“A Journey with no Return”: Kamala Das and the Poetic Manifesto of Flânerie

Abstract

Kamala Das has carved a unique space for herself within Indian Writings in English with a career spanning almost six decades. By the time her first collection of poetry Summer in Calcutta (1965) was published she was already a name to reckon with. Being nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1984 did catapult her to fame on the global front and consequently her oeuvre has further gone on to impact the polemics surrounding the understanding of what constitutes world/contemporary literature. This paper engages with the evolution in the critical approaches towards understanding her poetry in English beginning with how her poetry was perceived as an epitome of Modernism within the discourse of Postcolonialism and going on to contextualise the potential of her poetry to engage with the evolving critical discourses of Geocriticism. The focus will be on redefining her literary identity by imbibing the nuances associated with the notion of flânerie. Etymologically, it implies aimless wandering, but as a critical theoretical concept it engages with the contours of belonging by questioning the discursive practices of gender that comes into play in the accessibility of spaces.