What's in a name? Identity, faith, geography or sum of all things human?

Recently I was introduced to Suryanna, all of five months old and rich gurgle as her calling card. Suryanna’s parents are UK residents of Indian origin but that was the first I had heard of the pretty name. A brief Internet search revealed that a few people of Indonesian origin bear the name and sometimes the identical family name too.

The hugely engaging movie The Martian has Vincent Kapoor head of Mars operations, reprised by African American Chiwetel Ejiofor who reveals “my father is Hindu and my Mom’s Baptist”.

A name or surname no longer gives us an inkling of its provenance.There was a time when If a person gave you his or her name you could safely place them in their specific region of origin; with cross-cultural migration and mixed marriages this is no longer the case.

And so when my Memoir Writing class in Staten Island, NY, gave us a prompt of ‘What’s in a name’ it set me thinking.

Roses at the New Jersey State Botanical Gardens

Now my name is Sandhya and I’m from Bombay, the commercial capital of India. Although I live in Bangalore now, which is known as the Silicon Valley of India, I still think of myself as a Bombay girl.

So what’s a Bombay girl? When you grow up in Bombay your neighbours have names and family names that declare their origin from other parts of the country. You could say the city is a melting pot of the diverse peoples that exist in India. While you know what they are you also know who they are. And you learn to hold your own, no matter what or who.

When I moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, I saw that that city state was a macrocosm of Bombay, only here we had a melting pot of nationalities rather than communities.

For a while I was the editor of a sports magazine, a glossy dedicated to everything hedonistic about sport. The publisher of the English version of this originally French magazine was a naturalized Swedish citizen of Algerian origin.

Interestingly, he had no difficulty pronouncing my name which had been deliciously mangled as Cynthia by my Lebanese ex-boss and as Sandra by my British ex-editor. 

The French educated Lebanese ex-boss, publisher of a clutch of corporate magazines for luxury brands, was always well turned out in her designer clothes. Although, with her hourglass figure she would have looked good in Salvation Army discards too.

I do not know what her family name meant but I suspect ‘mistrust’ would be her middle name. On my second day at work she called me twice on my cell phone during an interview of the scion of a designer jewellery brand. She wanted to know when I would get back to the office. I thought maybe she wanted to fire me. But all she asked when I rushed into her cabin on returning was, ‘How long was the meeting?’

The girl from whom I had taken over the position, who was also in the office to collect her dues, looked at me from under her false eyelashes and shrugged.

When I laid bare my damaged soul that night at dinner, my 15-year-old son admonished me with a, “Chill Mom! You always make friends with your bosses, eventually. Just give her time.” Maybe he knew something I didn’t, because before the year was up the Boss and I had had several conversations that opened a window into the history of her temperament.

After four years of overlooking the inconvenience of interrupted interview meetings, the Boss and I parted amicably; for personal reasons I chose to go freelance again. “Cynthia, if you change your mind know that I would love to have you back,” she said warmly. Hmm, I am a Gemini but how long would I remember this double identity?

Soon after I quit my job I got a surprise call from an UAE National. “Sandhya, I want to write a book and I need your help”, he said after the customary greetings. He was the self-appointed cultural ambassador of his people and he not only had a successful business conducting culture sensitizing workshops for top companies setting up shop in the Middle East but he was also a major media star. His book was to be a memoir that also decoded the culture and values of the Arab people. I was a bit surprised that he should choose to ask for my help when I neither had a name he could comfortably pronounce nor did I belong to his faith.

When I handed him the final cut of the manuscript I understood that people everywhere are the same – they all want the same things for themselves and their families – opportunities for growth, love and harmony.

So really, what’s in a name: culture, identity, faith, geography? And should we meld these to celebrate our oneness or wield them to separate humanity?

Perhaps names do say it all – creating an individual identity even while bringing us together as the sum of all things human.

Dying to live

Death often re-turns the spotlight back on life

A friend’s father is hospitalised with a ‘not so optimistic’ prognosis. She is understandably distraught; not knowing if he will survive and for how long. He has lived a good life. Yet in the first fury of fear there is an undercurrent of anger. Anger at all that could have been but was not. She is not unique in responding to imminent grief in this manner. Ironically, the death of a loved one gives rise to a tsunami of emotions leading to an often discomforting re-evaluation of life itself.

If, God forbid, you have had a roller coaster relationship with the loved one, as it routinely happens in real life, you could either come away with a better, deeper understanding of your own life values and step up to action them OR... spend the rest of your life alternating between blame and guilt.

A few years ago I was witness to the death of a family member; cruel in its sudden impact and relentless in its insistence on having to deal with a whole gamut of unwanted, unbidden emotions.

Every religion has its own template of rituals to send off their dead on their last journey. It may seem as if you are on auto-pilot going through the motions of these rituals. It is equally true that rituals can anchor you to the here and now when the only thing you feel inclined to do is dwell in the if only..., why me..., why couldn’t... and I wish...

It’s possible though, that a part of your ever-so-progressive thinking brain may rebel at the ludicrous irrelevance of some of these rituals. What could help is perhaps donating money or time or even better, time and money to a cause that carries the seed of creating a better life for someone and consequently recreating memories of better times.

It is only when the scheduled mourning is done that the real process of reckoning with the loss begins. And it’s never a pretty picture.

My dear friend Rose Gordon, who wears many hats, though I refer to her role as a grief counsellor, uses many tools to help relatives of terminally ill patients come to terms with loss. It’s best to begin the healing before the final good bye, she says. For me, the most beautiful take away from her tool box is the one where the patient and the family co-create a work of simple art – anything from a quilted wall hanging to a collage of photographs spanning a life time.

In the co-creation of this art they work through the palette of emotions and events that separate them; eventually bringing the acknowledgement that even while their minds were at war their souls have always looked out for each other. It is, Rose says, a powerful tool of acceptance and forgiveness, without words coming in the way of either.

My experience with sudden loss taught me the importance of practising this tool with all my relationships. I falter with amazing regularity.

A few years ago I visited a friend whose mother had passed away a week before after a long battle with dementia. The family had had enough time to prepare themselves and, in truth, not able to withstand her suffering they had started praying for an end to her misery. But what about the anguish of the impotent in providing relief; the anger of having to witness the disintegration of a strong and resourceful human being into a helpless bundle of incoherence?

My condolence visit was meant to honour a cherished relationship. Instead, it felt like eavesdropping on a conversation between life at death.

Life at Death

In the dead

The living see their own death

They see the beginning of the end

The end of many other beginnings

The death of them and their’s

And everything in between.

They see the way the dead lived their lives

Issues that they begat

And issues that they took up

What they counted for

Taxed for their weaknesses

Bonuses-accrued for good deeds.

They heave a sigh of relief

For the mercy of surviving

The memory of the dead

For all that could be

For all that was not

For all that is.

For all that will be

For all that will not be

For all that is their’s in this moment

For all that they will leave in the final one

For the love of their loved ones

And the fear of their phantoms.

But blessed are they who see

The arc of their soul’s moulting

As a butterfly flutters from a cocoon

Good karma weaving designs

For, in this they have seen

The beginning of The End – Moksha.

Our interactions in this life, even the most difficult ones, or rather, especially the most difficult ones, are designed so that we may learn those lessons that got left out of the syllabus of past births. . How willing are we to learn these? 

What fun it would be if the Universe one day said: You’ve done your lessons; now here’s your gift? 

Becoming Your Own Mother

Becoming Your Own Mother

A couple of weekends ago I checked into  Prakruti Chikitsalaya, a nature cure clinic about 200kms from Bangalore in Mandya district. The three-acre campus lives up to its name with cottages dotting the outer edge with the kitchen cum dining area as its central hub.

A doctor couple checks me out and lists the treatments my specific condition calls for. What’s common to all ‘patients’ checked in here are the yoga sessions in the morning and evening and a low-salt, no spice, no sugar diet. Which is good because you are in any case not tempted to ask for extra helpings.

But for the times when your stomach protests too loudly between meals there is the jamun tree. Anyone using the walking track has to pass by the jamun tree which stands a little off the entrance of the Nature Cure Centre next to the reception and doctors’ clinics.

Growing up in metro Mumbai, the Syzgium cumini in Latin or  jamun or jambul as it is known in Maharastra or ‘nerele hannu’ in Karnataka, or nava palam in Tamil Nadu wasn’t a favourite fruit. It has an acidic spicy mildly sweet taste, leaving a purple hue and rough texture on the tongue. But try being snobbish on an empty stomach and you will begin to understand why our ancestors were fruitarians before they cultivated food.

So I stood for a while under the jamun tree’s shade and tentatively picked a couple of fruits that had fallen on the patch of satiny grass. As I crunched into the juicy exterior and rolled the seed in my mouth I thought it’s not as bad as I remember it. I ate a few more and felt a satiation of my hunger pangs. I gathered a fistful and continued my walk.

I noticed a couple behind me stop by and go through the same motions. A young girl who had earlier in the day been complaining of a headache, apparently a result of not drinking enough water during the detox period began pepping up visibly as she worked through her share of the jamun bounty.

Of the 30 residents of the Nature Cure clinic walking that evening almost every single one stopped by to partake of this free unlimited nature’s feast. You may wonder just how many fruits does this tree shed in a day to serve 30 people? Well, there’s a soft ‘thap’ ‘thap’ of falling fruit every moment practically and whether you gather a fistful or a doggy bag’s worth, rest assured the next person will never go empty handed.

As I pounded the walking trail I wondered about the generosity of this tree and of all the other trees in the Universe.  I wondered too about Mother Nature who nurtures us. And who nurtures Mother Nature?

 I skipped back a few months to a Memoir Writing class in New York when a sprightly 80-year-old Anna wrote about “learning to be my own mother” in an essay on ‘Parting is such Sweet Sorrow’. Anna, who resides in a Senior Citizens Assisted Living Community interpreted the topic to mean saying her final goodbyes. Although, for the most part, Anna’s writing reveals her free spirit and a zany sense of humour in the life choices she has made. Coming from her this sentence gave me pause for thought.

At what age do human beings contemplate becoming one’s own mother? I know I hadn’t up until then. I mean you have your mother to do that until she’s alive and then you just think of yourself as  a ‘motherless child’ even if by then you are 60 years old and have grandchildren of your own.

Is it possible then that Mother Nature has no such expectations of the Universe? That Nature’s way is to nourish one’s own self by connecting to the Universal synapses of energy?  Consider, for example, the natural way of cultivation that Masanobu Fukuoka, the Japanese naturalist, propagated where you allow natural cycles of seasons and days to guide you to plant, nurture and harvest rather than intervene as per ‘market demands’ for food.

There are times in our lives when we want a gentle hand on our back reassuring us that all is well; a sweet hug that says I care for you no matter what.

Then there are times when we blame our parents for the unwanted  excess baggage that we carry and inevitably there are times when we get blamed by our children for the excess baggage we have passed on to them.

The truth is that each one of us is on our own unique journey, learning lessons from the souls that we interact with - some intimately, others fleetingly.  Working out your karmic balance so to speak. 

The truth is also that we choose the parents we are born to because we have something to learn from them and they from us. When we say nobody comes into your life by accident it extends right up to your children and your parents, not just random visitors transiting through your life.

Even so the one constant in our life is always one’s own self. If we hold others responsible for their impact on our lives how much more impact do we have on ourselves? Total impact, it would appear. And what if the ultimate learning is to give ourselves the acceptance, approval and compassion that we expect from significant and sometimes not so significant others - connect to the Universal synapses of energy in a manner of speaking?

So this Mothers Day I decided to give myself a gift. In gratitude to the wonderful children in my life and and also because I recognise that at the deepest level I truly am my own Mother. Just like Mother Earth who rejuvenates herself taking from the elements what she needs and giving to all forms of life – birds, bees, animals and humans what they need. So the gift on Mother’s Day was a gift of approval – self approval.

Coming home

 

A painting depicting Lord Shiva's son Kartik whispering the Om mantra in his father's ear at the Swamimalai temple

 

Architecture of a typical south Indian temple

These days tribe usually means your Twitter or Facebook following.

Though, it used to be that tribe traditionally meant the larger community you are born into and nurtured by. Recently my family and I visited Tanjore, located in the southern tip of India, in search of my husband’s family roots. It was my first visit ever and my first glimpse of the place was a hugely pleasant surprise.

Freshly drawn kolams (patterns made with a white powder or flour) adorned every front yard. The level of complexity and creativity of the kolams could be the envy of many an artist. Street corner vendors who hawked coils of thickly braided ‘mallipu’’ or jasmine and marigolds served like magnets to women on their way to temples or work. But the best sight yet was that of a middle aged woman on her scooter, helmet neatly fastened, whizzing out of the wholesale market yard with sacks of fresh produce jiggling pillion with her.

Our family visit was exploratory, armed with sketchy information about the village – Kamakshipuram – where my husband’s grandfather had donated the sale proceeds of his land to the village temple when the family relocated to Mumbai about seven decades ago. Thanks to an enterprising taxi driver, enthusiastic postmaster of the village and friendly villagers we found the temple and made contact with a resident who has now created a trust to manage the temple.

Just standing there on that piece of earth and interacting with those residents who had a shared ancestry with my family gave me a sense that this was no coincidence, it was meant to be. If anyone had told me that this is how you feel when you walk on your ancestral land I would have probably laughed off the very idea of it. But now I had experienced it.

In her book Anatomy of the Soul, author Carolyn Myss says that the first energy vortex in the human body also known as the Mooladhara in Sanskrit, located in the coccyx, connects us to tribal power. “When we share belief patterns with groups of people we participate in energy and physical events created by those groups. Given the power of unified beliefs – right or wrong - it is difficult to be at variance with one’s tribe. We are taught to make choices that meet with tribal approval, to adopt its social graces, manner of dress, and attitudes. Symbolically, this adaptation reflects the union of individual willpower with group willpower. ..Such a union empowers us so long as we make choices consonant with the group’s.”

A tribe is a powerful force. We are claimed by our tribe before we begin to lay any claim on ourselves. Yet, growing up our sense of identity is chiselled in opposing the tribal beliefs – i.e. those which do not resonate with us at a personal level at that point in our lives. It can be as superficial as wearing clothes that are trendy as opposed to the traditional attire of your community or as big as making a different choice in sexual preferences.

On one level even as we go about the business of living we are walking the universal human journey of becoming conscious of our individual power and how to use that power. In effect, as Myss says, becoming conscious of the responsibility inherent in the power of choice. This invariably leads us down the path of the road less travelled and brings us in conflict with the tribal beliefs.

I like to think that this often leads us to exercise our ‘won’t’ power in some major and other minor issues that we routinely grapple with. How we resolve these conflicts at every bend in the road constitutes the story of our individual lives.

It is the opening up of this power of choice/ consciousness that we plug into every time we hear a voice that says:  “Oh! But this is not the way we do it in our family/ caste/ community/ country.”

 Or, “you think everybody else is a fool and only you know how to do/ cook/ organise/ write/ solve this?”

Or, “but this is India/ US/ UK - rules are different here!”

 Or, “why do you need to do this when someone else has already been there and done it before you?”

These lines are our clue to take centre stage in our own lives and exercise choice. And at the same time to take one more meaningful step in the journey of our soul’s consciousness.

So, where are you at on this long road trip? Me; I choose won’t power sometimes but know that will power is OK too if it feels right for me at the point that I am at. Either way, I make my choice and who says I can’t change it in the next 10 minutes?

What do we celebrate when we celebrate?

What do we celebrate when we celebrate? Birth, marriage, engagements, growing young, growing old?

I imagine a time eons ago when civilization was birthed, settlements along waterways were forming, clans and the concept of kinship were evolving and so what we celebrated was birth of human life and what sustained it. We celebrated harvest festivals when we consecrated the food that nourished us to the Maker who helped us produce it.

So what is it we celebrate when we celebrate …birthdays, for example? For the longest time in our life birthdays are about the gifts we covet, food we relish, in locations we desire with people who are a part of our life at the stage that it is at. In the beginning it is parents and siblings, as we grow up it is with friends and as we grow away from family it is with friends and colleagues.

Is each celebration an expanded template of the previous one with perhaps the original being a template of the communal idea of celebration?

When would we know if we are happy in the celebration of the celebration? I imagine we know that we already know, although we are slow to acknowledge it. The same as in life, the same as in every choice we make. And that’s why Robert Frost’s poem hits home:

The Gift Outright

BY ROBERT FROST

The land was ours before we were the land’s.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

I suspect it’s not just that we withhold ourselves from the land of the living; we withhold ourselves from ourselves.

Those parts of ourselves that are too uncomfortable to acknowledge how about we embrace those as the whole of us?

The child that I am still hungry for being touched; the girl that I am wanting to flaunt my being; the young adolescent that I am wanting to lead and the woman that I became refusing to acknowledge each of these.

So, what if I could just let go of the withholding and finally be just me? Oh! what a celebration that would be!