The Other Kamala--a poet's view
Life is so full of Celtic Knots. It took me awhile because that was long ago but after I began to follow Ms Harris as our candidate for the Presidency of the USA, a small light came on. Where had I heard that name before? Then the phrase "The Lives of Kamala" crossed my mind. A verse. Yes. So long ago. I wrote it in March 1970 as I was moving toward earning my MA at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff, Arizona.
It was created as a special extra credit effort for a class I was taking, I think called East Asian History. I had 'gone Asian' late in the last semester of my BA year mostly due to the influence of my Guru at the time, who I met through a Humanities class called Asian Cultures. I ended up taking every Asian related class I could and working Asian related things into my history classes, be the European, US and even American Western themed (derided by the department head as "Cowboy and Indian" History!) It was not such a stretch as one might think.
Just where this name came from I cannot say. I may have read it in a John Masters' novel or other reading and it felt rather "Hindu/Indian" to me at the time. Parts of the verse were a not-too-subtle tribute to my personal Guru, (of whom there is also an interesting tale--no room here) and where the rest came from I do not know. As with much of my fiction, a character appeared and I wrote what was dictated to me. I got nice comments from the intended Prof and the piece was passed around through the History and Humanities departments where I knew most of the faculty through classes or my year of working as a clerk in the Humanities office. It was mostly well received.
Yet I find it a strange coincidence that I named the heroine Kamala. I cannot call the modern one a new incarnation of the woman in this tale but then I cannot scoff either. Fate and the Universe move in peculiar ways. II had never put it on the computer and finally found the original among the other papers I had saved from those years. I am not sure now if it is significant or not... When I wrote it, today's Kamala was a small child, perhaps the age she looks in some of the old photos in her campaign resume. For what it is worth, here it is. Long, so wade through if so inclined. Comments or critique are welcome.
The Lives of Kamala
Speaking through my humble hand
A gentle sage of another land
Is offering her lovely truth
to the rushing world, especially youth.
My only task when she implored:
to pick my open up and record.
In history books you read it, now--
All those stirring tales of how
Brave men, for company and crown
Centuries ago sent down
To the shores of Hindustan
To wrest an empire from our land.
Hastings came and had his day.
Wellesley, Macauley, and the rest,
Pale conquerors from the west.
Read those stories then with pride,
But there was another side.
With books and laws we’ll anglicize
All the poor unlettered wogs,
Lift them out of those bleak bogs
Of their customs, crude and strange.
Long live England, long live change.
With treachery amongst our own--
Promise of great gain woke greed--
And in the hour of our need
Divided in our ranks, we fell
Tumbling to the gates of hell.
Rather than forsake truths taught
To us as children by the wise
Gurus among us, some told lies,
Betraying us into their hands,
Those foreigners from far-off lands.
So many suffered needlessly.
At last they saw but ‘twas too late.
They had disturbed the wheel of fate.
Lives cannot begin anew
Nor can apologies undo.
A widow’s ritual suicide.
My Love had fallen to their arms;
What cared I then for the charms
Of the sheltered life I’d known,
Having now to live alone?
These Englishmen would have me first
before the flames could set me free.
Release was not the fate for me…
Tarnished, tainted how could I bring
myself to him, my love, my king?
The soldiers seized me from the flame;
In that act began my shame.
The colonel winked, “T’would be absurd
To roast this tender little bird.”
He scratched his ear and rubbed his jaw.
“I think I’d like her better raw.”
I will not remember him…
And the many, many more,
Each one worse than the one before.
Rani once, of ancient name,
I’m casteless now, too low for shame.
I can be bought for a cup of rice.
Harlot of Calcutta’s streets.
Strange it is how fortune treats
Her sons and daughters, cruel fate.
Death will come, but come too late.
Canto
Two
A Bengal village next I knew.
Memory starts, perhaps at two.
We though not of ourselves as poor;
Did our neighbors not endure
The same privation, the same need?
All paid the price of Empire’s greed.
The fourth of four daughters, I
Knew not that nothing was put by
A dowry for me to serve.
Yet there was one who did observe
That cheerfully I faced each task
The day came when he would ask
I heard it all concealed inside.
But I was young, of stubborn will,
Seeking high adventure still.
Me a lowly farmer’s wife,
Bound to this dull old man for life?
But a father a child cannot naysay;
custom decrees that youth obey.
I was frantic for a plan…
And then there came a holy man,
To our village, just passing through.
I looked at him just once and knew.
Quite heedless of my parents’ wrath
I would follow in his path.
So young then, I was yet unsure
Whether my love was profane or pure.
In truth, the thought did not occur
to wonder what my motives were.
Was young and kind; he moved with grace
And energy, never seemed to tire.
Behind his dark eyes blazed a fire
Re-echoed in each word he spoke.
He sought to lead the common folk
To rise above the tyrants white,
In a strange new sort of fight.
I was puzzled, I confess
By his unfailing gentleness,
And how he said the Buddha’s way
Would surely guide us all someday.
Almost shameless at the first,
Driven by a senseless thirst,
I sought to make him notice me.
Until his teaching set me free
from the bondage of desire.
I came at last then to admire
Until finally I too caught
The strange contagion of his dream.
Like the holy man’s fierce beam,
Hope was falling in a band
Across the darkness of our land.
But then, alas, violence erupted.
My guru’s message was corrupted
In the mouths of his false friends
reshaped to fit their selfish ends.
Bombs and bullets tore apart
that dream, it’s dreamer and my heart.
Canto
Three
The century was near its close
Ere my soul a new life chose.
The karma of that last crusade
For a wicked past repaid.
And so cleansed now of my shame
Once more I bore a noble name.
Society was rearranged.
By now all India understood:
The English ways were here for good.
Though we might drive them from our shore,
Their essence lingered evermore.
My father wisely sought to find
Ways to fit his children best
to the future, to the west.
He sent my brothers and even me
To English schools, across the sea.
My sari trailed a cobbled street
In this city called London-town
Where the slippery fog creeps down
To wander by the riverside.
Amongst the strangers, one could hide…
Then one day what do I see
Two blue eyes that smile at me.
And down the street of cobblestone,
I walk, no longer so alone.
The strangeness faded until I knew
Englishmen are people too.
Then tossing waves echo in part
The painful turmoil of my heart.
Will my parents understand
This ring of gold upon my hand?
Will it bring them joy or shame,
A grandson with an English name?
India! Bengal! Home at last.
My parents, older, gaze in awe
At the first Englishman they saw
As a person, as a friend,
Not just a bringer of the end.
They love him first because I do,
But later on, for himself too.
I think perhaps I found the way
That we can bridge and fill someday
The aching gaps twixt man and man,
If love cannot, then nothing can.
I know the task has just begun,
And as yet there is no place
For those connecting race to race.
In the meantime they must pay
And wait for love to find a way.
Once more I had to lose my man
As violence swept through every land.
Once more love was interrupted,
The pattern of two lives disrupted.
I was left alone and knew
It would affect our next lives, too.
Canto
Four
That fate will not let me forget…
I cannot even name the wrong,
But I know I do not belong
In the form I wear today
With skin too pale and eyes of gray.
Now I at dawn and he at noon
Cannot span the chasm of years.
Sternly I contain the tears
When memories reflect the cost,
Reminding me of what I lost.
Accepting, humbly I pray
That love and kindness can repay
my debt for good and I can be
Finally, in my next life, free.
Or else united never to part
With the owner of my heart.
Now I am haunted by the wraith
Of conflict. I am torn asunder.
In the still taut lulls, I wonder--
Can mankind learn to live with love?
Placing that unity above
Nation’s interests, princely gain,
All that brings the lowly pain?
Seeing all mankind as our brother,
Truly loving one another?
Finally do away with war,
With hate and violence, evermore…
Thus, my dharma in this life
Is to walk amongst the strife,
Repeat my story everywhere,
And try to teach the world to care.
Practice love in all I do,
That my example prove it true.
To leaders, who would act in haste--
Does not my story prove the waste
Of politics and great ambition?
Join then in the demolition
Of barriers that separate
Man from man with walls of hate.
Just how senseless is that wall
Of language, culture, kingdom, race.
Drifting in infinite space
We all are part of one great way
Which will absorb us all one day.
The question is: why must we wait
Entangled here in nets of hate?
Blind selfishness, preventing peace
Can disappear if we just cease
To cling to some identity.
Only the serene are truly free.
First, is there right or wrong,
Good or bad, weak or strong?
Man lacks the judgment to decide
What to praise, what to deride.
He lacks the right to try to change
Others, although he thinks them strange.
© Gaye M Walton, nee Morgan
March 30, 1970
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