FANCY DRESS SHOW-SUMMARY-454 WORDS

The poem “The Fancy-Dress Show” is a beautiful social satire. Kamala Das, better known as Kamala Suraiya is a great Indian poet writing in both English and Malayalam. According to her people are often deceived by outward shows. Kamala Das calls it “The Fancy-Dress Show”. She laughs at the masked people of society.

Kamala Das says that now a day every virtue in society demands a fancy dress. The priest is forced to wear a cassock which is known as a holy-dress. It is priest’s “uniform” without which he is not acceptable and respectable in society.  The cassock is a beautiful mask for him and he can cover all his vices under it. Here the poet laughs at the human tendency to judge a man by his external appearance alone.

Kamala Das says that politicians appear to be poor, simple and honest in their dress which is suitable for a saint. But most of them are highly corrupted and amass wealth and power by any means. But as long as people judge them by their outward appearance, politicians and holy men continue to cheat people. Similarly, even the blessings of God go to the ‘legitimate’ people she says. People who have more money to visit the God’s sanctum sanctorum directly without having to go through the process normal people would have to. She also suggests that even among the normal folk the blessings of God are only for people whom the scriptures deem worthy and it is decided through hierarchy of cast and birth not from their actions.

She criticizes the concept of ‘confessions’ by saying that it is like a shameful act which is done in a dark secret place and by ‘mumbling’ she says that it is very unclear. She questions the capacity of a priest’s qualification to wash a sinner of his sins just because he has the ‘courage’ to ‘mumble about it in the dark’ without even revealing his self no matter how heinous the sin he committed.

Kamala Das refers to the fasting of patriots and poor children. Patriots and politicians undertake fasting to achieve their political game and they become famous and powerful. But poor children live in poverty and they are forced to undertake fasting because they have nothing to eat. After some time, their health declined, caught illness and finally died.

In concluding the poem, Kamala Das quotes Robert Browning who said: “God is in heaven and all’s right with the world”. She says that God is in heaven and does not notice human sufferings. In “King Lear”, Shakespeare says: “As flies to wanton boys/ Are we to Gods/ They kill us for their sports”.  Kamala Das adds that modern world is worse than Browning’s period