WHY SARANGI

The name Sarangi, which I adopted for my yogic project and ultimately for this website, was given to me by Swami Atma in Rishikesh, India. Swami Atma was one of my meditation teachers, one of the serious ones who wouldn’t want to be called a master.
The story goes like this.
We were chatting, sitting at the tables of a stall along the Ganges, between his home and the Ashram where I was staying, sipping chai tea. Just naming it evokes its flavor: rich and comforting like a grandmother’s embrace, yet sharp, stimulating, peppery. A tickle of pleasure reaches the roots of my hair.
In the days following my teacher training at the Nada Yoga School, I often met Swami Atma. Sometimes he would invite me to his home—a humble little room that often filled to the brim with students, who came for the evening satsangs he used to offer—to share a meal together, sitting on the floor with his “perpetual” musician and cook. This man, whose name I unfortunately don’t recall, possessed an incredible voice and eyes of rare depth, medical expertise, and an abundance of care and sweetness. He treated Swami Atma like a precious object, to be handled with care: he would give him herbal concoctions if he had a sore throat, prepare his favorite dishes, and urge him to cover up if the evening air grew cool. For me, it was always a great honor to be included, experienced with the enthusiasm of a schoolgirl and the shyness of someone who struggles to receive freely.

Other times, we would simply sit and chat on a bench, watching the river and the passersby—cows, dogs, monkeys, tourists, and locals—not necessarily on philosophical or spiritual topics. Once, to reciprocate his hospitality and lunch invitations, I offered to cook Italian. After a series of comical adventures to gather the necessary ingredients at the Market, an improbable pasta alla Norma emerged, seasoned, instead of the obviously unobtainable salted ricotta, with a local cheese that made everything inexorably gooey. The macaroni was then shared with the neighbor—a young woman who offered Ayurvedic treatments—and some of the Indian students from the Nada School. Everyone was delighted and incredibly grateful, especially after dipping mouthfuls of pasta—eaten with their hands—into a large bowl of spicy sauce. Master guru-level spicy. A precious memory, one of those I keep in my pocket always.

That day, our discussion revolved around the widespread habit among certain Western colleagues of adopting a new name after gaining teaching certification (usually following a 200 or 300-hour teacher training), a name that identifies them as yoga masters and with which they then promote their activities back home. Often, those who have this, which I still consider a bizarre custom (despite having later researched its original motivation, which will eventually be the subject of another story), use names of deities or demigods from the Hindu pantheon in association with their own. Like Arturo Shiva or Giovanna Lalita Devi. At the time, this really bothered me. So, I sought validation from Swami Ji for my solemn yet disheveled disapproval.

He smiled, showing all his teeth, in silence. He must have found me amusing in my fervor, my pronouncements and machine-gunning judgments: cultural appropriation is wrong here, humility is an unknown concept there, and thank goodness we want to transcend the ego and blah blah blah, and dare we even talk about good taste?! And he remained silent, his eyes also smiling. Then I’ll show you a photo of him.

The name

When I started feeling uncomfortable with his lack of approval for my polemic—and probably to quiet me—he suddenly said: “Your name is Sarangi.”
I thought it was some rotten little spirit.

But no, I lucked out. Because the sarangi is an extraordinary Indian instrument.

Legend tells that it originated in ancient times when a wandering “hakim” (doctor), tired from long journeys, lay down under a tree in the forest to rest. He was awakened by a sound that seemed distant. The sound was actually produced by the wind—”your element,” Swami Ji said, according to Ayurveda—blowing on the skin of a dead monkey hanging among the branches of the tree. Don’t laugh, I see you. Inspired by this event, he built the first sarangi, which is a bowed instrument. Extremely difficult to play. But look up some pieces on YouTube: it has a magnetic, evocative, hypnotic, and incredibly varied sound, almost a human voice that sings, laughs, and cries all at once.

And indeed, Swami Ji explained, the meaning of the word is “a hundred colors.” A multitude of colors, of vibratory possibilities, like the vast range of the instrument’s expressive potential.

To me, it seemed like a beautiful blessing, dead monkey aside.

To remain open to the complexity of existence. To explore the nuances, slaloming between rigid convictions and clumsy claims of uniqueness. To integrate opposites in a harmonious glissando. To dip pasta alla Norma in a sort of incredibly spicy ketchup. To attend a class with Concetta Durga Kalhi. To cook Italian in a tiny room accompanied by the chanting of an unknown and powerful mantra. To seek one’s own sound, beneath all the noise. To let oneself vibrate with the wind, which guides and dishevels paths. That is Yoga, for me.

P.S. The dead monkey is a metaphor for the subjugated lower mind, by the way. But I wanted to leave you with a smile.