A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME (TALES OF INCLUSIVITY) #Blogchatter #WriteAPageADay
Shakespeare certainly
had the right idea in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ when he wrote
“What’s in a name? That
which we call a rose /By any other name would smell as sweet.”
How wonderful the
words sound when rolled around the tongue! This quote has become one of the
most popular ones of all times, with people throwing it casually into a
conversation that revolves around names.
However, I have had
my reservations about the quote from the time people began misspelling my name.
My name is a simple one – DEEPTI – nothing more, nothing less. One would have
assumed that there was no way to get it wrong.
Deepthi, Deepthy, Dethpi,
Deputy, Dipti, Tipsy (the last was by a tiny Nursery child in school!) – the list
could go on and on. The main reason for these variations is the barrier caused
by the sweeping Vindhyas. Folks up North do not use the ‘h’ in names – Vidya,
Sumati, Geeta, Deepti… you get the gist? Hence, people who come from the South
to the North frequently get their names misspelt, the reason being that Jayashree
turns to Jayasri, Seetha to Sita and Gayathri to Gayatri.
Thus, I have an
entire community that call me Deepthi, and let me tell you that it does not sound
like me at all. When I was born, my parents gave me my name because it was a
Bengali word and rather uncommon at the time. This was followed by two other
Bengali names when my sisters came into the world – Neelima and Bhavana… but luckily,
their names remained untouched. Except that Neelima herself cut her name short
to Neema, which again had no scope of being cut into anything further. Hopefully!
Maybe that is the
whole idea behind parents using pet names for their children. So, a whole
generation of children in Kerala were called Kannan, Unni, Ammu, Babu, Omana
and the like.
Up North, pet names
were more akin to Pinky, Silky, Laajo, Happy, Chotu, Gudiya, Chintu, Love and
Joy! It would take an effort to get their spellings wrong, in any case.
I still remember one
visit when we had all come to Kerala for our summer vacations. One particularly
perspicacious aunt wanted to know my name. When I told her my name, she turned
to my mother with a frown. “Couldn’t you have chosen a name that sounds less
like a stone being thrown into a bucket?” That was, indeed, a novel way of
looking at it, I guess.
As for Neema and
Bhavana, the more pious of our relatives did hint that, probably, it would have
been better to name them after the many goddesses who reign in the heavens
above.
Of course, there is a
totally different take to that as well. When my better half was a child, he was
so mischievous that his mother would keep calling out his name, ‘Gopi’ in a fit
of anger. One of their neighbours in the Delhi flat that they lived in came
over one day after he had been sent to school with much difficulty. She said,
rolling her expressive eyes, “Mrs. Menon, if only you had called your son ‘Krishna’
or ‘Vishnu’, you would have been in the happy situation of attaining ‘moksha’.
Imagine taking the name of God so often!”
The world is seeing a
sea change in the way parents name their children now. Today, the beautiful old
names are seeing a comeback – Hemambika, Mahalakshmi, Damayanti, Saraswati,
Othenan, Anjana, Abhimanyu, Ghanshyam, Pradnya, Shambhavi and so on. However, I do tremble
to think of the myriad spelling combinations that could evolve from names as complicated
as these.
Finally, there are
folks who watch movies and get inspired by the names of the beautiful actors on
the silver screen. I know of people in my family who, after watching the movie ‘Kabhi
Kabhi’ and watching Raakhee as the stunning Pooja Khanna, named their daughter ‘Pooja’.
She has grown to be a lovely girl.
Some names for girls that
have come up through popular movies are Aditi, Anjali, Jhanvi, Kiara, Mandira,
Natasha, Pia, Samaira, Sanjana and Zooni. In my own family we have names like Priyanka, Fiza, Avantika, Ananya, Maanya, Nayantara, Nitara, Karthika, Dhaatri and Zoya, all of whom symbolise their names in so many
lovely ways.
Boys’ names are not
far behind. Aarush, Aditya, Kartik, Rehaan, Siddharth, Surya… all these names
and many others also have become extremely popular after their filmi
characters. And in my family? We do have such unusual names like Prajod, Manav, Ujjwal,
Aayush, Nihar, Kunaal, Karun, Rishi and Samir (with an ‘I’).
And to end with a quote I love...
Pinterest.com
Comments
Post a Comment