What’s in a name? That we call a rose….

What’s in a name? That we call a rose….

JULIET

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

ROMEO

I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

It was that easy! That is the power of love! Romeo vows to relinquish his very name. What a love, you would say. But do women relinquish their maiden name after marriage, don’t they? (At least most of them do.)  To many the answer to ‘What’s in a name?’ would be ‘It hardly matters’. However, my mother would say that there is everything in a name. She always insisted to address a person by his full name without any abbreviation or twisting of the name. " ..त्याचे नाव खोडू नकोस, she would say. (Don’t rub off his name.)" So I had to call or address my friends by their complete names. Even when his parents called my classmate ‘Ravi’ I was the only person in the whole class, who called him Ravindra. This was so firmly rooted in my mind and that of siblings’ that none of us ever dared to act otherwise. And no one, yes no one ever dared to call anyone of us by any other name but our own. My mother’s name was Alak-kishori, though many called her Alak. But on all official records it was always Alak-kishori. She would often tell me how her husband, my father, was the only person who called her by that full name, and she loved and liked being called thus. She would also tell me how my grand- father called her Kishori. The other day a cousin of mine, Nrupal gave me an invitation cards (for his son’s wedding ceremony) for my sisters, wherein, on the invitation for one of my sisters, he had correctly written her name as: Mrs. Shibani Talpade. I was surprised. His mom, my mami (aunt) had told him that was her real name and not Shubha and how Alak vans, (vans is a special word used for a sister-in-law exclusively in our community i.e. Pathare Prabhu) my mother, would often tell everybody and insist on calling my sister by that name.  Shibani became Shubhani and then shortened to just Shubha, but again her name in official records was Shibani until she got married.

In our building we had Prafulla, who became Papya for everyone but me and perhaps I am the only person who calls him Prafulla till today.  So was the case with many of my building peers - Jayprakash became Jaya, Vijay became Vijya, Ashok became Ashya, Sharad became Sharya and so on. There was this fixation of putting the suffix ‘ya’ ['ऍ' कारान्ती] after every damn name; but I escaped or my name suffering such torture. Of course one guy did attempt and called me Vinya and imagine the scolding he got from my mother! There was this cousin of mine, Prabhodini and my mother always called her by that name. We called her baby-tai, rather oxymoron type of name, you would think – tai (elder sister) contradicting baby. She was very innovative and impart nick names to every tom, dick and harry. Now would a name like Nilesh end with suffix ‘ya’? Would you believe it, she called him ‘Niltya’. How that ‘t’ ('ट') crept in, I really don’t know. She was indeed epitome of innovation! So she converted Gajendra (I still call him by that name) to Gaja, Vilas to Vilya, Hemant to Hemya, Bal or बाळ  (that too must be his abbreviated name from Baleshwar, perhaps) to Balya or बाळ्या, Ramesh to Ramya, Laxuman to Laxya and Narayan to Naraya and even a pet dog named Tommy was not spared – Tommy became Tammya and she would tell how this Tammya was so well trained that every morning they  (family) would send him with some notes of rupees in his mouth, he would go to Sunshine Bakery and come back carrying loaves of bread in the mouth giving them an added taste of saliva dropping and dripping from Tammya’s mouth. It used to be all action packed narration – she would pant the way dogs do - hah, hah, with her open mouth and her tongue jutting in and out and even make believe wagging of the tail action– all tuned to perfection. She wouldn’t of course get credit for making Mohan  as Monya.

Girls were not spared this ordeal either. Kumudini became Kummu (Not ‘Kammo’ from ‘The 3 Idiots’), Amita turned into Ambi and Subhod was cut down to Subhi.  Even my aunties were not spared. My maushi Sureshnandi became Surimaushi.We began to call our Pramila maushi as  Prami maushi and Pratibha mami was reduced to Bha mami.

I don’t understand these terms used for servants - ओले गाडी (wet) & सुके गाडी (dry). Perhaps, they were meant for the family servants, who exclusively worked for only for a particular family while the other category of them worked for many families (middle like ours) simultaneously. Some of aunties had these family servants, whose names too had been changed to the abbreviated ones, and their origin is not known. So we had  Rama, Janu, Ratnya, Maadhu, Madhu, Maadhya, Madhya, Ganya and Ganpya, just to name a few. However, Sankharam’s name remained intact. How could anyone, especially the ladies of the house, ever call him 'सख्या'? (Sakhya i.e.afriend, a companion or even a lover) People like us were gifted with  class of servants like Gaurya, Pandu, Pandya, Madhu. Madhya, Nathya, Antya, Janya and so on.. These were all ‘Marathi speaking class of servants collectively called ‘Rama Gadis’ or just plain ‘Ramas’. These breed is slowly fading, almost extinct, and is being replaced by the class known as Kongatis (कोंगाटी), a term used for those coming from the south, Karnataka,  Hyderabad, Kerala, Madras, etc. They were generally called ‘Rajas’, with preffix or suffix before or after the Raja. When I was a kid, I remember we too had this Raja working for us and there was another Raja working for our neighbours. Both of them had prefixes of Kala before their names. So distinguish them, one working for us was called Alak maushi’s  Kala Raja while the other one was Dhurandhar mami’s Kala Raja. Both were always at each other’s throat. Our Kala Raja was the violent one, ‘singli fasli’ (thin and lean), but believed himself to be stronger than the other fellow. The other fellow is always at fault, so believed our Kala Raja. There would be constant fights between them, especially on Sundays, not in ours or Dhurandhar mami’s home, but down below, in the open street, when our man would come usually drunk, dead drunk. In that state too he managed to clean and wash our utensils properly. On seeing the other Kala Raja, would challenge him to fight, all the while twirling his thick moustache. With his red eyes glaring, swearing, cursing and using all the expletives in his vocabulary would rush at his foe. Whether it was his anger or the the bevda or the illicit liquor that was turning his eyes red, I do not know.  The neighbour’s hero was sturdy and hefty. So he always had upper hand in the fight. But that would not be the end of it.  After losing the fight our Kala Raja would engage in some senseless voodoo rituals, wasting lemons and coconuts. It never harmed the other Kala Raja, it never does. Both of them became old and left for their native state. This breed is quite strong and stubborn, and would not fade so easily, though ‘Raja’ thing is not prevalent now. Now we have Tirupati, who works tirelessly from dawn to midnight, doing utensils, washing clothes, washing cars and other chores for Marwari, Gujarati, Parsi and Maharashtrian families of the neighbourhood. So there are Kesvans, Appas and Vishwanaths. Earlier these Rajas never had their Ranis with them. But now there are Rukhminis, Chitras and Saraswatis working in Mumbai as maids, shouldering their responsibilities with  male. 

 In south, especially in Kerala the custom is to have the family as the first name. I had a boss whose name was M.C.Abraham and after much persuasion he reluctantly disclosed that M.C. stood for Macho Chaco. My friend's name is T.M.Francis (T.Mathew Francis), his sons are Joel Mathew Francis, Noel Francis and Abel Francis. His wife, also my friend is Molly Francis. We also had K. Thomas. K stood for Kutiyan or Kotiian, I am not sure. Mr. Abraham had told me that if you add letter 'a' in the end to it, he would turn into a cow elephant. I've not verified.

Some people like being referred to by their initials. There are some famous ones – RK (Raj Kapoor), JFK (John Fitzgerald Kennedy, former U.S. President), MGR (M.G. Ramchandran) and many more. While there are others who are known first two initials but they retain their surnames – P.K. Atre and P.L. Deshpande (पुल or Pu.La in Marathi), being the most famous such names. In corporate world even the posts are abbreviated as BM (branch manager), MD (Managing Director) and so on. Then the employees add suffixes to the posts and address them as MD saheb…I had been to one organization for some work. The receptionist told me that PD saheb will meet you shortly. PD? Later on I came to know that he was their Managing Director, Mr. Pandurang Dattatray Deshmukh. Then this PD tells me to see RD, who had been briefed about me, he told me. RD happened to be one Mr. Robert D’Souza. Why names, these abbreviations are used abundantly and frequently and that too when they are not the ones those are universally acknowledged and WhatsApp and Face book are full of them. Some are easy to understand like OMG -Oh My God! That would be nice way to end.  

                                                                                         Vinay Trilokekar