Review by Lidhish (brahmavishnumaheswara@yahoo.co.in)

Poem The Pen in my point of view

The poem named written by Balamani Amma is a light poem and Kamala Das have done a good translation of the same . Kamala Das is the daughter of Balamani Amma and she has done the translation of The Pen sustaining the real essence of the poem. The poem describes about the feeling of lonliness by a mother. The mother who have given everything from her life to her children. By reading this poem we can feel the love and affection which a mother have dominated to her children since their birth, we can not narrate the same in few words.

This is not a new thing in today's life, when the children are grown up they will fly from their home leaving his / her mother & father alone. In this poem the mother lives only on the memmories . After the children left the home she feels that she is living in a rest house. She do not have to do anything for the children now. She remembers that she had built playhuts using palm leaves for her children but now her children does not require any play huts. They have built palace for them to live leaving their mother to live with the memmories of play huts in the childhood.

The mother in this poem is waiting for occassions like Onam and all to see her children or hear from them but she disappoints and just moving around the home alone with the pleasant memmories which she had with her children.

The mother sits alone with a pen in hand when the sun dies in the sea and thinks and realise about the losses. She very well know she will not get those pleasant things back. Now she prays only for a relaxed end of her life only.

She have got only tears in her hand now to live in . The world is becoming so cruel and selfish that no one needs their mother & father when they becomes old. The attitude must be changed. The children are forgetting one thing that they also will be old one day still they are not showing their children the right way to follow. Their children also behave like that in the future then only they realise the fact. Now everybody is after money and no time for other things. Everybody is leading a fast life and finds no time to look after his mother & father. They have got only their wife & children. As a Keralite we can understand the feeling of this mother as we love our mother very much than our father and all. We always like to be with mother in our childhood and if we need anything we tell mother first and she conveys the same to father so that muh affection and intimay is there with mother, ut if we look around now Keralites also doing the same thing, they also do not have time to spare with his mother when they are prepeared to stand in their own feet. The poet have made the lonliness of a mother in simple words in this poem. On the other hand children also have got their own justification that they have to do something for their future also, they can not sit at home and look after their parents. To develop their career they may have to go outside, regarding the feeling of the children nothing is been mentioned. They are also human being and they aso have got their own feelings , the parents must realise that also. Regarding thesese things the poet has not mentioend anything. She only narrated the feelings of the mother. This is modern era and without money nothing will take place , still one must not forget the humanity only for money, the relationship are something different and we can not buy it with money. I coclude my words with the praying as a human that let the God give opportunity to all the mother to stay with their children till their end and they do not have to live in memmories.