1

CHAPTER 1

FEMINISM

What is Feminism?

Feminism is about equal rights for women but what that means is much more

complicated than it appears at first blush. The feminist writer Sally J. Scholz said I’m her

book feminism that “feminism is a critical project. It looks at all the aspects of life to

identify those elements that might be oppressive and suggest alternatives”. Of feminist

reading as a critical project, would look especially at what is being said about women.

What social roles are they expected to take, what are their liberties or previleges in

relation to men, and similar sorts of inquiries. Feminism in other words, follows the

critical projects with action to bring about social change. This is only one aspect of

feminism. There are different aspects for feminism by different writers.

Feminism is a different range of movement like political, social and ideologies that

share a common goal. It refers to the belief that shares a common goal. It refers to the

belief that men and women deserve equality in all opportunities, treatment, respects and

social rights. Then we are dealing with the history of feminism, the word ‘feminism’ is

coined by French Philosopher Charles Fourier. The history of feminism is divided into

three waves by Beltly Friedan the first wave began in 1830 till 1930, the first wave of

feminism emerged by the output of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist polities. This

wave is formally began in united states of America. Elizabeth Cady Slanton, like ‘A

Room Of One’s Own (1929)’, ‘The Angels Of The House’ . in these works, the aroused

with different aspects of feminism like women are expected to behave in accordance with

patriarchal fantasies, by being obedient, beautiful and domesticated. She started her

language is patriarchal in nature. Then the second wave feminism began in 1960’s and
 2

continued into the 1980’s in America. This wave is against the renewd domesticity of

women after the world war 2. Simon De Beavoir is the well known feminist in the second

wave of feminism. She wrote a book ‘second sex’ which argued that men fundamentally

oppress women by characterizing them, on every level, as the other, defined exclusively,

in opposition to men. Then the third wave feminism emerged in the 1990’s. In the third

wave feminism, these women and others like them grew up with the expectation of

achievement and example of female success as well as an awareness of the barriers

presented by sexism, racism and classism. Rebecca Walker is the well known third wave

feminist. She wrote an article named ‘Becoming the Third Wave’. There are different

types of feminism like Radial feminism, socialist feminism, Marxist feminism, cultural

feminism etc… These are the different schools of feminism this is the brief idea about the

history of feminism.

Who is a Feminist?

A feminist one who need to claim their own identity. Actually identity is a

troubling word. It is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is according to a

feminist identity is an important against the patriarchal nation of the society. They want to

overcome that because they want to show their identity to the male chauvinist society, for

example, in Kamala Surayya’s autobiography, she reacts against the patriarchal society

through critical writing. “she is a middle-class women, who seeking freedom from the

bourgeois definition of women’s intellectual and imaginative abilities, and a public

women defying patriarchal description to open new avencier of personal and professional

experiences for women”, this is written by K.Satchidanandan in the in the preface of ‘imy

story’. There are many other works we can connect with the feminist point of view.
 3

Methodologies of a feminist

There is a big difference between feminist theory as a subfield of an academic

discipline like philosophy and feminist theory as a methodology. In feminist methodology

take the lives of women as central. In the book ‘feminism’ by Sally J Scholz mentioned

the Immanuel Kant’s Moral theory, which is based on duty. ‘An action is morally right if

and only if it accords with duty’. Clearly this is an example of women being explicitly and

perhaps intentionally excluded is by a normative moral theory. Taking women’s lives as

central means, we can articulate and validate the inner right of women.

There have been a number of proposals that feminist social science-or social

science in general, or even science in general- requires a new methodology. Some of these

have been concerned with research design, some with epistemology and some with

anthology. In terms of epistemology, one view is that striving after objectivity, truth, and

control over nature is a masculine urge; women are thought to make less of a distinction

between knower and known, self and other, mind and body. Subject and object, and to be

more tolerant of ambiguity and multiple truths.

Another influential idea has been that of the feminist standpoint,’ the idea that

women, as a subordinated group, are in a better position to arrive at an adequate

representation of social reality than men, who are too caught up in their project of control.

This epistemological advantage is not necessarily reflected in women’s actual beliefs and

attitudes but requires a feminist political effort and analysis it leads towards an

understanding of society which incorporates reproduction, bodily work, intimate relations

the concrete realities of women’s everyday existence rather than working with abstract

notions of isolated individuals making rational choices.

 4

THE FUTURE OF FEMINISM

What does feminism actually means? According to Merriam Webster, it is “the

theory of political, economic and social equality of the sexes” and “organized activity on

behalf of women’s right and interest”. The waves of feminism are no different, the whole

feminism last reach at the same goal. When new developments in feminist theory and

activism emerge they are often met with a combination of shock and resistance, but we

can say that these new developments gradually work their way through society and it will

take up new change in our mainstream ways of thinking. We know that few years back we

can’t think about the equality of men and women but now we can think about that because

these developments are succeeded. We can see the change of our society through these

developments. Far from it. Equality with men may not even be a desirable goal if equality

is built on a masculinist-limited conception of self and society. Feminism certainly still

has an important role to play in the world. Feminism is one of the important movements in

the twentieth century. It has transformed that the way we perceive women.
 5

CHAPTER 2

FEMINIST READING ON MOVIE AAMI

Aami is an Indian Malayalam language biographical film base on the life of the

famous written Kamala Surayya or Madhavikutty. This film is written and directed by the

well known Malayalam director Kamal and stars Manju Warrier as Kamala Surayya with

Murali Gopy, Tovino Thomas and Anoop Menon. This film was released on 9th February

2018. This movie is based on Kamala Das’s autobiography Entekadha. This movie really

portrays what has happen in Kamala Surayya’s life.

Kamala had already grown up with a feeling of neglect as her workaholic father had

little time for and did not know how to show his affection for his children. And her mother

‘vague and indifferent’, was most of the time engaged in writing. This childhood trautna

and the oppressive sense of loneliness and alienation seen to have stayed with Kamala even

in her adulthood. The constant shifting of home Calcutta, Bombay, and Calicut probably

gave her a sense of insecurity and fleetingness. At six she had written poem on dolls that

had their heads and had to remains headless for eternity. The image of her grand uncle

Nalappat Narayanamenon and her mother Balamani Amma must have been too

overpowering to let her feel proud about her writing. In the introduction of my story

K.Satchidanandan is talking about the condition of nair caste that sex was associated with

the bride, on the wedding night. Then there was the abortion a maiderservent performed on

herself. The community life had HS share of violence too that came from the hierarchies of

class and caste. Nair males were coarse when their ire was aroused. The orade of the Kali

temple would hurt himself with the scimitar when possessed by the Goddess. Kali was the

invoker of the primal Instinet that sang in the blood of girls. The supernatural part of the

everyday. We can see there kind of stuffs in many movies. Here discussing different types
 6

of conflicts with caste, patriarchy, caste etc… In this movie we can see the whole conflicts

of Kamala that she faced in her life through the good narration by director Kamal.

During her childhood days she lived in Calcutta but she actually want to be in

Nalappat (her ancestral home) because her Grandmma cares her like a queen. Kamala is a

devoted admirer of Lord Krishna. She describes their meeting as a mechanical one. They

are not in love but she expresses her emotions and feelings with Krishna whenever she

becomes alone. She always need his presence. In this movie Tovino Thomas plays the role

of Lord Krishna. He gives care and support what the way she needed. When her childhood

days she had a concept of her partner which portrays Tovino Thomas in this movie as

Loard Krishna. Here we can see the conflict between fantacy and the real life of Kamala

Das.

Another important factor in this movie is Kamala’s favourite Nirmatala tree. It is

spoken about many times in the movie. On the Kamala’s return to Nalapat she caused to

cut down all the tree except the ancient nirmatala house and the ancient Nirmata attain

human dimensions and become symbols of loneliness of old age and the beauty of the

irretrievable past.

In this movie we can see that at her very young age she decided to marry Madhav

Das. They loved each other, they quarreled with each other sometimes exasperated each

other, but the shock absorber preventing serious damage to their fourty three year

relationship was their devotion to each other. He loves and support her throughout their

life.

This movie highlighting the strong matriarchal traditions from which Madhavikutty

or Kamala Das came. Nalapat also said that this was perhaps what gave her the confidence

to begin a career in writing. The last part of the movie shows some controversies and the

mudslinging that kamala false love of Akbar Ali (Sadiq Ali) aged 38 who was Muslim
 7

league MP in real life upper caste Hindu Kamala Das, lover of Sree Krishna, descendant of

rajas decides to embrace Islam. Kamala said to an interviewer… “Islam is the religion of

love. Hindu have abused and hurt me. They have often tried to scandalize me. I want to

love and be loved”. In this movie she also told that she is taking Krishna from the

Guruvayur temple, naming him Mohammed and making him a prophet.” If you go to

Guruvayur, you will not see Krishna because he is with me”.

We can see in the movie that different aspects of controversies and conflicts. Here I

am going with the feminist reading on this movie ‘aami’ directed by Kamal. As we know

that this movie is based on Kamal’s autobiography Entekadha and most of us shocked by

the outspokenness and honesty with which the author shared her private life with the

readers. Kamala’s quest for love started in childhood. She was terribly upset by the sudden

turn of events in her life that grabs her completely off gauard when she get married to a

much older man (Madhav Das). She was left cold and frigid in the face of his violent

physical demands and his recovertion of his earlier sexual exploits. Kamala said that “here

was a man, she felt, ‘who did not ever learn to love’. She even asked her girlfriend to take

her away in vain”. In her autobiography Kamala mention that “Gradually she overcome

her self-pity decided to yield to the means carnal hungers and be a typical middle class

housewife a child beater, vegetable-monger garment washer, hanging her husband’s

underwear with pride to dry in the balcony ‘like some kind of a national flag’. But the

fiercely independent and creative spirit that she was, no decision could ever reduce her

disgrace and discomfort that defined the rest of her life which, on the one hand, was

abundantly fertile with her stories and poems and on the other. Unbearably desperate with

her endless search for true love”.

In an article Anjuly Mathai writes about the movie and Kamal Das “if the movie

outlined the brush strokes of her life, the book brought alive the lushness of her mind. Yes,
 8

she wrote freely about sex, puberty menstruation, infidelity and homosexability. It was

perhaps revolutionary in her time when perhaps revolutionary in her time when malayali

society was held within the rigid confidences of hypocritical Puritanism. On being asked

why her book shocked the malayali audience, she said that it never did-they were

pretending to be shocked to prove their innocence. For women reading her work then. It

might have been a liberating it today, it almost feels chaste. She is no longer merely the

trial-blazing feminist who dared to write the truth about female sexuality. You see what lay

beyond, someone who yearned for the profundity of love that transcendental”. Her body

afford her that and in the movie we can see her pen friend Carlo expressed it.

We know that her writing was both fantastical and feminist. Here Kamala Das

represents the collective consciousness of the women in her society when she narrates the

sexual oppression and double standard of morality. They customarily face. “Here is a wife,

mother, sister, daughter, lover and written, a middle class women seeking freedom from the

bourgeois definitions of women’s intellectual and imaginative abilities, and as public

women defying and professional experiences for women. It has been said that for a women

the autobiography is often a means to survive traumas of childbirth, illness, death of

spouses and children. Loss of cultural identity and personal regard, fear of failure, aging,

loss of beauty and strength as well as cannot be expressed by other means” this is written

by K.Satchidanandan in the introduction of my story.

K.Satchidanandan also mentioning that “She says how it was necessary for her body

to defile itself in many ways so that the soul turned humble for a change. She realized too

that love had a beginning and an end, while lust had no such faults. She found that the

body was clumsy gadgetry that could damage all bonds”. He said that he cannot think of

any other Indian autobiography that so honesty captures a women’s inner life in all its sad
 9

and solitude. It’s desperate longing for real love and its desire for transcendence, its tumult

of colors and its turbulent poetry.

In this movie, there is a scene that, the editor of an article who published Entekadha

came to her house and behave as a womanizer. At the moment she doesn’t think about

anything as a women or writer she behaves very rudely to the editor and asked him to get

out from there. Here she respond as a brave or bold women, she does not thinking about the

after effects. She was living in the present scenario, that’s how director Kamal poetry’s

Kamal Das in the movie ‘Aami’.

At the end of the movie she was thinking about her colorful youth and that faded

from her. Kamala writes in my story that “Perhaps I shall die soon. The jewellery I adorn

my body with in order to look like a bride awaiting her love shall survive me”.

As we know she is a feminist writer. She remained stubbornly in the same position

as a writer through her life. This movie also showing the various controversies and

conflicts that she faced in her life as a woman. She have her own values and ethics in her

life and also she does not mind that these values accept or not. She have her own

personality and her own position in her life.

 10

CHAPTER 3

TREATMENT OF LOVE AND RELATIONSHIP IN

MOVIE AAMI

The movie ‘Aami’ is a biopic of Kamala Surayya (Kamala Das/ Madhavikutty)

directed by the famous director Kamal. In this movie Manju Warrier stars as Kamala

Surayya along with Murali Gopy, Tovino Thomas and Anoop Menon. Aami portrays the

life of writer Madhavikutty mainly focused on her childhood and family life. She is a

devotee of Lord Krishna. But she converts into Islam in the later periods of life. The film

mainly deals with two relationships, the writer had with the husband and after his demise,

with a suitor from a different religion.

Here discussing about the treatment of love in “Aami’ she shows different sides of

love with different people. ‘Love’ is the important theme in her story. This movie tries to

salvage the notoriety of the women who wrote ‘Ente Kadha’ or ‘My Story’. In this movie

her treatment of love with one person to other is entirely different. For example her love

with her grandmother, love with mother, love with father love with her husband, and also

love with the imaginary lover Lord Krishna (Tovino Thomas plays the role of Lord Krishna

,her agony uncle and shoulder to cry on). Finally she find some glimpses of passion in her

affair with this much younger Muslim scholar (Akbar Ali) are in different level and also in

different perspective.

This movie is mainly based on the autobiography of Kamala Surayya. The writer

K.Satchidanandan wrote about Kamala’s ‘MY Story’ “ that does not consciously set out to

break she well- made idols, but does to unconsciously, with great power, beauty and gusto

by the sheer honesty of her confessional writing that addresses her multiple identities with

lyrical verse”.
 11

When she was child, she had already grown up with a feeling of neglect as her

workaholic father had little time ffor her and did not know how to show his affection for

his children actually he has that emotion he have the emotion of love and care but he does

not know how to express it. She needs love and affection with her father but actually she

does not get it and her mother. ‘Vague and indifferent’ was most of the time engaged in

writing. She is more affectionate with her grandmother rather than her mother, that’s whay

she is very happy when she spend her vacation in her ancestral home. She does not like to

live in culcutta, always she likes to live in ‘Nalappat’( ancestral home). From there she gets

lot energy and she expressed it through her words writing etc… from there she does not

feel any kind alienation she is very happy when she spend her time in Nalappat.

In an interview Kamala’s son Jayasurya talks about the relationship between his

mother and father (Madhav Das) that, “At a very young age, Kamala decided to marry

Madhav Das who cherished Kamala to close of his life in 1992. And who stood by her no

matter how many controversies her writings and on occasion her lifestyle created. Madhav

Das had begun to love Kamala about a year before they married and this flame never

flattered in Madhav Das, nor the reciprocal feelings in Kamala. They quarreled with each

other, they exasperated each other, but the shock absorber preventing serious damage to

their devotion to each other, a feeling that weathered all storms”.

The columnist also recollected how, years ago Kamala helped her son survive

pleurisy with her tireless bedside vigil and how that led him to conclude that women were

actually the stronger of the sexes. Mersily Weisbord mentioned about Kamala’s life in her

writings, she is puzzled to sec kamala’s relationship with her husband’s boss was never

sexually consummated. There are also ways in which the two wome influence each other as

they negotiate relationship with men.

 12

In this movie, the director lends a mystic touch to the movie with the portrayal of

Lord Krishna (Tovino Thomas) the ideal lover, Lord Krishna does not grow old as ethereal

as love. Aami’s sentiment was one of unfathomable love rather than a sense of respect or

piety towards the Lord. This character plays an important role in this movie Heroine gets

many inspirations by the presence of this character.

Merrily Weisbord, she is an Canadian writer, who published a memoir of their

friendship, ‘the love queen of Malabar’ in 2010. Madhavikutty wrote a letter to find her

friend Merrily, she expressed her pressure to Merrily through that letter.

“Dearest Merrily life has changed for me since November 14 whaen a young man

named Sadiq Ali (in movie the character is Akbar Ali) walked in to meet me. He is thirty

eight and has a beautiful smile afterwards he began to woo me on the phone from Abu

Dhabi. I took my nurse Mini and went to his place in my car. I stayed with him for three

days. He asked me to become a Muslim which I did on my return home”. Madhavikutty

reveal the secret behind the conversion of religion from Hindu to Muslim. Here we can see

an incomplete love story of Kamala and Sadiq Ali. Sadiq ali slipped away from her life. He

had cheated Kamla so brilliantly. Sadiq already had two wives, but he promised Kamala

that he will marry her, if she converts to Islam. She converted in the hope that she will get

true love. Her conversion was against her relatives and thousands of her followers

sentiments.

In this movie we can see that Kamala Das is a forceful and vehement feminist. She

is a spokesman of the rights of women. At the time, Kamla wrote her poetry, the Indian

women was subservient to her parents or her husband; and at that time, the question of

having extra-marital relationship did not arise at all she was among the foremost women to

claim such freedom. She was one of the very few who attained this freedom and exercised

it to the fullest possible extent.