Author Archives: Nisha Malhotra

Monisha Mantras (1)

Nationality: Indian
Age: 38
Occupation: Alternative Medicine
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/16/17
Primary Language: English

“Let it be easy, let it be good.”

 

Monisha is my older cousin who has taken a longer route to find what she ultimately wants to do, and that ended up being alternative medicine, so she does acupuncture and provides herbal remedies for people seeking less traditional forms of healing. She’s also very into yoga, hiking, and finding oneself, and as a result, she has lots of mantras that she shared with me after she asked me how college was and I told her I was a little stressed. I decided to write them down, because she’s heard these mantras from backpacking trips through Asia, Europe, and California when she goes with groups of other people for meditation trips. She said that she didn’t know what she wanted to do for a long time, but now she does. I asked her to tell me some of the mantras that helped her at our annual Easter party, and she immediately had some to lend out. She said she uses this one a lot.

Camel and the Arab

Nationality: Indian
Age: 77
Occupation: Anesthesiologist
Residence: Glendale, CA
Performance Date: 4/24/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

One very cold winter night, this Arab was riding camel and he was feeling very cold, so he pitched a tent, lit a fire inside the tent, and he tied the camel outside the tent. And he was warming himself up inside the tent. And the camel peeked in and said, “Please can I just put my nose in the tent, because my nose is feeling very cold and it will warm up the air I’m breathing.” So Arab said, “Okay, just the nose.” And then the camel said, “You know my ears are buzzing because of the cold breeze, could I just put my ears in?” So Arab thought, “Yeah, why not, there’s plenty of space in the tent, you can put your ears in.” And then the camel said, “You know my neck is cramping because of the cold breeze, can I just put my neck in?” Arab said, “Yes, there’s space for your neck.” And slowly like that, camel kept requesting one leg, other leg, and slowly he threw the Arab out and sat in the tent warming himself. The moral of the story is that kindness is good but don’t be so kind that you are left in a lurch helping somebody.

My grandmother’s mother told her this story. She used to tell all eight of her children bedtime stories, and this was one of the stories she told my grandma specifically. My grandma says, “She had always told me to be kind to people, but that you first must look after yourself before you can look after other people.” I asked my grandma to recount this story, or any fable with a moral she’d heard growing up, and she shared this one that her mother told her. I asked her if she thought of the fable often, and she said yes. She was close with her mother, who passed away not long after I was born, long after my grandmother had brought her mother to California from Mumbai.

The Sparrow and the Crow

Nationality: Indian
Age: 77
Occupation: Anesthesiologist
Residence: Glendale, CA
Performance Date: 4/24/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

There once was a sparrow and a crow and they were very good friends. They shared the nest together. One day they both were flying and crow found some rice and the sparrow found some legumes. So they said they will come home and cook rice and legumes and enjoy it. So they came back home to their nest and the crow cooked the rice and legumes soup and realized they didn’t have any salt. So the crow told the sparrow, “There’s no salt so I’m going to go to the market and bring some salt. You just wait for me.” So the sparrow said ok and the crow flew out to get the salt. The sparrow was feeling hungry and the aroma from the soup was making her more hungry, so she ate everything without salt. And then she put water in the containers, tied a headband, and laid down. So when crow came back, he knocked on the door and she said, “Come in, the door is open, I have such a bad headache. I’m laying down.” So crow came in and opened the vessels and there was only water. And he said, “What happened to the rice and legume soup?” And she said, “How do I know, I’ve been having a severe headache, I was lying down.” And crow said, “That’s not possible you’re not telling me the truth.” And sparrow said, “NO, I’m telling you the truth.” The crow said, “So we will go to the truth swing over the well, and if you’re telling the truth, you will not fall in the well, but if you’re lying you will.” So they go out and crow puts sparrow on the swing and swings it and the swing immediately tilted and the sparrow fell in the well. Because she was lying. So the moral of the story is: the truth is the most strong ground you can stand on.

My grandmother told me this story, another fable told to her by her own mother when she was growing up in India. My great-grandmother had eight children, so she really tried to make sure a lot of her fables and stories emphasized honesty and integrity and other moral traits in her children, but this is a story that my grandmother also passed down to her three daughters when they moved to America at ages eight and eleven. She said it’s an Indian fable, but not only Indian. I asked her this when she was recounting old stories or fables she remembered from when she was growing up.

Jo Jaagat Hai Woh Paavat Hai

Nationality: Indian
Age: 52
Occupation: CPA
Residence: Glendale, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

“The early bird gets the worm” in Hindi is “Jo Jaagat hai woh paavat hai.”

This is an Indian proverb (Punjabi Proverb) that my dad’s father used to say to him and his brothers in the morning. It essentially a phrase we’ve heard before in English, but the Hindi version of it means that phrases like this were also translated across countries and languages, but have the same meaning at heart. My dad has often said this phrase out loud to us when we were children, but he also said I had the same reaction as he did when his father would say it to him: to crawl back under our covers and continue to sleep. My dad said that his grandfather told his father this phrase, and so his father began to say it to him, and he began to say it to my brothers and I. He’d say this phrase to tell us to get up early, because the one who rises early “wins the day.”

Aum Namh Shivai

Nationality: Indian
Age: 52
Occupation: CPA
Residence: Glendale, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

“Aum Namh Shivai”

This is Sanskrit phrase/mantra. Aum means Shiva, another word for God. It means God is infinite, God is love. Aum has several meanings, including love, infinite, life, peace, etc. Aum can also interchange with “Om,” which is the more commonly recognized version of the word, but because it has so many meanings, the phrase, “Aum Namh Shivai” can mean different things as well, including “God is life, God is peace,” etc. My father would keep repeating that as a mantra, especially if he was doing something especially meditative; he told me it’s a phrase we say to be grateful and to also center oneself.

My dad and grandfather say this when they’re meditating, especially during breathing exercises in yoga. So when my dad was teaching me yoga breathing, he was telling me to find a mantra to repeat and focus on.