A little pre-post note from Sandhya Nankani, your new guest blogger: At least once a day, I come across a link or a piece of literature or an article and I think, “That would be great for sepia!” So it goes without saying that I’m thrilled about coming aboard as a guest blogger for the next month. You’ll read ennis’s little ditty about me later today, so besides inviting you to check out my family ruminations, I’m ready to fly…
For the next month, I thought it would be fun to import a regular feature—Poetry Friday—from my personal blog Literary Safari. I’ll be putting a subcontinental twist on this. Every Friday I’ll be posting a poem by a desi writer that speaks to me. 
I’ve always had a thing for elephants. My first (and favorite) stuffed animal was a gray elephant. In those days, stuffed animals were not very soft or fuzzy. Mine is rough and tough, but he has survived three decades, and continues to thrive (despite his half-fallen off trunk) alongside my collection of elephant kurtis; shell, glass, and metal elephants (including Ganeshas); elephant paintings and silkscreens, elephant magazine holder … yeah, OK, you get the point!
So, today’s poem—which I recently discovered in Billy Collins’ anthology 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day—is (brace yourselves for the long title) “Aanabhrandhanmar Means ‘Mad About Elephants’” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Nez for short).
I like to pair literary and artistic selections the way people pair wine and cheese, so when I read this poem, it seemed to me a perfect accompaniment to Australia-based photojournalist Palani Mohan’s images in his new book, Vanishing Giants: Elephants of Asia. [click the above image to view a slideshow of his photos.]
Aanabhrandhanmar Means ‘Mad About Elephants’Forget trying to pronounce it. What matters
is that in southern India, thousands are afflicted.
And who wouldn’t be? Children play with them
in courtyards, slap their gray skin with cupfuls
of water, shoo flies with paper pompoms.
When the head of the household leaves
for business, his elephant weeps fat tears
of joy when he returns. Their baths of husk
and stone last four hours, every wrinkle
rubbed and patted with cinnamon oil.
At festival, silk caps and gold tassels drape
their broad heads. Brides still wearrings of its stiff tail hair, part of their dowry
to avoid evil eye. A man with blue sandals
told me that elephants are cousins to the clouds—
that they belonged to Lord Indra, king
of the gods, that elephants were his carriage
in the wind—that they once had wings.Copyright © 2005 Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of two collections of poetry, At the Drive-In Volcano and Miracle Fruit. Her mother is Filipina and her father is from South India, so her poems are inspired by both parts of her background as well as by her growing years in the midwest (she was born near Chicago). (This weekend, Aimee will be teaching “Prose Poetry: Tending the Garden” at the Asian American Writers Workshop in NYC.)
I think that as South Asian readers we are often more critical of our fellow writers — asking whether their work is exoticizing elements or aspects of our culture, homeland, traditions … What I really loved about this poem was how it juxtaposed myth and mundane and allowed me to feel not just a human’s emotions for an elephant, but also the elephant’s feeling (“When the head of the household leaves for business, his elephant weeps fat tears of joy when he returns.”) And, I was smitten by the idea that there’s actually a word that describes my fascination with elephants or Hathi (Hindi/Bengali/Assamese), Yanai (Tamil), Aana (Malayalam), Aane (Kannada), and Yenugu (Telugu).. Plus, (if you’re in the mood to make the figurative leap) the poem put an interesting new spin on Dumbo, the flying elephant.
I spent a while reading and rereading the poem, then looking at Palani Mohan’s photographs. His book is the culmination of six years of travel to create an “intimate glimpse into the world of the Asian elephant, a creature which – even as its African cousin flourishes – is threatened as never before.” If you take a peek at the slideshow of images from the book, you also see why it is described as a “tale of two species”, a story of the love-hate (is that another word for mad or Aanabhrandhanmar ?) relationship between human beings and elephants. (There’s a timely slant to this for those of you in NYC: The Asia Society is hosting a Asia Society Q&A with Mohan this Tuesday, March 11)
The two experiences somehow went hand in hand for me, and I’m excited to share them with you. What did they do for you? I’m also curious to know what other elephant literature, pop culture connections, and memories we all share … I, for one, can think of a certain song that I couldn’t get enough of when I was a kid. (Enjoy the Russian subtitles in the clip below!)
