Nostalgic elements in the poem "My Grandmother's House

Q.Bring out the nostalgic elements in the poem "My Grandmother's House ". 

Answer:

Kamala Das is known for her confessional mode of writing, her treatment of love theme as a unique manner and a poetess of extreme feminine sensibility. After the soft and soothing strains of Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu, the offensive individualism of Kamala Das appears as a shock.She was always in search for the perfect masculine being and each encounter with the male-the husband or the lover in discovering the meaning of true love and finally the frustration and disappointment resulting from the repeated failures of such experiments.To get relief from the frustration, she turns to her past memories where she got ideal love as a child. She showed her nostalgic element in her poem My Grandmother’s House. 

Kamala Das’ past and the present are contrasted. The present time is in no way worth-living and the past is inspiring and the memory is worth-retaining. When she thinks of her past and her present life she thinks that how fast the time goes. Nostalgia means remembering our past or childhood. Indian poetess recalls her dead grandmother in the poem My Grandmother’s House. This poem takes the form of a confession comparing her present broken state with that of being unconditionally loved by her grandmother.An unconditional love expects nothing and expresses everything. In reality, the love of grandparents towards grandchildren is unconditional and incomparable. 

After marriage, she remembers her childhood days which she spent at her grandmother’s house. With the death of her grandmother the house withdrew into silence.She recalls that she spent her childhood in that house where she received unconditional and pure love by her grandmother.  In a nostalgic mood, she reminds all the incidents which she spent in that particular place. But suddenly, she comes in the present and thought that now grandmother has passed away and that house has gone in silence where snakes moved on books racks. The worms on the books seem like snakes at that moment, in comparison to the size of the little girl; and in keeping with the eeriness of the situation. The poetess also implies that the deserted house is like a desert with reptiles crawling over. There were many books at her grandmother’s house, but at that time Kamala Das was very young to read those books means at such initial stage she is unable to understand the importance of books and the significance of the written material in those books.

Now when she is married and she usually thinks to go in her grandmother’s house and want to peep through the blind eyes of windows and listen the frozen air means all useless in material world, and now in a melancholic mood she only bring darkness and that darkness prevail in her life and put that her bedroom door like a brooding dog. The image of the window is a link between the past and the present. It signifies the desire of the poet for a nostalgic peep into her past and resurrects her dreams and desires. The moon is being an emblem of love. The poetess now longs to 'peer' at a house that was once her own. She has to peek through the 'blind eyes' of the windows as the windows are permanently closed. The air is frozen now, as contrasted to when the grandmother was alive-the surroundings were filled with the warmth of empathy. Kamala Das pleads with us to "listen" to the "frozen" air; that is impossibility. In wild despair, she longs to bring in an "armful of darkness". Note firstly, that it is not a 'handful' but an armful. Secondly, 'darkness' that generally has negative shades to it, has positive connotations here of a protective shadow. It also reflects the 'coziness' inside the house. This armful of darkness is her essence of nostalgia. She feels so proud of her grandmother and the house in such a way that she wants all the others know how promising and satisfying was the atmosphere at the grandmother’s house. She enthusiastically remembers her childhood days and surprisingly tells her husband that can you imagine I live in such a house where I received so much love and feel proud because of that pious love. But now she has lost her way; she wants love; she begs love, that love which she naturally receives at her grandmother’s house, but now she wants the love with at least small change. The poet seems to speak in favour of extramarital love when she says:

I who have lost 

My way and beg now at strangers’ doors to 

Receiver love, at least in small change? 

The pronoun ‘I’ here is very emphatic and also melancholic. It also echoes her inner reverberations that when her grandmother was alive she was rich with love and after her demise she became bankrupt and started begging at stranger’s door. She did not expect the equal amount of love that she received from her grandmother, from the society. So "My Grandmother’s House" presents a nostalgic picture of those days which Kamala Das spends in her grandmother’s house. Kamala Das feels isolated and not satisfied with her present position that is the main reason that she generally remembers her past. She was successful in her career, but was really alone in her personal life. She remembers her past days which she spent at her old ancestral home in Malabar. Kamala Das also makes an abundant use of the images of windows and doors in this poem.