SOURCE: Raveendran, P. P. “History in the Anamalai Poems.” In Perspectives on Kamala Das's Poetry, edited by Iqbal Kaur, pp. 150-55. New Delhi, India: Intellectual Publishing House, 1995.

In the following essay, Raveendran examines the role of history in the Anamalai Poems.

The Anamalai Poems are a series of short poems that Kamala Das wrote during and after her sojourn at the hills of Anamudi in Tamil Nadu following her defeat at the parliamentary elections of 1984.¹ Along with “The Anamalai Hills” which closes the group of poems dating from 1981-90 in The Best of Kamala Das (1991), this cycle of poems provides a peephole into the troubled psyche of a writer, third-world and female, and quite unsure of her position in a world growing increasingly mercenary. In as much as the seemingly unchanging Anamudi constitutes an escape from the ever-changing world of politics which Kamala Das wanted to get away...