Wages of Love

Book Name in English : Wages of Love

My vocabulary is limited My thoughts limitless. How shall I pass them on to you and you and you waiting in the wings? To the Indian reader of fictions and poetry, kamala Das (1934-2009)needs no introduction. Her novels, Collections of poetry and short stories in English and Malayalam - and indeed her life itself - have both challenged and redefined the boundaries of middle -class morality. Her sensational autobiography, first published in Malayalam and later in English as My Story, created a storm in literary circles and established her as the iconoclast of her generation. Her conversion to Islam in 1999 at the sage of sixty-five sent social and literary circles into another tizzy. Wages of Love: Uncollected Writings of Kamala Das brings together stories, plays, poems and non-fiction writing that have previously not been anthologized. While The Fair-Skinned Babu' is the sardonic tale of an author who has become a Muslim searching for a contract killer to commission her own killing, Neipayasam' is the poignant story of a father feeding his children the delicious dessert prepared by their mother whose death that morning the children the delicious dessert prepared by their mother whose death that morning the children are too young to comprehend. In one of her essays Kamala Das writes about contesting the parliamentary election in 1984 and, in another, about Khushwant Singh's allegation that she had manipulated her nomination for the Nobel. She also takes a playful dig at the Sahitya Akademi for waiting to give awards to authors only after 'their fecundity is exhausted'. The poems speak of the joys of a grandmother, the sense of loneliness towards the end of life, as well as about death. Expertly compiled by Suresh Kohli, and including a heartfelt introduction by him, Wage of Love revives the free soul and literary genius that was Kamala Das.