What's in a name?

The words "warrior" and "rose" have special meanings for me. "Warrior" is part of my name. Coming from a good Catholic family, my mother named me after a saint -- Saint Gertrude. What she didn't know was that Saint Gertrude was a German saint. She only knew that Gertrude was a saint with a nice name and that was good enough for her to give it to her youngest and only daughter to define both my Indian and Catholic heritage.

It was only as a young adult that I made it a point to find out what the name meant. That was when I became aware of my "German" heritage, and then I was nicely surprised. Gertrude in German means "Strong Spear" or "Spear Maiden" and in some variations, "Warrior Maiden". You know, how the thinking might have gone at that time: If a woman is associated with a spear, she must be warriorlike!

If my mother knew the meaning of the name, I think, she wouldn't have given it to me. No girl child of hers was going to be warriorlike, bearing a strong spear! O, no! Not a girl. Indian girls do not grow up to be warriors and spear-carriers. They grow up to be wives and mothers -- even if they were smart and capable and had careers and were independent -- and attain sainthood through that route. But a spear-bearer? A warrior? Never.

My mum never knew what mantle she laid on me with the name because I never told her. I don't know how she would have taken it. But, knowing her, she would have sat down, a slight smile playing around her lips at the irony of her mistake, and said very slowly, "Aiyo, I made a mistake!" in the typical sing-song way of spoken Malayalam. But, she would have hoped that the Catholic part of the heritage would still have gotten a hold of me. If I had told her that the German, Gertrude, became a saint because of her great love for Jesus Christ because of which she became one of very few people on Earth who had the privilege of seeing Him, that would have turned the smile into a broad grin -- that she did me good after all!

As a young woman, I didn't want anyone to know what my name meant. Especially the young men. If they asked, I would tell them about the "saint" part and coolly left out the "spear and warrior" part! I mean, I wanted dates! Not frighten them off. But, maybe, I lived up to my name, because dates were always few!


As I grew older, I liked the idea of a warrior attached to my name. A warrior is a star, burning bright in the night sky. With millions together, they scorch the night, crushing the dark, illuminating yearning souls looking upwards in a halo of hope. Their interminable light is unstoppable reaching even the furthest remotest corner of Earth.

Warriors never waver. Wherever, whatever and whenever their battleground, they heave, stretch and push ahead standing up to invading armies, oppressive systems and sad conforming reality. They are unafraid to unsheath their swords when others cringe, cower and retreat. And they wield their weapons with the mastery of a craftsman, slaying demons and demi-gods in their stride and bringing insolent might to its knees. Warriors fight till they die. Yet, in death, they live on. Their bodies rot and mix with the earth, but their lives are indelibly etched in memory, shining examples of hope, possibility, triumph and survival against an ever overwhelming world of compromises and convenient expediencies.


Warriors are always larger than life. They are the Joans of Arc, the Indira Gandhis and the women in the food line who, in desperation, shamelessly throw proprietary to the wind and stretch out their hands for morsels of food for babies at their empty breasts. Warriors don't care how they look; they fight to live and leave their mark living. We hear of them off and on: the single mum, sacrificial father, retrenched husband, abused wife, estranged individual, exploited worker, marginalised maid, unyielding activist, indomitable politician who strove against the odds piled up against them, vanquished, rose and breathed, again. Fighters, survivors and trail-blazers -- warriors all.

These are the beautiful people of the world. They remind me of the red roses in my mother's garden. It was one of those pleasant memories I have of home. Home was a typical small-town house in Teluk Anson (now Teluk Intan) in Perak, Malaysia. It was a large solidly-built wooden house on concrete pillars. The floor of the house was raised on the pillars. A flight of long, lengthwise, concrete steps led to the verandah of the house. The sides of the steps were raised to form another step formation on it. So, we could sit on the long steps or the short elevated steps at the sides.


My mother had planted a red rose bush at the foot of the steps. It bore the reddest roses I have ever seen in my life. They were a bleeding red; in full bloom, they had the most lovely fragrance to send me dizzy. The memory of it is so strong that I can still get the fragrance of my mother's red roses. So powerful is it that it has influenced my preference for perfumes. I am allergic to perfumes, but give me a perfume with the original flavours of a full-bodied rose and you would placate my hyperactive sinuses!

As a little girl, I loved standing on the lowest of the raised steps and taking long, deep breaths of my mother's red roses. It was one of those things I did as a daily routine: to see if the rose bush bore blooms of rose fragrance I could inhale. If it did, you would see me standing on the last step, carefully cupping the rose with my fingers so as to avoid the thorns and drawing my nose to it and inhaling deeply. It was a moment of sheer sensory pleasure!


It was better on a dewy morning, or after a rain fall. Little drops of water remained on the leaves and the interwoven petals. Sometimes, you didn't see the droplets, but when you gently wipe the petals of the rose, you feel the moisture on your finger tips. And, somehow, against the freshness of a downpour and the damp greenery of my mother's garden, the roses were even more acutely scented.


My mother grew many plants, some of them were difficult to grow, like orchids. But her red roses were the best.


I guess it took someone like my mother to raise a warrior and a rose.

Warriors and roses. Individually, outstanding and grouped, a spectacle! Just imagine a group of warriors and a cluster of roses. Like the stars in the sky, flowers in the field and soldiers going for war. It is, indeed, a sight to behold!

Formidable, even unreachable -- from afar. But, to embrace them, you need to draw close and find a way to get around the thorns and the amoury of weapons they have strapped themselves with! Then, it is easy to disarm them, like the times I pinched off the thorns to get a fuller grasp of my mother's roses!

An unfortunate thing about warriors and roses is that you can't leave them with other equals. They either destroy or outshine you. A rose in a bouquet of carnations will push the latter to the background. A warrior in your midst will send everyone stepping out of the way!

But, put a rose with a warrior and you have a phenomenon!

Unlikely match! Incompatible! An improbable reality! I say, no. It is just a unique complement of contradictions co-existing peacefully. Just imagine a warrior like one of those he-men in the movie "300" holding a rose close to his chest. Incongruous? No. It's a powerful image -- an interaction of two unparallel icons in company, without cancelling out the other. Like twin stars. Like a blaze of black and white. Like East meeting West. Like technology leading development. Like modernization moving along with tradition. Like your past colliding with your present to blend with the future.

That's the thing about warriors and roses. They couldn't cancel the other out. They are too noble for that. Their very nobility protects the other. And that is the reason I chose the name for this blog. Together, a warrior and a rose, symbolize the possibility for contradictions to co-exist comfortably in modern times.

And that is what this blog is about. To feature thoughts even when they contradict, and, let them be.

Comments are most welcome! Oh, By the way, all subsequent blogs will not be this long!