the broken tusk
“Ganesha is widely revered as the Remover of Obstacles and more generally as Lord of Beginnings and Lord of Obstacles patron of arts and sciences, and the deva of intellect and wisdom. He is honoured at the start of rituals and ceremonies and invoked as Patron of Letters during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.”
“Because Shiva considered Ganesha too alluring, he gave him the head of an elephant and a protruding belly.”
traveling by rail through a decrepit landscape littered with half-finished abandoned concrete-skeleton buildings. mudflats. broken sewer lines. blowing newspapers with black, bold headlines that warned the readers to evacuate. how could she be so attached to this place? i promised myself i would never come back here. old cranes looked like decayed ancient creatures caught in animation when the blast came. the foggy sun does not move but stays always just above the horizon. still the shadows moved. almost dark all the time.
they were crawling everywhere but were very quiet except every once in awhile one of them would wimper softly, puzzled by movement. brown bodies uncovered they gazed at the ground anatomically unable to speak. we found a grocery store at a crossroads of broken asphalt and overturned semis. carrying two on my hips we wandered the aisles stepping over empty cracker boxes and tins of powered drinks. there isn’t anything here to eat. every once in awhile we hear the shouts and crashes of malevolent teenage boys. lawlessly pushing over steel beams and kicking rocks across mud and ash puddles. the surface shining with oil. making fires out of the “have you seen me?” fliers. they laughed and pointed at them as we passed. they might be a threat later. i pulled her head closer to my neck and she grasped onto my shirt sleeve with her tiny brown fingers. the others sat around me naked playing with pieces of cardboard and lost screws. they were unaware of the oddity of their extra apendage. babies of Ganesha. their trunks swung back and forth smelling and grasping.
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