What is in a name?

As I read this, my mind went back 23 years!

So, Rajeev, let me try it...Duh-MapriCar?

Thats good, Joe!

Oh, come on, stop patronizing me. I butchered it, didn't I? Teach me how to pronounce it.

All right, let's break it down. Dharma-Puri-Kar, So, you know how to say Dharma, right? from the new show Dharma and Greg on ABC?

Like, "Daarma?"

Alright, just aspirate that D...can you?

Getting an Anglophone to make the 'Dh' sound is as difficult as getting a whistling clean 'V' out of an Indian! Just as you are bound to get a nicely rounded 'W' from the Desi, you will get Either a 'D' or a 'Th' from the Yankee!

As the aphorism goes, let not the perfect be the enemy of good! So I lower the bar.

Can you say 'Karma'?

Sure .. I know that one. 'Karma'.

Good. Now replace the K with D!

Alright.. 'Darma'

Good! Now let's tackle the 'Puri'. Not Puree, not Poo-rye', say it like 'Jury' with 'P'

'Pu-ry'

Fantastic, last part is easy. Kar is simply pronounced like 'ker' in 'Harker', 'Prtizker' or, I know, 'Laker', the LA team! Now, let's put it all together.

Darma-Pury-Ker, Darmapuryker

That's perfect!

Darmapuryker, Rajeev Darmapuryker, Darmapuryker

You are going to wear it out Joe!

haha

haha

This conversation happened in 1997 with a friend, a gregarious, hefty guy with infectious laugh and an amazing intellect! He was a native born white American with all the qualities I had come to associate with the Americans. Curious, tenacious, generous. He had this tremendous grit that came wrapped in an affable/easygoing demeanor-another characteristic quality not commonly found on the east side of the Atlantic.

My America. Where innocence made ignorance endearing. Where openness and embrace was the norm. Where 'unfamiliar' was something to be explored, not feared.

You may say, I was living in a bubble. Maybe I was. But I want my bubble back. A bubble where differences are neither steamrolled nor politicized, but are simply acknowledged and tucked away. I want to be able to walk into a barbershop full of people with totally different life experiences and discuss the 'Hemi' inside someone's new pickup; or talk about that one time someone had Samosa. I ALSO want to have my friend Emma wear a bindi and not be accused of 'cultural appropriation'. (And put the same Bindi on that vacuum chamber in the lab and name it 'Sushmita')

I do not want to be othered. Neither by telling me to 'go back where I came from' nor by 'boxing' me in anyone's identity politics. I want the 'Right' to embrace and accept me and the 'Left' to be cool with me, and not walk on eggshells when around me.

I also want the American optimism come back roaring. I want the loss of innocence reversed, or at least, replaced with the wisdom that comes out of awareness!

That is my Diwali wish.