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'Shree'-rendipity

Most people that I have met in life have found my name intriguing, enigmatic or colloquially what you call a 'jaw-breaker'. Therefore, much to my dissent, my name got conveniently shortened to 'Shreya' or 'Shrey'. It irked me majorly because 'Shreya' is also a different name within the Bengali culture. It felt like an imposition of a person or personality that I were not.

Over a period of time overstimulation forced me to accept the fait accompli until, a friend started using the word 'Shree' to address me affectionately. Intuitively, effortlessly and organically I felt like my personality fell in perfect symphony with being called 'Shree', so much so that, subconsciously, I also had started to address myself as 'Shree' soon afterwards.

Needless to say, the shift in cultural paradigm as I immigrated from India to USA was vast and diverse. Surprisingly however, it made me cling on desperately to the vestiges of my roots and identity as a Bengali Hindu Indian raised in a simple home, by a family of humble means. And what more could be fundamental to someone's identity than their name? But, I will be honest - I have never really put much conscious thought to the subject until one day, I stumbled upon a book called 'My Hanuman Chalisa' by the revered author and columnist Devdutt Pattanaik. He explains - 

The Sita of the Ramayana is the Lakshmi of the Puranas and 'Shree' of the Vedas. The word 'Shree' is one of the primitive words written over four thousand years ago in the oldest collection of Hindu Hymns called the Rig Veda. The word refers to the goddess of affluence, abundance and fortune in Hindu mythology. Many scholars also believe that the word originates from the Sanskrit language meaning 'diffusing light, radiance and beauty'.

Coincidentally, it is also the first word in several epics, Puranas, Upanishads, the Gita and even some sacred books on buddhism indicating the ascendancy of 'Shakti' over 'Shiv' or femininity over  masculinity as a primal force of the universe. It reinforces the 'Yang' over the 'Yin'. It is so magical that I can never truly explain the strength that this explanation stems into each corpuscle of my existence in a world that is for the man, of the man despite being (inhabited) by both men and women.

We have certainly come a long way since the ancient Hindu literature has been considered 'A handbook for living' for naive mortals. Yet, this quaint explanation aligns everything I have ever felt about my name, its meaning, my disapproval for its convenient splicing, and the identity I derive from it, into a perfect alignment. This breathes a new life into not only my name and personality but also my worldview which, I reckon, is the most fulfilling circle of life I have ever encountered so far in time.

That I am a goddess, is a true 'shree'-rendipity!





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