"Not surprisingly, my native language, Persian, contains many more precise words for relatives"
Sundara's many different names for her family members always confused me. Calling Soka "younger aunt" seemed almost disrespectful to me, and Moni calling her "Little Sister" led to a lot of confusion for some people. In my world, all my aunts on my dad's side have the title "aunt", and the same goes for my uncles. However, on my mom's side, I just call them by their first names. I never purposly made that distinction, but it's there and helps make things less confusing, especially since neither families are very creative with names and I have 3 uncle Johns.
"I bent down and smelled a sweet pea for the first time in fifteen years. Suddenly, I was six years old again and running around chasing butterflies in my aunt's garden"
The same thing happened to me a while ago. While at camp, my roomate always sprayed our room with a certain perfume. It was really strong, but I didn't really think much of it. A few months later, I smelled the perfume again and was practically transported through time and space back to camp. This also reminds me of when Sundara saw the doll and was brought back to her time with baby on the boat, and felt similar emotions to the day. It's amazing how much smell and visual stays in our memories.
I was also confused by why Sundara called Soka "younger aunt" and I found it almost disrespectful, as well. There are different names for many of the characters in this book. Soka calls Naro "Husband", rather than by his name and Naro sometimes calls Soka "Little Sister," even though they're not biologically related. Soka calls Sundara "Niece." Moni calls Sundara "Little Sister," which, I agree, could have been confusing for some. Ravy and Pon are younger and are called by their first name. So maybe they have names depending on how much respect they have.
ReplyDeleteAlso, we went to the same camp, and my roommate sprayed a lot of perfume all over the room, too. Occasionally, my sister will spray it in our room and it brings me back to camp.
Our senses have such powerful impacts. It's interesting how you take it as disrespectful because I just saw it as another way of naming.
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