What's in the name?

“You have got a perfect name, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Said her father reassuringly. For Aomame her name had been a constant point of botheration of her school life. Not only it always came first – as it started from A – but it also made her classmates as well as teachers burst into a fit of laughter as they tried to pronounce it.

Clearly, a name lifted from a towering Japanese author’s intriguing work of fiction 1Q84 – did not go that well for a small town girl in India. However, her father had been an iconoclast – and followed his rebel heart while naming his daughter. The fact that she lost her mother, right at her birth, also might have been one of the reasons his father could have his own way and gave her a name that she would grow to resent.

As years passed she grew more and more uncomfortable with her name. Ideas to change it several times crossed her mind but every time the effort of changing all the documents that are attached to oneself seemed too much.

“What were you thinking when you finalized my name?”  “Had you seen the movie namesake a night before I was born?”  “If mom were there, she would have never approved of such an out of place name.” Thus ran her frequent angry arguments with her dad. Her dad used to calmly reply, every time that her name was kept after the name of a heroine of a wonderful novel and that the character was very powerful. He even suggested she reads the book, however, the size of the book daunted her and she never picked it up.

Years passed, not easily for Aomame- at every juncture, every new meeting, she would feel shortchanged when introducing herself. It was as if, she was pulled back at the start of a sprint by a good few yards! Her frustration only grew with her age.

She eventually married a guy her father had chosen for her. Once during their conversation, he innocuously asked, “what does you name mean, by the way?” – She retorted harshly asking him not to repeat this question ever again. “My name is a part of my life that I don’t want to share with anyone, so please don’t ever ask my anything about it again.”

Her husband was taken aback by this vehement response, he realized that this was perhaps a result of anger accumulated over the years and needed a different treatment. He resolved that he will do something that will make her love and remember her name fondly.

Over the next few days, however, he observed she was keeping very occupied. When asked what she was busy with, she replied, “there is a lot of work at the office, and I am running on a tight deadline, so just busy with it.” He left it at that and started thinking what he can do in order to appease his wife’s long-standing grievance.

After a few days, an idea struck him – he got her name tattooed on his arm. When he came home, he told, slowly rolling up his sleeve, “I have something to show you, it has been on my mind for very long – and I wasn’t quite sure what I could do…. but here it is now. I want you to know that names in themselves have no meaning unless we give them any. And this is a small step to represent the multitudes of meaning your name carries for me.”

She looked at him in disbelief, and handed a new copy of the government issued identity card - showing her new name!

     >Concept borrowed from “Gift of Magi” by O’Henry

Book Review The course of Love – Alain De Botton

The course of Love – Alain De Botton

“Our understanding of love has been hijacked and beguiled by its first distractingly moving moments. We have allowed our love stories to end way too early. We seem to know far too much about how love starts and recklessly little about how it might continue.” That we concentrate far too much on beginning and far too little about the continuance of love is reflected in a question

the couple is bound to be asked, “How did you two meet?”

In this book, Alain De Botton takes us through the progress of love through a story of a couple.

Rabih and Kirsten are young professionals when they first met. Enamored by each other, after a brief courtship they decided to explore the meaning of a vague phrase, “happily ever after”. That’s where this story begins. The story revolves around touchstones of a marriage from infatuation, irreconcilable desires, challenges of raising kids etc. They understand the harrowing amounts of energy it takes to sustain and blossom a household through routine life. Lead characters of this story serve as extended case study for the author – who keeps up with his style of extended commentary on what is going on with his characters.

For example difference of opinion, between the two over which set of tumblers to buy for kitchen, ideal room temperature at night, how early should one leave for a party, positioning of blinds on window, etc. provide us a useful insight that these seemingly silly things are actually just the loose threads that tie back to the fundamental contrasts of their persona which requires better recognition and reconciliation.

It also brings out how crucial it is to be able to communicate better, author hints that were Rabih or Kirsten better communicators – one of them might have told the other in response to insistence for over punctuality that “Leaving early, is ,in the end, a symptom of fear. In a world of randomness and surprises, it is a technique I have developed to ward off anxiety and an unholy unnamable sense of dread. I want to be on time (in fact a little ahead of it) same way others lust for power and form a similar drive for security.”

The story moves on and we see other sides of their marital bliss, the sulks resulting out of their differences or their conjoined exploration of each other’s bodies. Here too, through an intricate example where Rabih mentioned that a particular young waitress crossed his mind while having intercourse with Kirsten, the author helps us tease out something very important about marriage. Rabih acts defensive and ashamed at a weirdness of his thoughts whereas Kirsten, furious at first and judgmental later- frowns at the presence of someone else even in Rabih’s fantasies.

In an alternative, better communicating versions of lead characters this scenario might have played out differently per author. Rabih might have been able to square up to Kirsten with his desires like a natural scientist holding up for colleague’s inspection some newly discovered, peculiar looking species which both of them might strive to understand and accommodate themselves to.  And Kirsten in response might have told “the nature of this particular daydream is foreign, unfamiliar and frankly not a little disgusting to me; but I am interested in hearing about it nonetheless because more important than my relative comfort is my ability to cope with who you are. I will never be able to do or be all that you want –and vice-versa but I would like to think we can be the sort of people who will dare to tell each other who we really are. The alternative is silence and lies – which are real enemies of love.

Sadly in the novel, Rabih and Kirsten just move on to things that give instant gratification – by going to a movie and then a dinner, rather than engaging with each other and thereby quelling any chance of understanding weird byways of their psyches.  

As we go further this book it turns to parenthood and children. What children have to offer us about understanding love is amazing. William, their son, for example- is pleased by rudimentary things that as grown-ups we have forgotten to enjoy. Author’s excellent description makes for a heartwarming reading, he writes, “William is an enthusiast of a class of uncomplicated things which have, unfairly, become boring to adults; like a great artist; he is a master at renewing his audience’s appreciation of the so-called minor sides of life.” Further, he adds for parenting that, “The role of being a good parent brings with it one large and very tricky requirement: to be the constant bearer of deeply unfortunate news. The good parent must be the defender of a range of child’s long-term interests, which are by nature entirely impossible for the child to envisage, let alone assent cheerfully. Out of love, parents must gird themselves to speak of clean teeth, tidy rooms, bedtimes, generosity and limits to computer usage. Out of love, they must adopt the guise of bores with a hateful and maddening habit of bringing up unwelcome facts about existence just when the fun is really starting. And as a result of these subterranean loving acts, good parents must, if things have gone well, end up as the special targets of intense resentment and indignation.”

De Botton excels in Montaigne-like close observations of the routine and banal aspects of life, such as lost car keys, professional anxieties, burdens and boredoms of child rearing etc. While he may not be the kind of great novelists one knows like Flaubert Gustav, Rabindranath Tagore or Tolstoy – in an age troubled with shortage of time, lack of patience and ever increasing need for speed he is surely one of the most useful ones!!   

The present book provides a useful perspective on how love is not just an emotion but also a skill that needs to be developed over one’s lifetime.

è Italicized portions are from the book