- Who Kamala Das was, and why the book calls her one of India’s foremost poets
- The complete poem, exactly as the book prints it, explained movement by movement
- Every poetic device the poem actually uses, with the exact line that proves it
- One reading of the poem’s theme, and how the poem builds it through contrast rather than stating it directly
- Why the whole poem is written as one single sentence, and what that structure itself is doing
- How to answer an extract-based or line-based question from this poem, with a worked example
1Meet the Poet
1.1 About Kamala Das
Kamala Das (1934-2009) was born in Malabar, Kerala. The book itself introduces her as “one of India’s foremost poets,” known for the “originality, versatility and the indigenous flavour of the soil” in her work. The book’s own words are that she “published many novels and short stories in English and Malayalam under the name ‘Madhavikutty'”: Madhavikutty was her pen name, used across her fiction in both languages, not only her Malayalam work. Besides her prose, she published five books of poetry. The book calls her “a sensitive writer who captures the complex subtleties of human relationships in lyrical idiom,” and names My Mother at Sixty-six itself as an example of exactly that skill.
Remember the name the book gives: her novels and short stories in English and Malayalam were published under the name ‘Madhavikutty’.
1.2 Before You Read
The book opens the poem with a single framing question, meant to put you in the right frame of mind before you read: “Ageing is a natural process; have you ever thought what our elderly parents expect from us?” Keep this question in mind. The poem never answers it directly, but its images and the poet’s memory of one car ride take up the same concern.
2The Poem, in Full
The poem is printed by NCERT as a single unbroken sentence with no stanza breaks, “punctuated by commas” and ending in an ellipsis (“……”). It is reproduced below exactly as the book gives it, in its 20 printed lines.
Driving from my parent’s
home to Cochin last Friday
morning, I saw my mother,
beside me,
doze, open mouthed, her face
ashen like that
of a corpse and realised with
pain
that she was as old as she
looked but soon
put that thought away, and
looked out at Young
Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling
out of their homes, but after the airport’s
security check, standing a few yards
away, I looked again at her, wan, pale
as a late winter’s moon and felt that old
familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,
but all I said was, see you soon, Amma,
all I did was smile and smile and smile……
“Notice that the whole poem is in a single sentence, punctuated by commas. It indicates a single thread of thought interspersed with observations of the real world around and the way these are connected to the main idea.”
the book’s own note on how this poem is built
3Understanding the Poem, Movement by Movement
The poem has no stanza breaks, but the single sentence moves through four clear movements. Reading it this way is the fastest way to hold the whole poem in your head. (Line numbers count the poem’s 20 printed lines; the book does not number them.)
The book does not state the poem’s theme. One common reading is that it is about a daughter’s fear of losing her ageing mother (the poem itself names only “my childhood’s fear”). The poem builds this not by saying “I am afraid” but by contrasting her mother’s fading appearance with the sprinting trees and merry children outside the car, and by leaving the strongest feelings unsaid, behind a parting smile.
4Poetic Devices Used
Every device below is tied to its exact line in the poem. Learn each device with its example line from the poem, not on its own.
A simile is a comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as”. This poem uses two: “her face ashen like that of a corpse” (comparing the mother’s pale, still face to a corpse) and “wan, pale as a late winter’s moon” (comparing her fading appearance to the dim light of a winter moon).
A metaphor is a comparison that does not use “like” or “as”: one thing is spoken of directly as another. “That old familiar ache” is a metaphor: the poet’s “childhood’s fear” is spoken of as a physical, recurring pain. (The “late winter’s moon” is a simile, not a metaphor, because it uses “as”: see Definition 2.)
Personification gives a human action to something non-human. “Young / Trees sprinting” gives the trees the human act of running a race, to capture how fast they seem to rush past a moving car, and to underline how full of life and motion the young world outside is, against the stillness of the mother inside the car.
Imagery is language that creates a picture in the reader’s mind by appealing to the senses, mostly sight here. This poem is built almost entirely out of strong visual imagery: the mother’s “ashen,” corpse-like, dozing face; the “Young Trees sprinting”; the “merry children spilling out of their homes”; and her later “wan, pale” look under “a late winter’s moon.” Each image lets the reader see the contrast the poem is making, instead of being told about it directly.
Contrast (juxtaposition) is placing two opposite images side by side so each makes the other sharper. The whole poem is built on one contrast: the mother’s pale, corpse-like, ageing face against the sprinting young trees and the merry, spilling children, old age set directly beside youth.
Repetition is saying the same word more than once for effect; polysyndeton is joining repeated words with “and” instead of commas. Both appear together in the poem’s last line, “all I did was smile and smile and smile”: one reading is that the repeated smile, run together with “and,” suggests an effort that has to be kept up, not a single natural smile.
An ellipsis is the “……” the book itself prints at the very end of the poem, after the word “smile”. It is the poem’s own punctuation, not an accident. One reading is that it signals something left unsaid: the poet’s fear trails off into silence instead of being spoken.
Enjambment is when a sentence or phrase runs on from one line to the next without a pause, instead of stopping at the line-end. The whole poem is one continuous enjambed sentence, never broken into separate stanzas. This matches the book’s note that it is “a single sentence, punctuated by commas” and “a single thread of thought interspersed with observations of the real world around”.
Free verse is poetry with no fixed rhyme scheme and no regular metre (rhythm pattern). My Mother at Sixty-six is written in free verse: its lines vary in length, there is no end-rhyme anywhere in the poem, and its structure is shaped by breathing and thought rather than by a set beat.
Students often say the mother is compared to a “dead person” for both similes. Be precise: the first simile compares her to “a corpse” (a dead body, seen in her dozing, open-mouthed stillness); the second compares her to “a late winter’s moon” (fading light, seen in her paleness), not death a second time. Name the correct image for each simile: mixing them up is a factual error about the poem.
5The Poem at a Glance
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Poet | Kamala Das (1934-2009) |
| Form | Free verse: one unbroken sentence, no stanzas |
| Rhyme scheme | None (free verse) |
| Narrator / voice | First person: the poet herself, recalling a car journey with her mother |
| Setting | A car, driving from her parent’s home to the airport at Cochin, “last Friday morning” |
| Theme (one reading) | A daughter’s fear of losing her ageing mother, hidden behind a smile |
| Key contrast | The mother’s pale, corpse-like stillness against the sprinting trees and merry children |
| Tone | Quiet, restrained and sorrowful: pain that is felt deeply but never spoken aloud |
| Last line | “all I did was smile and smile and smile……” |
6Why “Sixty-six”?
The title gives the mother’s exact age rather than simply saying “my mother” or “my ageing mother”. One reading is that this precision makes the poem feel like a real, specific memory rather than a general statement about old age. The poem itself does not comment on what this age means. The title can also be read as quietly setting up the poem’s central contrast: a very specific number for the mother, against the ageless, general vitality of “young trees” and “children”.
The poem does not explain the choice of “Amma” at the parting. “Amma” is an everyday, affectionate word for “mother”. One reading is that the ordinary word keeps the feeling unspoken: even at the moment closest to real feeling, the poet keeps to a familiar word instead of voicing the fear underneath. Present this as your own reading.
7Words to Know
| Word / Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| sprinting | running a short, fast race (the book’s own glossary meaning) |
| wan | colourless (the book’s own glossary meaning) |
| ashen | pale grey, the colour of ash, used here for the mother’s face |
| doze | to sleep lightly, especially for a short time |
| familiar ache | a pain the poet has felt before and recognises at once |
| Cochin | a port city in Kerala (the book’s own spelling; today more commonly written Kochi) |
| Amma | an affectionate word for “mother”, used in several Indian languages including Malayalam |
8Answering Extract-Based and Line-Based Questions
A short extract from the poem may be set with questions on it. The method below works for any lines from this poem.
Extract: “…I looked again at her, wan, pale as a late winter’s moon and felt that old familiar ache, my childhood’s fear…”
Q. Identify the poetic device in “wan, pale as a late winter’s moon,” and explain what it tells us about the mother.
Step 1: Spot the comparing word “as”, which signals a simile.
Step 2: Identify the two things being compared: the mother’s paleness, and the faint light of a late winter’s moon.
Step 3: Connect it to the poem’s theme: a winter moon gives weak, fading light, just as the mother’s vitality is fading with age.
Answer: The device is a simile. It compares the mother’s pale, colourless appearance to the dim light of a late winter’s moon, suggesting that her life and vitality, like that faint light, are fading.
Always name the device first, then quote the exact words that show it, then explain the effect in your own words. A one-word answer such as “simile” with no explanation is incomplete.
- Poet: Kamala Das (1934-2009), pen name Madhavikutty for her fiction in English and Malayalam
- Setting: a car journey from her parent’s home to Cochin airport, “last Friday morning”
- The poem is one single, unbroken sentence, “punctuated by commas”: enjambment throughout, no stanzas, no rhyme (free verse)
- Two similes: mother’s face “ashen like that of a corpse”; later “wan, pale as a late winter’s moon”
- Metaphor: “that old familiar ache” for her “childhood’s fear”; personification: “Young Trees sprinting”
- Central contrast: the ageing, pale mother against sprinting trees and merry children spilling out of their homes
- Theme (one reading): fear of losing an ageing parent, felt strongly but never spoken aloud
- Ending: “see you soon, Amma” and “smile and smile and smile……”, combining repetition, polysyndeton and ellipsis; one reading is that they hide the poet’s real feelings
- Can I recite or summarise the poem’s four movements in the correct order?
- Can I name and locate both similes in the poem, without mixing them up?
- Can I explain the metaphor “that old familiar ache” in my own words?
- Can I explain why the trees and children are mentioned at all: what they contrast with?
- Can I explain what the poem’s single-sentence structure (enjambment) is doing?
- Can I explain the effect of “smile and smile and smile……”: repetition, polysyndeton and ellipsis together?
- Can I answer all five of the book’s own “Think it out” questions in full sentences?