They called me Appu.
Soft on the tongue. Round like the sun.
The sound itself was affection.
Before I learned to speak in English,
before I learned to think in order,
before the world asked for names that could fit on paper —
I belonged to this sound.
It was how love called me home.
Then came the learning, the leaving, the becoming.
Sam was easier —
shorter, sharper,
a name that travelled well but never landed.
Sam built things.
Appu only knew how to be.
Sometimes I still hear him —
the boy who spoke Tamil with his laughter,
who prayed without knowing he was praying,
who believed heaven was wherever his mother was cooking.
I was raised by many things that taught me to rise.
But somewhere beneath their noise,
Appu remained buried, humming his small brown song.
He is my only root now.
My last thread to the red soil of Tamil land.
He carries what all the others forgot —
that God is not far or foreign,
but close as breath,
warm as rice,
simple as a name spoken in love.
That’s why this page is hidden.
Not for secrecy, but for safekeeping.
Here, beneath all the names I’ve had to wear,
I keep the one I was born hearing —
the sound that still reminds me who I am
when I forget how to belong.
அப்பு (Appu)