“citizenship made simple” (Notes to my Brother from Fanueil Hall)

(Thinking  of  you while I sit on the balcony of Faneuil Hall filled with the cacophony of tongues accented in so many rhythms glazed with the great expectation of… dreams.)

J.J. sits on a pew, hands folded across his chest, muffling perhaps the beat of Bharat.

And I—a Himali witness to our Hindustani Jason about to duly tradein his native shawl fora Yankee fleece—survey the faceof the people.

The official roll call begins: Tran Van Joo, Soo Young Long, Wilder Pinash, Danielle Doming, Patrick John Dorvan, Tony Fong Tan, Jean Goo Yu, Soo Fan Yon, Angela Marion Nickelson, Star Inez Dealer…

Five White ladies, holding five certificates each, march toward the people soon to be anointed politically, standing to receive the gift of prized laminated proof of their new beginning, proof of their new life in the New World…

 Janet Omera Blanco, Jesus Olfrain, Fong Fy Nyan, Galina Patricia Fauboski, YusefAuf, Salvatore Rousseau …

A child in the front row seat, all dressed in a baby Navy outfit, waving a tiny Old Glory, smiled at me; I smiled back at him.

An QuLee,JeselBassacio,Lasine Vladkor Placjda, Natalia Marauez Toralio, Moo Wa Yan, Wilson Matthew Lee, Lin Yang, Upendar Singh, WiLeeTan…

(Tan, Tan. The Reverend Tan! Of course, the name rings a bell. He is pastor of the Church of All Nations on Tremont Street, whose tower-like architecture belies her pastoral function as a sanctuary to sinners and seekersalike. A converted cleric from the Philippines, Wi Lee Tan is a nice man. However, we failed to see eye to Christological eye when he asked me my thoughts on the divinity of the Son of Man. I said that is nice. The Rev. wanted more. A Hindu who grew up kissing bhat and the Bhagbat Gita, I told him that we are the flickers of the Flame, we are the souls of the Oversold. He was not moved. Religious conversion tends to seduce human souls with the most addictive holier-than-thou drug. Hence my internship with the Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries, Inc., Boston, where the diversity of becomingis celebrated in theunity of being.)

Roll call continued, naming names no longer exclusive to the denizens of the Caucasus. Those names, beguiling and beautiful, belonged to the four winds of Mother Earth.

Though herded into the Ellis Island of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, they were far from being sheepish. Unlike Aesop´s crow, they camedignifiedintheir native colours: golden, black and cinnamon brown. And a pinch of white. They were plumes from myriad branches bearing notes of their native songs to the land of the free and the home of the brave. All songs lead to the Boabab Tooted in the primal loam of our humanity.

America, you, too, sprang from the upturned tree of Africa; America, you, too, have sapblackas the primal night in your blood, of Africa. Wasn´t your great-great-great-grand-mother´s name Lucy?

America, you are a part of the tesserae of humanity. And see in its mosaic your own face. And the faces you disowned and continue to disown are those of your brothers and sisters, those of your kith and kin, culled from the geography of species.

Sing. America.
Sing in the bard ic baritone o f Grandpa Whitman, while waltzing to different drummers.
To different dreams.

Sing. America.
Sing the lyric of Langston Hughes, while tolling out wonder and pain and terror in his Montage of a Dream Differed, And celebrate in duet with your Black Brother; /, too, sing America. And live out the true meaning of its creed.

Sing. America.
Sing the Negro spirituals, while dipping your hand—stained from picking strange fruits—in the Mississippi of repentance. Behold your deliverance when theGeorgia clay dons thecolour of ihefruits you picked.

The roll call tolled for my friend: John John Thatanumil.

My friend from the southern tip of India stood, smiled. No, he beamed at me, his upturned face receiving my congratulatory nod and smile from the balcony of Fanueil Hall. Our friendship was a splash of Asian pollen upon the blooming brown-eyed Susan of his cherubic face.

I was happy for J.J. Whatever stamp he may bear on his brown skin, his heart—dipped long ago in the Holy Gangajee—will forever beat, I hope, with the rhythm of the East. He may prove to be a reincarnation of Ga nga Din—who was a better ma n than his creator— in the West; and, subsequently, he may ennoble our humanity bifurcated by Briticism laced with the just so witticism of the peripatetic bard of the Raj.

Left behind in an infant ark of life, six-year-old J.J. waited for his parents to return waving olive branches from the New World.

Holding his younger sister by her hand, J.J. steadied the vessel of his fate unmoored, drifting in the seeming calmness of his father´s kith and kin. Assailed with fears and doubts, he trembled. Yet he remained unruffled for his little sister´s sake. After all, J.J. is of India, and India commands that a child become a veritable adult the next day. Fate allows so precious little silk to the Indian boys and girls that they are denied the luxury of the warmth of their respective cocoon of boyhood and girlhood. Fly or fall. Swim or sink. J.J. chose to swim. J.J. chose to fly as soon as his father returned with the transatlantic plane ticket to the United States of America to begin his occidental odyssey.

Who he was by the age of nine, J.J. transformed it, transmuted it, translated itintoa much larger script by accommodating America´s mandates, mores, and madness;by accommodating his dreams as well as his parents´ wishes, against the backdrop of Marthomic collective memory. After ha vinghad an ample taste of "Mississippi Masata", J.J. chose to adorn the historic Faneuil Hall, reasserting the family boabab by reclaiming the Thatamanil name circumcised by his forefathers under the spell of Marthomic conversion, once upon a messianic time, thousands of historic miles away.

What is true of J.J. must be truein certain individual ways of all the soon-to-be-ncrtwraltzerf U.S. citizens, the adoring subjects of the judgeofficiating the ceremony. The judge cheerfully acknowledged this one special function of his office that he enjoyed the most. And cheerfully did he greet and welcome the candidates and their families and friends. Attested by his tone and body language, the judge appeared sincere. As was his wont, the judge overdid the bit about "justice, freedom and the pursuit of happiness". (Holy Buddha!, now there´s a phrase—the pursuit of happiness—which sums up the existential mirage in the materialistic Sahara of America.) Since he was addressing Uncle Sam´s newest recruits, thequestion of his captive audience going bored onhim was moot. Besides, there was a sort of alchemic momentum in the air that something was going to happen which would change the participants´lives forever. Hence the presiding judge´s mellifluous tone lent credence to his sapiency during the sharing of the choice morsels from the myth-kitty of America. Nevertheless, he overlooked one of the dire dictates of the law of migration: The predators follow you wherever you go. To and fro.

I remember. This country was indifferent to the plight of those hungry, tired and persecuted,
permitted to sail on the SS. St. Louis by Paul Joseph Goebbels. Denied moorings by Cuba, by America, the ship returned to the Hadean waters. Save a handful, her human cargo succumbed to the asvastt maw of the Aryan inferno. I remember. This country was indifferent. Commit it to memory!—a must by the sentinelling Belle Bedloe as well as her callers: their adoptive country denied entry to the 937 kith and kin of the Son of their Man, under the deal newly made with e pluribus unum. It ought to be tattooed in the linings of naturalized lungs,
so it may not repeat on their watch. Commit it to memory!—a must.

(Cap ling, compelling, en ticing, the songline of the hutna n dra ma unfolding before me tugged my heart kindred to the novitiates of novus ordo seclorum. I may not be oneoftliem. But I am with them.)

Come home away from home from across the Atlantic, fromacross the Pacific. Youare the salmon of variegated humanity. Migration is a movable feast. For some this country is the deep, for others the shore. You come ashore heeding the wisdom of the deep: you come ashore seeking the altar in the stream. Come home away from home so that the oceans be replenished, renewed, with the cyclical certitude of creation. You come to the deep singing the song of the stream: you come to the deep carrying the missal of the stream. Come home away from home so that the oceans be sanctified, purified, with the latitudinal liturgy of one great Nation. I, too, am a salmon. I dream of the pebbled streams fed by the melting snows of Sagarmatha.

Finally, the anticipated moment arrived: the administering of the Oath of Allegiance. Right hand raised. Uncle Sam´s adopted children intoned after the judge: I hereby declare, on oath, I HEREBY DECLARE, ON OATH, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure THAT I ABSOLUTELY AND ENTIRELY RENOUNCE AND ABJURE (Though merely a witness to others´ renunciation and abjuration, those two words stung my heart, stung my soul. Subsequently, I was somewhat hindered from beingcarried away by the momentous current of the ceremonious occasion for naturalization. Besides, I felt nothing unnatural about my self, about my soul.) all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty,

ALL ALLEGIANCE AND FIDELITY TO ANY FOREIGN PRINCE, POTENTATE, STATE OR SOVEREIGNTY,

of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; OF WHOM OR WHICH I HA VE HERETOFORE BEEN A S UBJECT OR CmZEN;

Votively, hundreds of yearning mouths gave voice to their newfound allegiance.
A greencarded man whose back is neither wet nor dry, I am more amused than amazed by anydomestic or foreign princeor potentate. Or president. Nehru´s Letters from a Father to His Daughter had immunised me during my scholastic infancy at Shanti Nikunja Vidyalaya, against the affliction of falling prey to trumped-up powers of prince or potentateorpresidentinvoked under the aegis of the divine, demonic or democratic right. To allegiance and fidelity to state or sovereignty I, therefore, answer with the conviction of E.M. Forster: …bull shall fight for one human being.

I cannot go against the milk that sustained me during my infancy; I cannot go against the bosom that housed me against the cold.

.. . AND THAT I TAKE THIS OBLIGATION FREELY WITHOUT ANY MENTAL RESERVATION OR PURPOSE OF EVASION;

The onlookers were treated to the plangent promissory accents rising from the hall below in their adoptive land of Canaan. The crescendo appeared nigh.

To my right and left were two ladies from Guatemala and Ireland, respectively. The cinnamon sun poured out of the plump, youthful skin of the Guatemalan lady. And the salt and the sea from the Irish face imprinted with crows´s feet. Shy, sparse with Anglo tongue, the lady to my right buffered me with her disarming smile and dignified silence. The lady on my left—a retired nurse from the Brigham and Women´s—happened to be an inveterate traveler. "O. I have been to your country," she said with a bit of nostalgic glee. I told her that the Ireland I knew came from the Yatesian metier and the Joycean might, as well as the swords of Sinn Fein. "O!" And her sea-green eyes looked away briefly. "Are you a citizen?" she asked, tilting her head toward me. "Neither am I," she said with a splash of green pride.

Gradually, my mind took measure of the issues of mentalreservatton. It is humanly inconceivable, I profess, not to entertain mental reservation, especially in natal matters concerning one´s love and land, concerning one´s blood and bond, (Is the United States of America, then, the benign equivalent of Albionised Australia, for mental Artful Dodgers!)

The monarch flies away enchanted by the migratory call of Mother Nature, but it retains the potency of the milkweed that sustained it during its larval stage.

Nepal! My janmabhoomi. She sits unfurled from East to West—Nature´s silver shawl hemmed by the henna of the south and the crimson of the north— helping to separate a pair of giant flanks often at odds with each other in the stride for Asiatic peace and progress. I will forever entertain one thousand thousand percent mental reservation when the integrity and honor of my motherland is questioned. I am amazed by the horde of people from the four comers of the world down below the balcony in Faneuil Hall, not entertaining even a sliver of mental reservation*. Even R-2 D-2 would stumble on such a monumental mission. Impossible!— my soul cried out. However hallowed, Faneuil Hall is a holding cell for chosen flock, where they are shorn of their heritage and stamped with the Seal of Good Housekeeping. Never having been asked once what cultural richness and native gifts do these seafarers bear, they are sent out on the conveyer belt of Capitalism capable of dashing one thousand thousand labouring souls, who are to this behemoth "as flies are to wanton boys…"

… so help me God.

… SO HELP ME GOD.