Punishment in Kindergarten By Kamala Das

Kamla Das

Kamala surayya/ Madhavikutty also known as kamla das is famous Indian English poet and also leading Malyalam language author famous for her autobiography and short stories she is widely popular for fiery poems, in spite of all the works she has done it is hard to imagine that Kamla das never attended college, all in all it could be said that she was truly an genius in English literature.

Punishment in Kindergarten

Today the world is a little more my own.
No need to remember the pain
A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing
Words at me like pots and pans, to drain
That honey-coloured day of peace.
‘Why don't you join the others, what
A peculiar child you are!’

On the lawn, in clusters, sat my
schoolmates sipping
Sugarcane, they turned and laughed;
Children are funny things, they laugh
In mirth at others' tears, I buried
My face in the sun-warmed hedge
And smelt the flowers and the pain.

The words are muffled now, the laughing
Faces only a blur. The years have
Sped along, stopping briefly
At beloved halts and moving
Sadly on. My mind has found
An adult peace. No need to remember
That picnic day when I lay hidden
By a hedge, watching the steel-white sun
Standing lonely in the sky. 

Summery

on first look it looks to be a very simple poem in which Kamla Das is narrating a story of her childhood  when she along with her kindergarten class was taken to picnic by their teacher, being shy of company, she was scolded by her teacher who wanted her to play with others, and at the top of it she was also mocked by her classmates for being scolded by her teacher, but in deep the whole can be bisected into two parts first being the age of immaturity during child hood and second being becoming adult and how now she has acquired peace and is now not troubled by anything said by anyone, in short this poem represents moving on with life or in a sense growing up from being immature child towards being mature adult.