Kamla Das

I remember reading her in my first year in college.
I would say in many senses she was female Nissim Ezekeil of India.

Some lines from her

Wipe out the paints
unmould the clay
Let nothing remain
of that yesterday.
Kamla das


No, not for me the beguiling promise of
domestic bliss, the goodnight kiss, the weekly
letter that begins with the word dearest,
Not for me the hollowness of marital vows and
the loneliness of a double bed, where someone
lies dreaming of another mate, a woman perhaps
lustier than his own....
— Annamalai Poems, Kamala Das


And life is colour and warmth and light
And a striving evermore for these;
And he is dead who will not fight;
And who dies fighting has increase.