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Thursday, June 20, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

My name: the color of gold

 ; the color of gold. In Bengali, my 
mother tongue, pronounced: shoo-born-
ah. The name given to me by my parents, 
recent immigrants to the Western Hemi-
sphere, lovingly gazing down at their first-
born child in this new world.
The color of gold. My memories of the 
first three years of my life are backlit in a 
warm light, created by the love of being 
brought up in a household of doting par-
ents, grandparents and aunts. I was the 
center of my little world, seeing everything 
with innocence and curiosity.
The color of gold. 
Pretty soon, I started 
pre-school, where I 
began to learn English, 
surrounded by my Eng-
lish-speaking 
teach-
ers and classmates for 
hours at a time. There, 
everyone 
called 
me 
by the actual spelling 
of my name, Subarna 
(pronounced: 
sooh-
barn-ah). As a toddler, 
I obviously didn’t have 
the mental capacity to 
think anything about 
this difference; it was 
just an addition to my 
life, something that I 
went along with. Even 
though I spent a good 
deal of my day in pre-
school, I never truly 
had fun until I came 
home and played in 
my backyard with my 
grandfather watching 
me in the warmth of 
the afternoon, sunlight 
peeking through the 
leaves of his extensive 
garden.
And so my life went 
on, with me going 
through my primary 
education, and even-
tually middle school 
and high school, all the while being known 
as Shuborna (or my nickname, Mumu) 
at home and Soobarna to the rest of the 
world. This was never something I ques-
tioned, even when I was old enough to real-
ize that the English pronunciation did not 
align with the way my language intended it 
to. In fact, at one point I saw this as some-
thing to be happy about; I essentially had 
two identities, something to clearly distin-
guish my two lives of home and school. I 
didn’t let one part of my life into the other, 
and my name made sure of that.
Sometime during the later stages of 
high school, I remember telling some of 

my Indian friends that the name they had 
been calling me by for all these years, the 
name that led to silly nicknames like “subs” 
and “subie”, wasn’t the way my name was 
meant to be. When I told them the actual 
pronunciation of my name, they, for lack 
of a better term, freaked the heck out. 
Among many comments, one reaction that 
remains in my mind is one of them saying 
in an exasperated tone, “Shuborna? That 
sounds SO weird.”
The comment left me feeling a bit 
uncomfortable, but I didn’t really dissect 
the interaction until later. Now, almost two 
years later, here is my response.
No one else in this world besides my par-
ents and I, besides the ancient language of 
Bangla itself, can deter-
mine what is and is not 
an acceptable way to 
pronounce my name. My 
name belongs entirely 
to myself and my long 
line of ancestors who 
have preserved the Ben-
gali culture through-
out centuries of good 
times and bad, through 
war 
and 
oppression 
and colonialism, and 
my name, , the 
color of gold, reflects all 
of these struggles; the 
struggles of my seven-
year-old father fleeing 
his village in the midst 
of war, the struggles of 
my mother as a newly 
married bride in Cana-
da, separated by oceans 
and 
continents 
from 
her Mother India, the 
struggles of my fam-
ily as they raised my 
brother and I in a world 
they had grown up only 
reading about and see-
ing on television. My 
name, , the color 
of gold, is a testament 
to the strength of my 
family as every single 
moment in every single 
one of my ancestors’ 
lives has led to me being where I am today.
Today, in a place where the truth of my 
name, its authenticity, the way it was plant-
ed on this earth, is reduced to “Shuborna? 
That sounds SO weird”. A world where my 
name, , the color of gold, has its light 
dimmed by someone else’s own perception 
of the world.
Since that experience, I’ve always been 
wondering if there will ever be a time 
when I can let my two lives eventually 
merge into one. Now, after my first year 
of college, I feel like that day is coming 
closer and closer. Throughout the past 
few months, I’ve found myself opening 

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANURIMA KUMAR

up to the people around me more than 
I ever did in high school, and I’ve been 
struggling less and less with what people 
think of me or how I look as I walk down 
the street; as cliche as it sounds, college 
has liberated my mind and my spirit, 
bringing me closer, day by day, to accept-
ing myself. But the question that still 
remains is, who actually is this “myself”, 
this soul that is finally being unearthed 
after digging through so may layers? Is 
she Soobarna, the name I hear most often 
throughout my day, or is she Shuborna, 
the name I’m known by only in a small 
fraction of my world? As I go on with my 
life, as I make my mark on this world, 
how do I want to be remembered?
I’d like to think that I want to be 
remembered as the name that connects 
me most directly to my roots, the name 
that calls to mind the most captivating 
ray of sunshine hitting the earth. In an 
ideal world, I would have everyone call 
me by my true pronunciation, Shubor-
na. But my logical side is constantly 
nagging, pointing out all of the people 
who, for almost nineteen years, have 
called me by Soobarna; people who I 

call my best friends, who I know will 
continue to be in my life for years to 
come. Is it fair to ask them to switch all 
of a sudden?
While I was in the process of writ-
ing this piece, quite a few of my friends 
on campus asked if they should call 
me by the true pronunciation of my 
name; at first, I leaned towards letting 
them make the decision, saying some-
thing like, “only if you’re comfortable 
switching”. But I realized that this goes 
against everything that has been both-
ering me; the whole point is to empower 
myself, to give myself control over the 
way I present myself to the world. By 
letting others choose the pronunciation 
of my own name, I am continuing to 
relinquish the power that I had already 
been giving up for years, the power of 
defining my position in this world.
All it takes is a simple correction: 
“actually, my name is pronounced this 
way.” It’s not that hard to do. Though 
I still feel strange doing it, I know that 
once that change has become universal, 
the world will finally know me in my 
purest, most golden form.

 ; the color of 
gold. In Bengali, 
my mother tongue, 
pronounced: shoo-
born-ah. The 
name given to me 
by my parents, 
recent immigrants 
to the Western 
Hemisphere, 
lovingly gazing 
down at their 
firstborn child in 
this new world.

SUBARNA BHATTACHARYA 
MiC Contributor

