Ranjit and Nataraja

At Earlam we'll offer in each aging hand

the outstretched palm of Shiva, dancing

the it-doesn't-matter--though it-really-does

sidesteps of late middle-age.

On  the telephone he tells me

half of Richmond thinks he’s a terrorist,

while those on campus whose idol is diversity

think he’s very special since he’s brown.

 

He received the mint chutney I sent him;

he broke up with Ivana from Prague.

He switches the subject to beef in French fries

and, not that they should, but can’t they tell

 

a mullah from Saudi Arabia

from a half Catholic boy from Madras?

Shiva intervenes with the sound of creation,

static.  It bristles with loneliness.

 

Feminists, curries, Foucault.

I tell him, we’ll be there in June—

He, tossed between drums and fire;

We, falling beneath Shiva’s foot.

 

We arrive at Earlam sixteen hours late.

He has a new friend. Everything’s fine.

That night she shows us new moves she’s taught him.

Right, left, one, two—We join in the dance.

Note: I'm putting together my sixth book--it may well be my last-- and found this poem in an old file. The subject matter concerns  our dear nephew Ranjit, who passed away last year. At that time in our lives,  the time of the poem, Nirmala and I were in loco parentis for Ranjit. He came here about 25 years ago, and stayed with us for about a year. After much applying, he was accepted at Earlam College, a liberal college  in Richmond, Indiana. The poem has to do with our subsequent visit to Earlam for Ranji's undergraduate graduation. The reference to beef in French fries has to do with a  controversy at that time when, after years of assuring the Hindu community that there was no beef in Macdonal's French fries, they had to admit that beef fat was used to prepare the fries. 

I forgot about Ivana from Prague, one of Ranji's Earlam friends!

Nataraja, Lord of the Dance, is, of course, Shiva. I have been heavily influenced by Shaivite Hinduism, a.k.a. vedanta. There are many references to Shiva on my blog.

Oh, and thanks to Sudhir, Ranjit's uncle, for supplying the photo.