What is in a name?

"What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," said Shakespeare. Oui et non, peut-etre as the Frenchies would say. True,words are linguistic conventions. A cat is a `chat` in French, `gata' in Spanish and `Katze' in German;   but the animal is the same furry feline.

Yet names are important because they give an identity, be it to a person, to a city or to a country. Hence these bitter battles regarding English-icised names, et al. Often the furore could be beyond petty party politicking as well.

As for individuals, names matter a lot, they sculpt an image. This image precedes the person. Do not we all create a stereotype through the name even before we have met the person? At times, our pre-conceptions jell; at times, they are diametrically opposite to the person thus named. May be, that is why the Silicon Valley colleagues use abbreviations of Indian names that they anyways cannot pronounce.

Aai,  I must say,  gave us all lovely names. Sanju and Raju, even the pet names for her sons, are also rhythmical.  She wanted to name Sanju `Piyush' because he was so full of life as  a baby, while Ajoba wanted to  call him Purushottam. As for Raju's name, Parag, it is so modern, so hip for those days that he must have had a very easy run amongst pals.   

I love my name. It has a softness, gentleness of its own. At times, I  interpret it as prati-ma, do not fight, do not get in to arguments, an advice I have to often give myself. The word means an image, basically. I often tell myself what I should thus represent to myself so that my ideals remain intact. The term means sculpture as well. So it helps me weed out the unwanted in myself, the way a sculptor designs a statue. A name to live for, in brief. Yet another interesting aspect is that all the names, including Aai's, begin with a `p', a letter that is almost in the middle of the alphabet, which once again suggests to me an idea of balance and equanimity. Indeed there is lots in a name!

Let me end the blog today with

`nam nahi gum ho jayega

chehera chahe badal bhi jayega!'

pratima@honourable title