What's in a Name?
'I said, bow,' Voldemort said, raising his wand - and Harry felt his spine
curve as though a huge, invisible hand was bending him ruthlessly forwards...'
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
My parents named my Sharanya after my birth. I’ve always loved my name
and have hated it when people butchered it over the years! Anyone who calls me
Saranya has been subject to my death stare and immense contempt. But it would
take me nearly thirty years to fully realize every syllable of my beautiful
name.
Years earlier, when I’d discovered the magic of the
search engine Google, I remember searching for “Sharanya name meaning”. For the
most part Google’s results told me what I already knew. The meaning of
the name ‘Sharanya’ was Goddess Durga. But there was one site
that mentioned that ‘Sharanya’ also meant ‘surrender’. And I immediately hated
it. HATED
IT. I’ve been a rebel in my own
way and conforming was never my style. And discovering my name meant
‘surrender’ was exasperating. I choose to look over it and never acknowledge
that it my name also meant ‘surrender’.
Cut to years later, after I became a Shivbakt it was inevitable that I
would embrace Shaktism too. Along with it came a deep longing to visit a few
Shakithi Peeths. But the one place I craved to visit first was Kalighat. In
March 2016, I had an opportunity to visit Kolkata with my sister. To say the
least, I was thrilled!!! I’d
generally heard over the years, that it’s difficult to get darshan and one
usually undergoes endless hassle by touts. So to prep myself I spent hours on the Internet to arm myself
with information to make our visit as smooth as possible. Of the many articles
and blog posts I read, I particularly liked http://www.kalibhakti.com where the author had described in
detail about the temple and the Goddess. I took notes, saved several pictures
and almost memorized the temple’s layout. But there was one particular location
in the temple called ‘harikhat’,
and I scoffed at the author’s action at the harikhat.
Soon it was time for our trip to.
On March 24th 2016, my sister and I took an early morning flight
from Chennai to Kolkata. Day one of the trip was non-stop fun of exploring this
old world city and gorging on fine Kolkata delicacies. 25th March
was the day we had planned to visit Kalighat and to ensure we beat the crowds,
we were there before 6:30 am for our darshan. It turned out to be such a
blissful hour of devotion and ecstasy, where my name revealed itself and added meaning
to my entire life, instead of me trying to learn my name’s meaning.
After a wonderful darshan of equal parts anticipation and exhilaration
filled heart-pounding moments in in front of the Goddess, we walked around and
reached harikhat, where I found myself transfixed before the U-shaped wooden structure. I
was finally standing in front of the famed harikhat straight through which I
could view the Goddess across the natmandir.
And within the next milli-second, my head, neck and back automatically
bent down. And in that precious fraction of a second, I completely understood
why I am called Sharanya. It came as an invisible wind of divine
destiny.
I would later compare my physical act of bowing to Harry’s moment before
his duel with Voldemort, when he is forced to bow. Only difference was, what I felt
was the invisible hand of God blessing me and revealing my purpose. Beyond time, space and mortal understanding is Gods’ will. For that I
would gladly surrender.
Comments
Post a Comment