What’s in a name ? HA...HA...HA...!
BENGALURU: Having just gone through a pre-poll season of political leaders resorting to a sustained exchange of name-calling and dirt-flinging, I am reminded of Juliet’s line from Romeo & Juliet of Shakespearean fame: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.”
The question remains whether those leaders who indulged in the political verbal spats over the last few weeks would be eligible to be described by the last word in Juliet’s line. But there’s something about names and how we refer to them, or what meanings we derive from them – often for some fun and mischief.
In the late 1970s, when I was in school, my most embarrassing moments were when my classmates called me by the name of a male contraceptive. A slight inflation of the buccal cavity while pronouncing the second syllable of my first name ended up pronouncing the name of that contraceptive instead of mine. That product was being popularised as part of a massive family planning campaign – Naalak aane ge mooru (‘three for four annas’).
Passing out of school, I went through a sort of a “promotion” as far as how I was addressed. By the time I was doing my Masters, my classmates (none of them from my school days) had started calling me, not by that brand name, but by the very word that describes the entire category of such contraceptives.
These days, sometimes I wonder whether these contraceptives came on the scene only to humiliate me and my namesakes. I might be justified in my thought as today India is officially the most populous country in the world, contraceptives or not!
My father’s eldest sister – older than him by a decade and three years – had a fetish for keeping names. Many of my cousins have long names, all thanks to her. Somehow I was spared a long first name although she is said to have kept my official name at my naming ceremony. But then, that’s all I was spared of....a long name, but ending up sounding like the brand name of a male contraceptive, much to the entertainment of my school, college and university mates! But, I can’t blame my aunt! I had arrived on the scene before that contraceptive.
I have never met another ‘Nirad’ yet. I would have loved to, including the famous Indian writer Nirad C Chaudhuri, to find out his possible experiences over his name and that brand of contraceptive. But then, he had moved to the UK, and I am sure he was spared.
Although a fictional character, there is some consolation that the eccentric professor in 3 Idiots was called ‘Virus’, from his name Prof Viru Sahasrabudhe. I do wonder whether our swashbuckling former Indian batsman Virendra (Viru) Sehwag was ever called like that too by his close friends. All ingredients in his name are in place for that.
I call it ‘consolation’ because names do get stuck. A friend from my university days (and who was among the first to call me by the word describing male contraceptives) was himself called “Genda”, a hippopotamus. And another friend was called “Ton” because he looked like he weighed almost that. We have lost track of Ton. Guess why? None of us knew what his real name was, and that does not help in tracking him on social media. At least my case wasn’t like that, and that’s a consolation.
No problem! All taken in good spirit! Thank you, Juliet! Thank you, Shakespeare!