Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 06:18:48 -0500
Subject: 


>at what price 
>
>learn 
>ing 
>
>      what access does it really 
>give us.... 
>
>? 
>

as childhood heroes

blur

into present-day tyrants

                as childhood affections and hero-worship
                turns into the bitterness of knowing their is no hope

[but perhaps? maybe? 

the clay may still melt off...and he may walk off the twisted pedestal and
reach out throught cutting through the glass of his lonely pride?]


ekalvya

knows

                the thumb will never be sacrificed
                this is not the skill they know how to use

arjuna's guru she may have idolized
and learned from what she  imagined was his skill
his wisdom

but what arjuna learned was a different skill

                legitimized perhaps

but grasping on to approval

approval never granted to shikhandi
by bhishma or dronachaarya

cannot be sought by ekalvya

                        but they know that seeking such approval 

needing it

would be a compromise

a

sacrifice of their self-educated self-honed 

thumbs...

                        so shikhandi cannot be tinker-bell
                        even though that may be the only voice they are
willing to hear

and legitimize

as her

possibility...

___________
Radhika Gajjala
Bowling Green State University

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik
http://www.cyberdiva.org
http://lingua.utdallas.edu:7000/4425/

"I am not erudite enough to be interdisciplinary, but I can break rules" -
Spivak, 1999.

"Just bear in mind, darling: Write Mortal. Think Witch" - Endora from
"Bewitched"

_____


__________