hums, as the passengers are requested
to filter through the custom's care. Still a
helpless mother, with wrenching heart and
swelling emotion, bids a helpless goodbye to
her helpless daughter.

10. The readers are proud of having read such a
poem built on the agony of a
wrenching heart that resides in a child for her
mother. The poet looks into the gray olden age
strumming the strings of childhood life.
Bringing of the sportive
children restores vivacity into the relationship.
So we may without having a tinge of hesitation
say, a mother's.
Strangeness added to beauty-

11. love is helplessly trampled under the
technological
terror of airplane wheels

12. Mother stands in her life like a tree, on whose
branch swings the childhood of the daughter.
1. Relationship – Relationship is the nucleus
of the poem. It seems love
creates an unfading relationship and it wields
its brush over at least two
souls and assigns a meadow of agony with a
river of fecundity.
Focus-

13. 2. Nostalgia – The speaker is carried
away by her childhood premonition of
losing her mother.

14. 3. Sense of isolation – A deep sense of
never-happened-before isolation
creeps into the heart of the speaker.
4. Time of being nuclear – Poet Eunice de
Souza claims that Das has
"mapped out the terrain for post-colonial
women in social and linguistic
terms". We fear of losing the mother's touch
and smell in time of this
narrow domestic life

15. 5. Establishment and Ambition – Just to
satisfy her economic appetite she
is bound for some handsome income. Poet
Eunice de Souza claims that
Das has "mapped out the terrain for post-
colonial women in social and
linguistic terms". Yet, a slight touch of
establishment and a grown-up
ambition cannot cut off the branch of
relationship.

16. 6. Transport of filial piety – A transport of
filial piety is observed filtering through the
unfamiliar faces, fettered with custom officers‘
mandatory checking.
7. A silent agony – The speaker is overtaken
by a terrible numbness. An awkward silence
creeps into her being. She fears looking back
at the
slinking childhood of losing her mother's
magnanimous shadow. Her

17. mother is presumably taken to be motionless
and still – 'dead' to say in brief. The destination
is worthy of its name too – Cochin – signifying
'sleep' – clearly signifies that the speaker
would soon see her mother to be a denizen of
the other world.

18. 8. Vitality of relationship – Children spill
over, and yet again spring out
vitality, vivacity and velocity of life. The
moment a child is born, the mother is also
born. So losing her mother is nothing but an
idiosyncratic
outlook? Her mother is not going to sink in
death, since her child keeps breathing – since
other children are still there to make the earth
rotate.

19. The daughter evinces her mother silently
suffer. She finds her mother
heartbroken... she smiles away her agony
though... she accepts her future
loneliness... bereft of mother... having the
unluckily lucky opportunity to love her absence,
tread her shadows, and swing into the painfully
happy nostalgia of a hallowed past. At the fag
end of the poem, we see the mother stay as a
Reading between the lines-

20. never ending song in the speaker's heart of
comfort, happiness and being. The destination
is worthy of its name – Cochin – signifying
'sleep' – clearly signifies that the speaker
would soon see her mother to be a denizen of
the other world.

21. The debilitated mind of the mother is
experiencing a serious symphony. The airport
on goings of checking and rechecking cannot
even drift away the slightest.