March 19, 2014
April 9, 2014 § Leave a comment
In a spark of artistic inspiration, or delirious sensory short circuitry, possibly one and the same, or at least intimately intertwined, I see the face of Moira Orfei in the campaign posters of Sonia Gandhi. Along a road that leads from Cochin to Rome, the defacto Queen of India and the Queen of the Elephants fuse to become dual avatars, twin brides of Shiva, daughters of Dionysus. Two Italian women with the same coiffure who strike the same pose, flash the same perfect, ivory teeth; two famous beauties whose faces of dynastic durability are instantly recognizable and ubiquitous in their respective realms; one rules an ancient land where an elephant-headed boy is God, the other a fading world of fluorescent pink and yellow circus dreams. 
The path that links the two is there because it has been followed, a quantum photon, a vector of red silk, black pepper and white light; a line that can be touched but not held, tasted but not described, seen but not drawn. Created by inquiry, energy and experience, it is a thread that connects, breaks then re-forms in order to dissolve again; it is Lord Shiva who dances the universe into existence and then destroys it, Lord Ganesha who blesses beginnings and removes all obstacles, allowing me to glimpse the line that runs from Cochin through Lisbon to Rome. This, then, is my reward; to feel the thread pass over my fingers like water, to see in the flash of an instant the whole story of Annone’s journey; the epic, elephantine exegesis of Shiva’s emissary, Manuel’s trophy, Leo’s pet.
Annone the Elephant 
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