my mother at sixty six is a poem of desire and hope.explain
Answers
Summary of My Mother at Sixty Six:
The underlying tone of nostalgia is instilled into this poem right at the outset with the words, “parent’s home”. The overarching idea of things coming to an end also finds its first introduction into the poem through the words “last Friday”. Now, we maybe reading a little too much into this seemingly innocent choice of weekday, but think about it… What do you associate Friday with? Isn’t it the end of weekday busyness and the transition into weekend rest? It is in this same Friday-like limbo between adult life and old age that Kamala Das finds her mother at the ripe age of sixty six, while accompanying her on a thought-provoking drive. The poet mentions that her mother is sitting beside her, instantly creating an aura of intimacy. However, the fear of distance and abandonment soon sets in through the following next set of words:
Kamala Das then paints a very realistic image of ageing, by portraying her mother as a dozing ageing lady, with a mouth ajar in carefree sleep and a face turned pale in course of the passing the time. And then, almost without warning, the motif of impending death is rudely introduced into the poem when the poet compares her dozing pale mother to a corpse. This almost reflexive comparison that the poet makes in her head culminates in the brutal realization that her source of life had actually aged and become old. But before the poet could even complete this painful train of thought, she brushed it aside, not allowing this realization to get processed. Look within, doesn’t this impulse of the poet of “putting that thought away” resonate well with what we all do when an unpleasant thought dawns on the surface of our mental horizons? It is through these little actions that the poem tells us a lot about human’s dual coping mechanism of denial and escape.
In an attempt to escape the painful realization that the poet has just had,she instead focuses on the trees that her car speeds by, creating the beautiful illusion that it is the trees that are sprinting, while it is actually the poet journeying ahead in life with her ageing mother. Through the transference of this fast motion onto the trees, we find the poet again negating the reality that it is actually herself and her mother who are progressing steadily into time and not the trees that are still young with all their greenery ahead of them. Next, the poet shifts her focus onto young children jovially stepping out of their homes in hoards to play, with their life bank still full of youthful years. What is interesting to note here is that when the poet wishes to avert her attention from the reminder of ageing and death, she chooses to look at “young” trees and “young” children, signifying youth and life. This strikes a sharp contrast with the ashen image of death the poet had conjured just a few lines ago, thus accentuating the poet’s desperate attempt to escape hard realities of life.
Now the setting shifts to the airport – the universally recognized symbol of goodbyes and endings. The previous image of youth is again sharply contrasted with the image of a late winter’s moon. The season winter always carries with it the sense of an ending and the moon always generates am ambience of longing and lonesomeness. And as the poet observes her mother go through the airport security check, she cannot help but acknowledge that her mother is now weak, with her colours of life diluting, just like a feeble winter moon. This time, though, this thought is not pushed away; hence it gives rise to an ache within the poet that is all too familiar, having been around since childhood days – the fear of losing her mother, something that all of us have felt as kids. This adult voicing of a deep fear that has its roots in childhood is poignant and pregnant with meaning, but the poet does not delve any deeper into this thought, and instead says her goodbyes:
Through the course of the poem, the poet has stirred some deep-seated fears of losing her mother, and has brought to the fore the troubling relationship we humans share with the idea of death and ageing with regard to our loved ones. However, in the end, the poem takes on the spirit of hope, expressed through “see you soon, Amma”. Additionally, from denial the poem shifts towards a calm acceptance and resignation, evoked beautifully through the poet’s action of breaking into a long smile as she watched her mother depart. If you look deeper, you might notice a slight hint of bravery in the way the poet makes peace with what is inevitable – through self-comforting smiles.