Meena Kandaswamy
From her poem “Another Paradise Lost: the Hindu Way”:
One sleepy summer afternoon, while helping
myself to a glass of chilled water, I saw a
snake lying curled under the fridge. It could
have been a very poisonous cobra. Veryquickly, I chose my mode of attack: Acid.
Staggering, I reached for the glass bottle
so that I could pour the yellow-green cheap
acid on its slimy body, burning it to death.“Stop it”, the snake hissed in pure Tamil
connecting with me in the language of
my prayer and poetry. “I am an exile.”
And I configured mental images of politicalrefugees. It wriggled out and I saw that
it was balding, almost Rushdie-like, perhaps
with a death sentence too. Controversy was a
crowd pulling catch-phrase, to which I dutifullysuccumbed. Acid bottle in hand, I heard the
snake preach to me about living in detachment.
“The perfection of life is when you do not
know the difference between yielding andresisting.” The scrawny being writhed further
and told me of rebirth and reincarnation. Being
a writer I really wanted to take notes. Instead
I began arguing. “Shut up”, the snake said to me…
stupid poem my little bro in class 3 writes better poems.seems like it’s not JUST talent that made her famous.
Comment by seshan — June 5, 2008 @ 9:03 am