Why Allen is so called

I had a favorite book when I was growing up. It was called "1001 Questions and Answers." I don't remember if it really answered 1001 questions but I do recall that my mom bought it from Ms. Perey--my Grade 2 teacher at St. Mary's Academy. One day, she just popped in the house, telling my mom that I had so much potential, before taking out a catalogue of books and instructional tapes that she said would further hone my talents. My mom, who wasn't shameless, of course,  looked at the prices first and picked out the two cheapest items.

And that was how I got the basic English language tapes with the booklet and the 1001 Questions and Answers. I remember one of my favorite items in the books was titled "Why the Taj Mahal is so called."

The answer started off like this: "The Taj Mahal was built by the Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal..."  There was something about the love story behind the Taj Mahal, and the detailed descriptions in the entry that fascinated me. I read it again and again such that for a time, I could recite the entire thing flawlessly from memory. At a time when there was no Internet and no Google, you can just imagine how badly I wanted to see the real thing.

But this post is not about the Taj Mahal. Because I also liked how the question was framed in the book, I thought I'd also call this "Why Allen is so called" and make this about how I got my name and how I suffered from it years after.

The first time my name ended up in the boys' list in school, I went home irritated and with a mission: ask mom what she was thinking when she named me. This was how she explained it: my father had always intended for me to be "Arlene." But the day I was due, he was somewhere fighting fires, leaving my mom with the (in)discretion of naming me whatever she wanted.

"So why did you name me Allen?" I asked Mom.

I will never understand her answer. "I thought 'Arlene' sounded too feminine and flirty. So I named you Allen instead. But I also thought it could sound too boyish, so I added 'Ma.' before it."

So I was born "Ma. Allen." But somewhere between Makati Medical Center and the Office of the Civil Registrar, my "Ma." got lost, such that when my birth certificate was released, the puny little girl that I was, was only "Allen." In kindergarten at Palanan Elementary School, I still wrote "Ma. Allen" in my test papers, but Ms. Imperial advised my mom that I drop the "Ma." so as to be consistent with my birth certificate. I have since been grateful I lost the "Ma." because that would've been more inconsistent with my personality.

I didn't have problems with my family because they always called me "Len." My father, though, had an unusual attachment to "Arlene" and refused to call me by any other name.

My troubles started in school. Every school opening found my name in the boys' list and found me explaining that "Allen" is my real name and that there was a story behind it. But like me, my teachers couldn't understand the logic behind the story. It was always the same story schoolyear after schoolyear, such that when I went to MaSci to see if I passed the entrance exam, I wasn't surprised at all that I wasn't in the girls list. I never was, in my entire stint there.

You can just imagine how relieved I was that boys and girls were in one class list in college.

When I was growing old, I had a favorite poem written by an Indian poet, titled "The Taj Mahal." We took it up in Humanities I, and I never forgot how it changed the image I keep of the Taj Mahal. Or maybe it didn't change it, it just made it more textured, multi-faceted and naturalist.

My point is I have no point. Or maybe it's this: things can grow in us, just like my name did in me. And we can outgrow things just like I did the Taj Mahal.