A word that helps keep me rooted as the child of immigrants
Nadhe is a longing and a hope, a heaven and a solid place on earth.
Nadhe. It was a treasured word in my immigrant family when I was growing up. A yearning word, shot through with loss, hope, and nostalgia. Though it has no straightforward equivalent in English, I continue to search for a satisfying translation: Land. Earth. Countryside. Birthplace. None of these will do. Maybe the closest English can offer is this impossibly beautiful phrase from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: “This fragile earth, our island home.”
If I close my eyes, the South Indian (Malayalam) word blooms in precise, Technicolor memory: Stunningly green rice paddies. Coconuts so tender, my grandmother scooped out their insides like pudding. The heavy, too sweet scent of jackfruit, rotting in the sun. Sheets of water falling from the sky during the monsoon. The cool, mossy darkness of the family well—forbidden to curious children.
When my parents emigrated from India in the 1970s, they left behind a way of life—and a way of faith—rooted in the earth. Both of my grandfathers were farmers as well as preachers. Sowers of the word as well as sowers of, oh, just about everything: peppers, mangoes, bananas, coffee. Cashews, cassava, cardamom.
