If my name was a regular word, even a highly reputed thesaurus would fail! No synonyms! No antonyms! Pretty much my experience when trying to find meanings for my name. When I learned that there are twenty-two official languages in India, my face lit up. Had I had hit the jackpot? Soon, however, I had exhausted Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Telugu, and Tamil with just one result in hand. Friendship or friendly. This was it! How frustrating! Mythri (pronounced as My three) is used as a girl’s name and it is used to represent friendly relations. I tried my luck with “Mithra,” a variation of Mythri used for boys. There are more boys in the world, right? So would I have better luck? Nope! In Persian mythology, Mithra was the god of light and friendship. Again, friendship. How interesting! The Persian race and the Indian race are related. Early in my childhood, I guess when I was in preschool, I asked my mother to explain the meaning of my name. My mother always told me, “Your name means friendship. Be friendly and be sure to make a lot of friends.” Ever since, I have embraced this as my motto in life.
I changed quite a few schools before I reached middle school. Odd, for such a friendly and unique name, I never came across another Mythri! “Are there interesting stories to match the uniqueness of my name?” I asked my mom and dad. Most Indian names were names of gods and goddesses. I was prepared for a mind-numbing story along those lines. Let me just say that I wasn’t disappointed.
The first time my mom told me her story of my name, it fell short of my expectations. Something about the first meeting between Rajiv Gandhi and Mikhail Gorbachev. Who were these characters anyway? I had never heard or read of any of these people. My name being related to any of these folks was just about as interesting as watching paint dry. How drab! I tuned out. When desperation kicked in a few days later, I swallowed my pride and asked mom to repeat her story again. This time I took notes. My mom had heard the word Mythri for the first time on TV when Mr. Gorbachev visited India for the first time. His meeting with the then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, was a huge celebrity event. Rajiv Gandhi was the young, dynamic leader of a huge democracy and the son of the first woman prime minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. He was making bold changes in the Indian economy. Mikhail Gorbachev was the leader of the Soviet Union who was making changes to help his country transition towards democracy. The words ‘Mythri Sambandh’ (pronounced as SUM as in the arithmetic operation; BUN like the bread; DH as in dharma) was all over the TV and the newspapers. What did those words mean? “Friendly relations,” my mom explained. Like all the other kids, my mom, too, had caught the Mythri Sambandh fever. It was the word “Mythri” that seemed to stick in her memory. “Why did the word fascinate you?” I asked my mom. “It was unique. It described friendly relations between two countries which were making colossal changes in their economies,” she explained. “The word seemed to forecast a positive and prosperous future for both countries,” she said nostalgically.
After hearing this story, I was disappointed. This was it? The famous history behind my name is about two old men? No, fortunately, there was another more interesting story. While the first story brought back inspirational childhood memories, the second story brought tears to my mom’s eyes. My grandfather was working in Calcutta, and a girl named Mythri was my mother’s BFF. She was Bengali speaking, was shorter than my mom, had big brown eyes, and had black hair that reached her waist. My mom couldn’t say whether it was Mythri’s bubbly personality or her special name that made them friends. They went to the same school, jointly battled the math and physics homework problems, spent countless hours playing Scrabble, and enjoyed sneaking out together for a quick snack on the famous street food of Calcutta. “The fun of Diwali firecrackers wasn’t the same without Mythri’s company,” said my mom. Everything’s good until it goes bad. During one of the school debate tournaments, my mom and Mythri ended up on opposing teams. My mom never told me which team won. Alas! Defeat did not go well with the losing party. The best friends started growing apart. Both girls knew that they were being petty. But, teenage egos got in the way of apologies. That summer my mom’s family moved to Hyderabad when my grandfather was transferred to another job. The once best friends parted without mending fences. Tears rolled down my mom’s cheeks as she narrated this story. “Don’t let pettiness come in the way of friendship. Ever!” she said. “Forgive and forget. Remember that,” she said. I am glad my mom thinks of her friend whenever she calls me.
After listening to my mother’s story, I turned to my father. My father grew up in a town that had a huge steel manufacturing industrial factory. The town did not offer much. My father’s family lived in an area away from where the executives of the factory lived. In this part of the town, the streets were dusty and not paved, the schools were not as good, and there were no parks for the kids to play. My grandfather worried about not being a good provider. One Friday evening, he returned from work in unusually high spirits.
"Tomorrow, pack a good lunch and snacks," he told my grandma.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"On a picnic!" he replied.
One would expect the kids to shriek in delight. But, my dad, his brother and his sister had frozen expressions. "Is he ok? We've never been to a picnic as a family," the siblings whispered amongst themselves. No more questions were asked. My grandpa is not the most talkative person. The next morning, everyone suppressed their curiosity and timidly followed my grandpa as they walked for a good twenty minutes. Nobody seemed to complain about the heavy, food laden bags. Finally! They had arrived. A huge sign atop the huge gates read "Mythri Baagh." (The Baa is pronounced as Ba in bark and the Gh pronounced as in ghastly. Baagh means park/garden in Hindi.) My dad and his siblings dropped the bags and made a mad dash into the park. That certainly wasn't an unexpected reaction to a first visit to a park! A huge circular area filled with lawn grass greeted them. There were beautiful flowering plants interleaved with stone benches on the periphery of this area. Beyond this was a play area filled with swings, slides, monkey bars, and other good stuff. My dad spotted some boys riding bicycles in circular track to the left of the play area. He looked longingly at them. "Would you like to ride one?" my grandpa asked as if he was reading my dad's mind. "Yes, but we don't have one,” my dad replied in a dejected tone. Nothing more was spoken about this issue. The kids spent the entire day playing on the swings, playing tag, and stuffing food into their mouths. The best weekend ever! But more surprises followed. Over the next few weekends, my grandpa rented out a bicycle. A new routine was established for the evenings. Homework completion, dinner, and then off to Mythri Baagh for bicycling lessons. Over time, my dad made so many new friends at Mythri Baagh. He offered them free homework help in return for riding time on their bicycle. My grandfather couldn't afford to buy a bicycle until later. This barter system worked out well for my dad. Very soon, his "Mythri Baagh" friends started visiting him at home seeking help with schoolwork. My dad and his friends realized that the shady benches of Mythri Baagh were better places to study for final exams than the hot and muggy rooms at home. It was also a good place to fly kites during cool winter afternoons. Years later, one summer evening, when my dad was in his final year of high school, his kite flying session was interrupted. "Your mom is here. She is hollering for you,” informed his friends. My dad flushed with embarrassment. Not the ideal place for mom to come looking for a grown boy. "What is it?" he asked her as he ran towards her and stopped her from coming closer to his friends. She had some papers in her hand. "A university acceptance letter has arrived for you," she said in a nervous tone. My dad read through the papers his mom had handed him. My granny stood next to him, stone cold with anxiety. "Is it a good one?" she asked. "Yes. A very very good one,” replied my dad with a smile slowly spreading across his face. That is all she needed to know. She did not understand the nitty gritty of university rankings. If her son was happy, she was. As they walked back home, my dad looked up. "Mythri Baagh! You've made my day," he said aloud. He got nostalgic as he realized how many good things had happened to him at this park.
After listening to the stories, I asked my parents, “I am guessing Mythri was the only name that you both had in mind. Right?” They smiled at each other and said, “No.” “Mythri was the favorite frontrunner while Sindhu was a distant second,” said my mother. Sindhu (pronounce dh as in dharma) is the Indian name for the river Indus. “Actually Sindhu never stood a chance. So Mythri it was,” said my father. I thought to myself, “I am glad that they chose Mythri over Sindhu. Friendship is much more cheerful than the Indus River, which has too much history attached to it.” My parents were faced with the dilemma of finding a suitable spelling. One that would help people pronounce my name correctly. After polling a lot of their American friends, they zeroed in on Mythri and not Maithri.
My friends have interesting opinions about my name. My friend Persia says that she likes my name because in Farsi, mithra also means friend. My other friend Emily, who cannot pronounce the “th” in Mythri, says that my name sounds like “My tree.” She often calls me an oak tree. Some of my other friends say that when they see my name spelled out, they are reminded of a myth. People who say my name for the first time actually often pronounce my name the same way that myth is pronounced.
So many interesting discoveries. The same meaning for my name in multiple languages! I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that meaning in Farsi was close to the Indian meaning. It got me thinking if the two races were related. I had read that the Aryans had migrated to India. Did they also migrate to Persia? Prior to this assignment, I never realized how many people the word Mythri had touched emotionally. It had changed an aloof man like my grandpa to a warm and loving father. I never knew that my dad, who is usually as cool as a cucumber, could get so emotional about a park! I am grateful to the research for having exposed me to events in Indian history that I would never learn in any history book. I found it amusing that some of my friends relate my name to abstract things like oak trees and myths that are completely unrelated to the meaning of my name. At first, I was embarrassed that I was named after a park. But I felt so much better after seeing Life of Pi, a movie in which the protagonist was named after a swimming pool.
I myself love my name, and I am never in danger of being confused with anyone else. In a school of hundreds of kids, it is very common to find Anna’s, Riya’s or Mary’s. BUT ONLY ONE MYTHRI! True to my name, I always cherish my friendship with my dear friends from my early childhood and always like to make new friends. I am proud to have a name that carries such an important meaning.