Oh Na Na..What's My Name?

When Rihanna croons ‘Oh Na Na What’s my name?’ our desi Sheila could probably medley
in without much difficulty singing ‘My name is Sheila’, the name having an Irish counterpart.
However, Chikni Chameli ,Jalebi Bai or Anarkali will not have the same fortune. They will have
a little bit of explaining to do, if their names are to be pronounced correctly in the West. This is
what happens to most of us who medley the East with the West by migrating here, but bringing
with us the influences of our eastern origins, one of the most prominent among them  -  our
names.

About a century back, the Assamese litterateur Lakhinath Bezbarua created a character
named Molok Guin Guin. This character was of an anglicized Indian man who had changed
his name from Moloku Gogoi to Molok Guin Guin to make it sound more western. The
character was part of his satirical writing, mocking the westernization of Indians .This feeling
is held probably until this day. I remember growing up hearing instances of people who had
changed their names after landing in America. Few common transitions are Krishnakant to
Kris, anything starting with Dev (Devakamal, Devabrata, etc) to Dave. All such references
had some intonation of ridicule in the conversation. My father would jokingly say, let’s change
our last name to Barrow referring to the Chatterjees( formerly Chottopadhyay), Mukherjees
(Mukhopadhyay), Handiques (Shondigoi),etc

A Walk To Remember

Little unstable steps in black Bata Ballerina or Naughty Boy shoes, with hand-kerchiefs folded into wedges and pinned on the chest; little hearts make their first trip across the length of road that will become part and parcel of their lives. That is how the first day of school was like for most of us who grew up in the quaint little town of pines, Shillong.

Most of the major schools in Shillong are on the stretch of road between the bus-stops of Dhankheti and Beat House. St Peter's, Loreto, St. Anthony's, St. Edmunds, St. Mary's and St.Margaret’s are all almost adjacent to each other, separated only by the arterial roads to get to them. Three of these schools are boys' schools and the other three are girls' schools and all but one is not named after a patron saint of the same gender as students it admits. (Here is an exercise in data sufficiency for you …go figure!). So the common ground where these young generations of Shillong meet is on this road. This is also the stretch of road that connects to several major residential areas. Hence, for the students of these schools, this is the road they traverse daily for at least fourteen years of their lives, from kindergarten to high school. Barely 1.5km in stretch , this road remains no more just a road, but a throbbing repository of countless memories- friendly banter, drenching rain and a breeding ground for Shillong's innocent romances.

To Err Is Human, To Confess Divine?

I was about seven or eight years old when I did something that still awakens a guilty conscience. We lived in a house which had big windows with draping rods at two levels, which was common in Shillong. The higher rod was for the heavier curtain which was drawn at night and opened during daytime. The lower rod was placed in the middle, and used to drape net curtains which remained drawn during the day. They allowed visibility from inside while averting curious strangers from playing peek-a-boo with the dwellers. From basic white nets in the tin houses (houses that were very modest and had flattened mustard-oil tin containers nailed to the exterior for protection against the vagaries of weather) to ones with intricate patterns and vivid hues in the bungalows, every house had these. In the local lingo they were called half-curtains or half-purdah and the local Marwari businessmen made fortunes out of selling them.

Accents and Beyond: Of Aces and Full-Stops

A couple years back while my peer Ben was trying to debug a code, he said " It's a bad ace". When I looked at him quizzically, he said ," Oh, its just a bad a$$ in a North Carolina accent"  and I burst out in laughter. It was only after interacting with Ben for quite some time that the NC accent was making sense to me. He would often say in good humor ," Look at an Indian girl and a Turkish girl (my friend Susan) making fun of MY accent ".

After we had just moved to the US I had accompanied Tridib to Cary, NC when he had to go there for a training program. At the hotel, I asked the receptionist the directions to the gym twice, but couldn't understand a single word of what she said in her heavy southern accent. The only thing I could make out from her gestures was that the gym was up the hill we could see from the hotel. To save myself from embarassment, I walked outside, went up the hill and came back after sometime.

Cook for your mom!!!

When she was born the first words that were uttered were 'Kynthei  Kynthei' which in the local Khasi language of Shillong meant 'girl girl'. Her mother's heart had finally found solace. She was born after three sons, the last of whom had died as an infant. The little boy's death had left her mother besieged with grief. Especially since she had not felt much happiness at his birth, as she was really expecting a daughter after two sons. I was born.

Why was I born as a girl?

Does any girl still need to ask that question? The answer is yes!

April 2, 2011 -  I searched by the key-word " India" in the CNN website to check how they had reported India's Cricket World Cup victory, and was happy to see the video report from Alex Thomas - yes India was Shining! My search also brought up another article which didn't quite depict the same picture - the 2011 census reported an alarming drop in the percentage of girls among India's pre-schoolers. For every 1,000 boys aged up to 6 years old, the report counted 914 girls, a drop from 927 a decade ago - the lowest ratio since India gained independence in 1947, according to the preliminary census.

In this 21st Century, where human achievement culminates in a new peak every day, why are we still struggling with our own minds? Why can't the basics be set right?

Sharing a scribbling from my angry young woman days at Cotton College, Guwahati (1997)

When my daughter changed her sex....all hell broke loose....not really...

When she came to our household, she fulfilled the wish for a much needed daughter. She was calm and gentle, just the way most girls naturally are, as opposed to my rambunctious boy. My friend Susan, had found her abandoned and we decided to adopt her into our family. She was only about three months old at that time. Her name underwent a transition from Minosh ( the Turkish name that Susan had given her) to Mini, and she was finally christened as Missy, or so we thought. She completed our family of four  - My husband, Max, Missy and I. Yes, I am talking about my grey tabby cat.