It has been eight months since poetess Kamala Das became Kamala Suraiya renouncing Hinduism in favour of Islam. In those heady days immediately after her conversion, she was not only the toast of Kerala's Muslim world, but flush with the excitement of her impending wedding to a middle-aged Indian Union Muslim League leader.

The wedding remained a pipe dream. And, despite the initial euphoria with which Muslim social, cultural and political organisations greeted Suraiya, it was soon apparent to them that for Suraiya donning the burkha did not imply the surrender of her high-spirited nature to be remoulded according to Islam's moral tenets ...

Today, although Suraiya . stands practically excommunicated from Kerala's Islamic fraternity, she is unperturbed ... "Kamala Suraiya has only a changed name", says Prof. Hameed Chennamangaloor, a prominent progressive Muslim intellectual in Kozhikkode. "She cannot change her real self which is still Kamala Das, and the fellow travelers of her new religion cannot accept her real self". Suraiya is all too aware of the criticism ... (Source: The Week, 24 September, 2000)