I wrote this piece a few months ago for a National Story Slam organized by a “Spoken Word Forum” called Kommune. My story didn’t make it to the finals, coz’ there were so many other awesome storytellers out there with touching stories. Nevertheless, I thought I should share my story here on my blog. Especially, coz its been quite a while since I ‘blogged’. This story is special, coz’ its about my name. My ‘maiden’ name, also my only name. I have received flak from many people for not changing my name after I got married. But having lived with a name for three decades, it becomes your identity. So, we recently went to a showroom to look at a car that we were considering buying and the salesperson was questioning me as to why I hadn’t changed my name despite being married. It’s amazing how absolute strangers take the liberty to question my decisions. I smiled at the salesperson. For how can I change mindsets that have been nurtured over many generations.
Coming back to the story I wrote, here it is: (Let me know what you think!)
“My surname is spelt m-o-r-a-y, not m-o-r-e; I clarified, as I stood at the administrator’s desk at my new workplace in this new city, Mumbai. Finally, I had come to live in Mumbai. No, it wasn’t the city of my dreams or anything. It was the city that spoke my language, my mother tongue, Marathi. It was also the city of my soon-to-be-favorite dish: Misal Pav. I couldn’t speak to the office staff in Marathi though, for I was conscious that ‘my’ Marathi was very different from theirs. I could understand every word of the banter around me, but I just couldn’t speak like them. I wondered why. In response, my mind transported me into a day dream where warriors were galloping away on horses and a smooth caravan moved behind them. This was the picture that my mind painted, every time I wondered why we spoke Marathi at home, but had lived in Karnataka for most of our lives. ‘Our’ Marathi was adulterated with at least three southern Indian languages. The galloping warriors that I mentioned were my ancestors by the way, migrating from Maharashtra to Karnataka in style, all those centuries ago!
I’ve never really experienced an identity issue as a child/adolescent because I wasn’t unwelcome in Bengaluru. I spoke their language, Kannada and even looked like a local. It was only when I moved to Mumbai, at the age of 28, did I realize how different my life would’ve been, had my ancestors never migrated! I may have spoken Marathi very differently, probably grown up worshipping Shivaji Maharaja, who was hardly ever mentioned in my almost Southern Indian household. It was weird that our Maharashtrian-descent family home didn’t have a single image or mini-statue of this person, who was supposedly instrumental in mixing up the cultures of generations of ex-Maharashtrians! The one time he came up, was when I threw a teenage tantrum. At the tender and slightly turbulent age of 13, I badly wanted to know, where we were originally from. I whined to my father, “Why does everyone have a native ‘ooru’ or native village, while we don’t?? Why do all my friends get to spend their summer vacation in exotic rural farmlands, while we are stuck here in the city??” Most of our immediate relatives on my maternal and paternal side, lived in Bengaluru, and all of them spoke the same adulterated Marathi, that we did. To this whine of mine, my ‘bappa’ told me that he had had similar questions when he was young. And while he tried his best to trace the family roots, he found out that the family name had its origins from the word ‘mohara’ or ‘seal’ and signified the ‘seal-bearers’ who worked for Shivaji Maharaja. So, our great-great-great grandfathers’ must’ve served the Maharashtrian icon at some point of time. And while Shivaji came down south to conquer these regions, so did his accomplices. That is supposedly how we ended up here. Our ancestors decided never to return, either because they liked their new found home better or they were too lazy or tired to go back. Nevertheless, here I was decades and centuries later, questioning their decisions (talk about irony!).
Moving to Mumbai in 2018, made me reflect a lot more on migration. I had migrated my way back to what might have been the home of my ancestors. Come to think of it, we as a family had retained some hand-me-down rituals and words that seemed to come back to me, here in Mumbai. The grandeur with which we made modak for Ganesh Chaturthi (we called it kanole, though) and the red cloth with mango-leaves in our angan (backyard) for Gudi Padwa; were in sync with what I saw here in Mumbai for these very festivals. This reminded me time and again that I was a person who had experienced a mixed and blended culture. I felt grateful somehow to my ancestors, for leaving parts of themselves behind, parts that stood the test of a long length of time. And parts that make me who I am today, a happy mix of a person who is rooted in two neighboring states. However, I have to live with the fact that my family name was misspelt, or rather spelt differently as compared to the rest of the local ‘More (ay)’ families here in Maharashtra. I’m glad though that one of my ancestors got the phonetics right! M-o-r-a-y please, not m-o-r-e!”
So, that was my story. This June it’ll be three years since I moved to Maharashtra. I’m learning new things, relearning my mother tongue, meeting new people and making new friends. I’ve tasted new new dishes and experienced a different culture over these years. Looking forward to more ‘acculturation’. Till then I hope the pandemic ends soon. Stay safe everyone. Keep those masks on (especially over your nose, not under!). And make sure all those who are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine get it! You can DM me if you have doubts on that regard!