Ishq and Islam

Thais Maria at 53 is a third generation Polish thinker and writer.  She studied ballet and yoga and has been a visual artist.  When she had a place to live, she had many cats and used to teach art. Now she is a member of urban America’s nightmare club: the homeless.

She lives under a bridge close to the west bank campus of the University of Minnesota near an abandoned rail track in an engineless car that is full of her books and journals.  A connoisseur of film and theater, she keeps track of all shows and performances in town and attends as many as possible especially during the winter months. Ii wonder what laws she may be violating,   using her welfare allowance to thus indulge her excesses.

For purposes of mobility she uses a bicycle, its handlebars holding her plastic bags that contain almost all she needs, except a restroom and a shower.

Once a week we have coffee together and she gives me a lowdown on the history, owner attitudes and regular patrons of the local cafetaria we visit.  When she calls, our eclectic conversations range from the green peace movement to Indian art and astrology to religion to transgender community action and much else in between.

The last time we met she told me she had learnt a new word, ishq which means love.  I asked her where she had found it.  She was looking up the encyclopedia for information on Islam she said and the entry prior to that was ishq.  Isn’t it a nice word? She beamed relishing the nuances within the single syllable as she repeated the word a couple of times.

I have finally convinced her that she is neither too old nor too backward to access the internet.  Now she can correspond without a postal address from any of the web connected public computer kiosks dotting the twin cities.

PS In the particularly bad winter of 04 one of America’s chosen few,  a white American student took it upon himself to save the hallowed university campus from vermin and informed the authorities how Thais was taking advantage of the university by availing of the heated library and my friend was banned from entering the campus for three weeks.