Calling Back my Mother Tongue
For those who broke the script, and still long to remember where they came from. A poetic reclamation of roots, voice, and desire—across oceans, generations, and jasmine-scented memory.
Author’s Note: This piece is an offering. A reckoning. A dance between grief and jasmine. It was written from the pulse of longing—for language, for lineage, for a kind of belonging that holds both wild fire and tender roots. It’s for those of us raised on expectation and excellence, but who felt the cost of obedience in our bones. It’s for the children of diaspora, of migration, of myths carried in tiffin boxes and WhatsApp threads. We inherited a script. And some of us burned it. This is not rejection—it is return. A return not to tradition unchanged, but to soul remembered. Through scent, through rhythm, through the echoes of temples and the beat of dhols, I am calling something home. If you find yourself here—wondering who you are beneath your surname, beneath your syllabus, beneath your survival—you are not alone. Let’s walk this remembering together. Jasmine in our hair. Chai in our hands. Feet bare and ready for the drum.
They told us:
Keep your head down.
Work harder.
Prove your worth.
That we must
Be seen
Not heard.
They give us the script.
Unspoken expectations
Penned into our blood
Constricting every time
We even dared to rewrite
The script
Of our destiny
Nay,
Their suffering
Carved for us.
Go to school
Get the As
Get the degree
At the ivy-league university
You better be better
Than Aunty Pooja’s golden daughter
Master of Carnatic ragas
Straight A’s from Cornell
Lined with good Indian boys
And Ivy League proposals.
What will others say
If you’re anything else?
And so we obeyed.
Bowed our heads
Buried them
In books,
In screens,
In the lineage—
Of wisdom
Outsourced.
Just as generations before
But we live in the west now
You see,
Somewhere along the way
We began to question the script
The love they promised
Arranged,
Felt hollow.
A vessel echoing silence
Reality cracked
Like thin glass,
Shattering the myth.
If after all this effort
We’re still chasing—
Enoughness.
Visibility.
Desire.
Love.
So we began to question.
We began to deviate.
We chucked the identity
We had molded so perfectly—
And started discovering:
Who are we,
Beneath it all?
Seekers of self
Beyond the sacrifices
Of our elders
We’re playing by our own rules now
This generation,
We rewrite what they handed down.
We became individuals
Separate from our parents,
Our culture,
Our kin.
Yet.
It’s like we’ve lost an anchor
Severed off a root
When we weren’t looking.
Like we’ve become more alien
To the rest of them
And we say
Look— it’s me.
My skin color
My ethnic name
My history
I chose a different path,
But we belonged…
Didn’t we?
But we no longer do
We only belong to ourselves now
Yet.
The only thing that brings us home
That brings us to ourself
Is the very thing
We had to abandon
Now I seek
The scent of jasmine—
On roads
In the temples
In the braids of women
I seek the scent of masala chai
Filled with cardamom, ginger, masala
Temples, carved from ancient stone—
Crowned with architecture
Spiraling with spires
Like nothing else.
Our pyramids. 
I listen to our songs
Trying to mimic the words
Calling back my mother tongue
That seemed to have slipped off.
I want it back.
But
I don’t want it all
I don’t want your outdated traditions
I don’t want your archaic ways
Where I have to
Silence my voice,
My presence,
Shut down my desires,
Be numb,
Be obedient,
Show respect,
Where it’s never been earned.
Marriage arranged
Haunted by duty
Freedom sacrificed
Wounds salted
No guidebook,
Just ancestral echo.
Why have we decided
To let traditions be dictated
By a patriarchal system
It’s time
for the matriarchal era
It’s time for our men
To lead with heart,
With soul.
Time for our women
To chase their ambitions
From the fire in their bellies.
Time for our LGBTQ+
To shine their authentic
Truths with joy.
Time to infuse—
Love,
Emotional,
Spiritual fulfillment,
Back into marriages.
So let us speak—
Hear us out
Why can’t we meet in the middle
A new world
That’s marked by roots
Our culture
Yet molding our traditions
To match our progressive fates.
Dress us in jasmine
Pour the chai
Engulf us in incense.
Let’s dance—
In a thousand vibrant silks,
To the beat of tablas and dhol,
Summoning a spirit
That was never lost
Only waiting.
Proud. 
Sakthi Ramesh, AMFT #155011
Associate Marriage and Family Therapist
Supervised by Helene Mickey Wilson, Ph.D., LMFT #49203
Through The Art of Guiding Healers
Currently offering sessions in Newport Beach and Telehealth for those seeking deeper, individualized support.
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