Poetic Obituaries: [Rajandaye Ramkissoon-Chen] describes parents

and ancestors doing what they had to do, but the poet's eye sees the exhilaration and euphoria and poetry of earthly spirits.

. . . cutlassing with the dance of twigs
to the music of the wind,
and beneath the open sky they lay counting its jewels for their wealth

At the end of the poem, she recognises her dependence upon them (I lean on the crookstick) and she calls them "the figurehead of my toil"--they are figures she has carved in verse on the bow of her ship to guide and protect her on her voyage as woman and poet. Raj's poems help us to understand the meaning of India for Trinidadians, and the dilemmas faced by Indian women in a world still seeking a balance between the traditional and the new.

from The Trinidad Guardian: In loving memory of Rajandaye

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