Aw-nay-shuh. Onnesha. Just the sound of it, the jaw opening, the tongue dancing across the palate, a whisper before settling behind the teeth. It’s more than just a name; it’s a conversation starter, a pause button in introductions, a silent question hanging in the air. For years, ordering at restaurants, I defaulted to “Anna,” a simpler, easier sound. Each time, a pang of guilt, a feeling of passing, of not being true to who I am. Would they see through the facade, this person who couldn’t be bothered to care, and say, “There’s no way your name is Anna”?
As a child, around six or seven, I briefly wished to be Elizabeth. A name like my mother’s, Pamela, with her blonde-brown hair and blue eyes. “Don’t you like your own name?” my mother asked, “It’s unique, beautiful.” A confusing sentiment from a woman named Pamela, yet a powerful parental gesture. Names held power, I thought. Elizabeth might bring blue eyes and blonde hair, making me more like her, my mother. She had stories of people asking, when she walked with me and my brother, if we were adopted, wondering from what country this blue-eyed blonde woman had gotten these children. My mother, too polite to retort, The country of my own womb.
Elementary school introductions were always the same. The roll call, the substitute teacher, the inevitable pause before my name. I knew when to raise my hand, to say “here” before the struggle began. It was a preemptive strike, a way to be in on the joke before it landed. I know what you’re thinking. Ridiculous name, right? I get it.
“Onnesha,” meaning “playful,” “joyful and spritely” in its positive light. But there’s a shadow too, a darker connotation: “trickster,” “bastard.” Go ahead, think it.
It wasn’t until graduate school that I truly grasped my name issue. Writers obsess over names. Susan or Margaret? But for me, it was paralysis. Could I name a character “Ananda”? Would readers assume she’s fully Indian? What is “fully Indian”? Or if she’s half-Indian, like me, does the story have to be about that, when I just wanted to write about her life, her experiences, her ramen-fueled nights? Mary? Too generic? Would people assume white American? Or could Mary be a quarter black, also Italian?
In my advisor’s office, I tried to articulate this name anxiety. “Just pick a name,” she said, “You can always change it later.” But the stakes felt immense. The name could dictate the narrative, the possibilities. Her eyes glazed over with that familiar professor look: Please, don’t make me delve into your mind. My own head is already overwhelming, and they don’t pay me enough for this.
So, I turned to writers, seeking my place. High school brought Salman Rushdie, Chitra Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri. I studied them, not just for their stories, but to understand myself. What drove them, might drive me too? After Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth, an Entertainment Weekly reviewer pondered: “Would Jhumpa Lahiri’s fiction still work if the Rahuls and Chitras were Roberts and Charlottes? If the mango-lime pickle…were Best Foods mayonnaise?”
Strip away the “exotic trappings,” the reviewer urged, to see “her urban professionals could be any anxious, overachieving Americans adrift from their cultural moorings.”
Wash off the brown, and they’re just white Americans! Offensive, until I recalled Lahiri’s own story with a white narrator fixated on his roommate’s “dark red-hot lime pickle” beside his peanut butter.
And then it clicked: Lahiri’s stories were filled with Indian characters dating or marrying “Americans,” code for “white.” Amit, married to a successful “American” doctor. His children, Maya and Monika, “inherited Megan’s coloring, without a trace of [his] deeply tan skin and black eyes, so that apart from their vaguely Indian names they appeared fully American.” American like his tall, fair-skinned wife. A world divided: Indian or white.
Growing up in small-town Connecticut, church was white Christian. Well, mostly white people. I’d sometimes join my mother, drawn to the dusty church smell, the post-sermon community, casseroles offered like communion. Laura Ingalls Wilder scenes, making me want to call my father “Pa” instead of “Baba.” Baptism, I imagined, was this: washed clean. White. Returned to neutrality, free to think of anything. Mary. Bob. Anyone.
“Alien.” As a kid, I didn’t grasp its dual meaning. My father, Chandrasekhar, was an alien, both ways. Like Alf. Alf, the extraterrestrial cat-eater, was really about a family with a secret. Hidden because no one would understand Alf’s alienness. They protected him, protecting themselves, harboring an alien. My dad loved these skewed-world shows: “Alf,” “Perfect Strangers,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “Herbie the Love Bug.” Outsider hijinks, laugh tracks guiding the way.
Laugh tracks? Unbearable now. Childhood cues to laugh, obeyed then, now trigger a dog-like urge to bite.
I am an English man, and naked I stand here,
Musyng in my mynde what raiment I shal were;
For now I wull were thys, and now I wyl were that;
1542, a British coffee table book, Boorde’s illustrated guide to people. A nude white man with scissors, to fashion clothes from the world’s fabrics.
Now I wyl were I cannot tel what.
All new fashyons be plesaunt to me;
I wul haue them, whether I thryue or thee.
. . .
I do feare no man; all men feryth me;
I ouercome my aduersaries by land and by see.
White British male as blank canvas, “trying on” ethnicities – Moor, Chinaman. Adopting identities, because you were the default.
Uncle B., my mother’s side (by marriage, not blood), didn’t believe in “mixed marriage.” Explained to seven-year-old me. Mixed sounded like mixed nuts, mixed candies. But this was deliberate non-seeing. Summer vacation in Florida, my brother and I at our grandparents’ table. B. never acknowledged us. Alien to him, maybe as I was to him. A childish game grew: pressing a bruise. Asking him to pass carrots, watching other relatives rush to serve me before he could not-ignore.
B. never mispronounced my name. He never said it.
“Nesh” arrived around seven or eight. Friend R., maybe Ganesh-inspired? Origins hazy, but it stuck. Family never used “Nesh.” Their versions of Onnesha: Father’s Indian-accented O-nesh-uh. Brother’s nasal Uh-nash-uh. Mother’s textbook Aw-nay-shuh. How do you say your name? people ask. I don’t really know, I want to say. But that’s even more ridiculous than the name itself.
North Carolina, fifth grade, new kid halfway through the year. S., class emissary, asked, “Hi. Do you speak English?” Nesh felt safer.
Insisting on “Onnesha” felt pretentious. Ohhhh. Look at me. Aw-NAY-shuh. But lying felt wrong. So, the monologue: MynameisOnneshabuteveryonecallsmeNeshbecauseOnneshaiskindofdifficultsocanyoucallmeNesh. Fast. Shrug. OK. Hi, Nesh. Until a professor, hearing my spiel, looked disgusted. “Onnesha isn’t that hard.”
“Onnesha” also means “illusion.” Truth veiled. A placeholder for something defined by its obscurity.
Now, I realize, going by Onnesha started six months after my closest friend died, both nineteen. Her voice on my answering machine, enunciating my full name, mischief in her tone. Lip curled slightly. On-nay-shuh. This is your friend Jew-lee-uh. Call me back. That thing where the right person saying your name makes it the universe’s most secret, magical word. Maybe I just wanted to hear it that way again. Or maybe grief makes you reckless: Fuck it. Say my name. Pretentious be damned.
Dating E., we had a joke. He’d call me Oshuhshashuhnaynay Rawchachacha, mimicking name-pronunciation fails. His last name, Derkacz (Dare-koch, rhymes with bear-crotch). I’d point it out, his fantastic humor stopping abruptly. First time, he just shook his head, no. Like I’d made some horrific Holocaust/rape joke hybrid. Maybe he didn’t get it? “Not bare crotch,” I clarified, “bear crotch. Like a bear’s crotch.” Distinction important, one tasteless, the other hilarious. Who thinks of a bear’s crotch? He had his own name demons, “Dicker,” Ellis Island’s bastardization, before legally changed. But my name-joke ban irked me. What right do you have to be weird about your name?
Oshuhshashuhnaynay Rawchachacha.
Twenty-two, radio interview. Torture in Guantanamo article. Producer asked name pronunciation. Told him. Host introduced me: “Forgive me, the name is downright tough, but please welcome Onnesha Roy-chowdery. Is that correct?” “Close enough,” I said. Hands shaking, coffee mug precarious. But audio playback? No nervousness. “Close enough,” dismissive tone. Of his pronunciation, or the name itself? Unclear. Off-air, hosts debated my name for three minutes:
—Indian or South Asian, right?
—Immigrant name, for sure. Ben even did an Indian accent.
—JR, what’d she say on the phone?
—A little Indian, wasn’t it? Though Onnesha sounds African American.
—Strong black first name, O-nay-shuh. Good Indian last name, Roy-choud-huri.
Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation, 2009. Firestorm for saying being Latina woman might influence her perspective.
“System strengthened when judges don’t assume impartiality,” she said. “But [rather] when judges test themselves…when emotions or experiences are driving…results.” Senator Sessions, agitated, “Aren’t you saying…background and heritage…influence…decision-making…? [Y]ou accept…sympathies, prejudices…influence a judge’s decision?” Sessions concluded: “I reject such a view, and Americans reject such a view.”
Slippery slope from “I” to “Americans.”
Oh, to bridge that gap in a breath.
Years ago, short story, first-person narrator, “I.” Any name. But narrator, writer, partly Indian. Agent’s email:
“Nobody biting yet,” agent wrote, suggesting “heritage” piece. “Indian-in-America theme? Jhumpa Lahiri-ish?” Room spun. Bathroom, barely made it. Bourbon, spanakopita, gone. Mirror. Lipstick, red dot on forehead. Head bobble, grandmother-style. Red splotch, target, comic-book bullet wound.
Shared stories, agent feedback: “Talented…bright future. Tough to sell collections…need overarching theme…Lahiri’s stories…first generation Indian-Americans—marriage, family, new country…not sure what you’re saying here…more background woven in.”
“I” is exhausting to write. Always a conversation, pre-hello.
I don’t tell you who I am without addressing what I assume you see. Assume you assume. You probably don’t want that. OK. I’ll stop.
Can’t stop. Writer, can’t take “I” for granted. Awareness not just on page, but on the way. Name’s weight. Meaning. Obscurity. Choosing one name, one narrative, a lie in itself.
Standardized tests, last name too long for bubbles. Below, “Race/Ethnicity.” Eleven, realized error. Bubbled “American Indian.” American, and Indian.
Never again in conversation:
“What are you?” “Half-non-white.” “Other half?” “Non-Indian.”
Lied. Onnesha means “in search of knowledge.” Good Bengali name, crushing if you’re not careful. Name suggesting ailment and cure, often indistinguishable.
Calvino’s “Distance of the Moon.” Narrator’s name, once mentioned. Palindromic consonant quintuple. Mocking assumptions, pronunciation.
How well I know!—old Qfwfq cried,—the rest of you can’t remember, but I can. We had her on top of us all the time, that enormous Moon.
Qfwfq’s moon, from distant “O” to ladder-reachable orb. Celestial sphere, suddenly tangible.
O. Unintentional adult nickname. Shorthand. “O,” a friend says, round-mouthed, tone shifting to wonder or understanding. Beginning. Then, figuring out what’s next.
