My Ani

Myths can sometimes be personal. My own such myth stems from a childhood recollection. It involves my Ani, who is a Buddhist nun as well as my father's elder sister. She inhabits, simultaneously and seamlessly, the two opposing connotations of the Tibetan term: one suggesting faith, the other family; the former symbolising renunciation, the latter attachment.

A memory:

I am a seven-year-old boy, having strayed far from my unlikely home in the Tibetan nunnery in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala. Every winter, my parents would deposit me in the care of my nun-aunt before setting out on their sweater-selling sojourn in some distant city. Without fail, before their departure from the small bus-stand and in full view of the townsfolk, I would protest and I would cry, I would flail my limbs in the air and throw myself on the ground. Still they would let themselves be taken away in a bus, down the hill and out of sight, as though my outbursts were merely for effect – a ritualistic send-off and nothing more.