Chapter - 12
"Tribute to Papa"

- Mamta Kalia

Question- What is the summary of the poem Tribute to Papa' by Mamta Kalia?

Answer - 

Tribute to papa' by Mamta Kalia is a challenging poem in which Mamta tries to compel the readers to understand the hardships of being a woman that the society wants her to be. In this poem, she portrays men dominance over women in all matters of life. Mamta tries to question her father why should his traditional values determines the fate of his daughter. She questions whether if he cared enough for his daughter's own voice and opinion. Tribute to Papa' pays a different kind of tribute to a father. It is rather the poet tring to sort out the different values that she and her father had.

In the poem, Mamta mentions how she longed for love and care but she hardly received any from her father. She also talks about disowning her father which show how hurt she was. Although her father has died, she could not stop bloming him for not loving and supporting her as much as she needed. In the end, the poet mentions how she only longed for a good relationships with her father. Mamta Kalia's "Tribute to Papa', is according to Eunice De Souza, one of the most compelling poems. She figures out an opposition not only to men's dominance over women but women's acceptance of men's dominance Mamta Kalia's personal rejection of the non-materialist father however ironic in its tone is a tribute to the contemporary materialistic father India. The opem moves from one hateful statement to another with entrens indifference to trodisional Indian values. Not only are the father's ideals for the daughter rejected scornfully but his normal way of life insulted. As a daughter Mamta Kalia is preoccupied by the father figure Father in her case become a symbol of male-dominance. In her poem. A Tribute to papa Mamta Kalia pays a different kind of tribute to her father's stating that her ideas and values clash with here of her father's everything about you closhes will nearly everything about mrs. Mamta Kalia also rebels against patriavchy and the restrained world of middle-class respectability. Such poems are hounted by the memories of her father: "But you've always wanted to be a model man. A short of an ideal. When you can't think of doing anything. You start praying spending useless hours of at the semple. "In tribute to papa she interrogates even her father for his observance to customer tradition and complains of the generation gap she feels with him. She has liberal views but at the same time she finds it hard to defy she commandments of her father.

"You suspect, that I am having a love-affair these days,
But you've too shy to have it confirmed
What if my hummy starts showing gradually.
And I refuse to have it cureetted?
But I'll be careful, Papa,
Or I know you'll once think of suicide."

The poem Tribute to Papa and other poems' brings out the contrast between her father's idedism which could not give prosperity on him and her fascination for modern life which is without idealism and values:

Who cares for you Papa?
Who cares for your clean thoughts clian words, clean teath?
Who wants to be an angel like you?
Who want this? "these days I am seriously thinking of disowning you.

" The mutual disenchantment has grown so much that she even thinks of diserving her father and his blessedness. She nouras about her father's and his blessedness. She nourus about her father's states that he could not make a grand and cazy place for himself so he is an unsuccessful man from the 'woddly point of view. If he had enough gets to 'smuggle eighty thousand watches them she would proudly tell everyone about her father's import- export business. To smuggle eighty thousand watches at a spoke, And I'd proudly say, My father's an import-export business, you know I'd be proud of you then.

She asserts that she does not want to be a model she expresses her frustration over her father idealism in there lines.

"You want me to be like you,
Papa, or like Rani Lakshmibai
You've not seen what greatness is
But you want me to be great.

Thus, in this poem she rejects her father's noting of greatness and the Indian models of a woman as Lakshmibai who rought and died in one sence not for the sake of women but for her son that patriarchy would not mind. Mamta Kalia rejects her father's life of limited dreams. She proposes to choose her own course and follow her ideals. Tronically she claims her father to be an unsuccessful man and defines the closh Between the old and new value.

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