Communist Idol!

Kamala Das' husband was a high ranking officer of the Reserve Bank of India. They were, therefore, living in that Bank's officers' quarters in one of the posh localties of Mumbai (then, Bombay). Das started writing in the Illustrated Weekly and her central theme was how her husband had risen in his official career by presenting her to his superiors! There was a rumour that she had had extramarital affairs, out of her own wanton nature, and she was trying shrewdly to shift the blame on to her gentleman husband. The truth is not yet known. She caused the children to go away, husband died and she then tried to prove herself as some kind of literary genius. Somewhere along the road, she fell in love with a Muslim litterateur of high standing and influence and, people say, even let him know that she was ready to change into Islam so that he could accept her as one of the wives, but that married writer was unmoved. She changed her religion and name and died in ignominy (I will say.) and I am not sure whether her children came even to see her dead body. But Kerala people hold her in some respect more because she belonged to a highly respected parentage (Mother: Nalappattu Balamani Amma, a great Malayalam poetess, and Father: V.M. Nair, a former managing editor of the widely circulated Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi.) I have no regards for this person.