"I like the name Imran"

"Imran? Isn’t that a Muslim name? Why do all the cool boy’s names have to be Muslim? My parents will never go for it."

 

 

This is the type of discussion that was heard around our Manhattan apartment one month before the birth of our first son and my indoctrination into fatherhood. Prior to having children, I had come across this retrofitting need for meeting the previous generation cultural expectations when planning our wedding. We had to cross and dot all the proverbial T’s and I’s during that one and now, picking the first born grandson’s name was the next challenge in crossing the generational cultural gap.

I often question why my parents’ cultural standards and iron-willed shouldering of their heritage did not transfer over to me in full. The sub-continental pride is strong inside me; after all, I helped to start-up Basement Bhangra, studied Indian art history at NYU and had a lot of desi friends. There is a very clear difference in the way that my Dad’s generation and mine manifest our culture. The older generation seems to do it as the defense of a position that is under attack by modern values, westernization, globalization and whatever else seems to be on TV. My generation, on the other hand; seems to have a more renaissance-like attitude. We are discovering our "desi-ness" in our own context and interpreting and re-interpreting it as we see fit. We emerge out of our ABCD fog with a clear link in the cultural chain.

So, when it came time for us to bring the next generation into the world, the cultural crockpot that had been slow-cooking for two generations was boiling over with values, identities and definitions. Picking a Muslim name seemed like just the right thing. We also had practical concerns such as the name had to be easy to spell, phonetic in english and short (the last name Bhattacharya is already the maximum length allowed on the SAT exam form, no need for further #2 pencil fatigue before the test even starts!). Somehow though, we both knew that name was a misfit and our gut feeling moved us in a new direction, which also excluded not only Imran, Sharukh and Salman, but also the Ronaldo, Max and the very hippy, surprise finalist, Sage.

The explicit notion of being South Asian and how it impacts the way I live came into focus during that introspective period in college when you have the luxury of time to think about these things. It suddenly came into focus again as a father, declaring responsibility for my sons and their cultural well-being. There is really not a lot in my kids’ day that is culturally South Asian. Unlike my own childhood where I spent summers in Calcutta being shuffled from my father’s family to my mother’s family, my kids go to Queens and Staten Island to see their Nana and Thamma. So I find us making up for the structurally non-cultural events that we want for our kids, (toddler gyms, music classes, play dates, etc.) with a smattering of digestible bits of the "old country," small enough for a 2 year old: Food, daal, steamed rice and some Bengali fish curry courtesy of my mother. and prayers, start the day with a pranam of Ganesh’s feet. Traditions, such as the annaprasan (rice ceremony), are other events that we hold dear for our children and share with our friends and family. I think as my sons grow up, we will continue to find more and more ways to introduce them to where we came from.