Google celebrates the life of Kamala Das with a doodle

Google on Thursday celebrated the life of legendary writer Kamala Das with a doodle.

Das, popularly known as Madhavikutty and Ami, is a prominent name in Indian literature for her short stories and poetry. It was on this day back in 1976 that Das released her autobiography, My Story.

The doodle, created by artist Manjit Thapp, celebrates “the work she left behind, which provides a window into the world of an engrossing woman,” Google said in a blog post.

Das was born in Punnayurkulam, in the Thrissur District of Kerala, in March 1934. Her father V M Nair was the former managing editor of Mathrubhoomi and her mother Nalapat Balamani Amma was a renowned Malayali poet.

Thanks to the culturally enriched environment she grew up in, Das started writing at a tender age. At six, she created a magazine filled with sad poems about dolls that lost their heads.

At the age of 15, Das married Madhava Das, a banker by profession, and the couple soon moved to Bombay. It was there that Das started writing professionally, encouraged by her husband. She soon started publishing her works both in English and Malayalam.

She did not shy away from writing about sex and sexuality, and her work had strong feminist leanings.

But Das once said it would have been easier for her as a writer had she been born a man.

"Because women were expected to confine themselves to the realm of the kitchen and it was not a role entirely accepted by society," she told Rediff.com. "A woman had to prove herself to be a good wife, a good mother, before she could become anything else. And that meant years and years of waiting.

"That meant waiting till the graying years. I didn't have the time to wait. I was impatient. So I started writing quite early in my life. And perhaps I was lucky. My husband appreciated the fact that I was trying to supplement the family income."

Her husband allowed her to write only at night, after she had finished up all her duties as a wife and mother. "After all the chores were done, after I had fed the children, fed him, clearned up the kitchen, I was allowed to sit awake and write till morning. And that affected my health," said Das.