SubscriberWrites: What’s in a name?

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The other evening, at the shopping mall I noticed a familiar face. Initially I was hesitant to call out to her as it had been more than three and a half decades since we had last met -in our last year of school. With a little trepidation, I decided to take a chance anyway. Manisha! Manisha! I called. She took a moment to turn and looked surprised that it was her that I was calling out to. A pause and then a smile of familiarity on her face. Despite so many years, ageing and the concomitant changes that it brings along to our physical beings, I was relieved that we were recognizable to each other. That phase of adolescence now seemed as though it was ‘once upon a time’. We exchanged a warm hug and decided to catch up with each other to reminisce over a cup of coffee, at a nearby coffee shop.

As we settled down in the cozy comfort and ambience of the bistro, Manisha astonished me by announcing that she wasn’t called Manisha anymore; She was Meeta now. She had changed both her name and surname upon getting married. As I gaped in disbelief, she explained that it was quite customary in some communities for girls to still change their names completely after marriage.

Meeta!!!! I exclaimed! Would I or any of our school friends picture you as Meeta and not Manisha? Your face flashes in our minds at the mention of Manisha. The group photograph of our class, all those academic and co-curricular certificates earned by our grit and passion, the autograph book signed by all of us classmates on the last day of school – each has a story woven around it as belonging to you Manisha and not Meeta! 

Also, the process of changing one’s name completely must be a legally cumbersome one with quite a few retrospective implications. On the less practical end, there is definitely an element of sentimentality having so many memories tied to one’s former name. Calling you Meeta would be as strange as calling Ahmednagar, where we had studied together, Ahilyanagar. 

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell just as sweet.” She quoted Shakespeare philosophically in her defense.

That said, we started to fondly recall our time spent in the district town of Ahmednagar, situated about 120 km from Pune in Maharashtra. Historically, Ahmednagar took its name from Ahmad Nizam Shah 1 and its provenance is said to be a battlefield close to Bhingar village, where he won the battle in 1494 against Bahamani Sultanate. Our school was located just opposite Ahmednagar Fort where the British had once confined Jawaharlal Nehru in 1944; and where he wrote his acclaimed book “The Discovery of India”. Ahmednagar is being renamed Ahilyabai Nagar or Ahilyanagar in memory of the great warrior queen Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar. She was born in Chondi, Jamkhed Taluka , Ahmednagar district. 

We also reminisced about our school trip to Aurangabad which is now called Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar. How we had marvelled at the layout of Daulatabad Fort, the incredible cave paintings of Ajanta and the monolithic, rock-cave Kailash temple of Ellora! An architectural marvel. We had met and made friends with the students of another school- group visiting from Allahabad, now Prayagraj.

 A lot of cities and places in India have been renamed- Gurgaon is Gurugram, New Raipur is Atal Nagar, Cannanore is Kannur, Osmanabad is Dharashiv and so on; Aligarh is likely to be renamed Harigarh and Firozabad as Chandranagar. Much earlier, Calcutta became Kolkata and Bombay became Mumbai; but then the new nomenclature were their vernacular counterparts. Interestingly, Manisha now Meeta, narrated an anecdote when my mother had missed a train at the “Mughalsarai” Junction, now called “Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya” Junction.

To me, names hold great importance and are a crucial part of our identity. Adjusting to the new name of a person or a place may become challenging at times and cause disorientation and momentary identity dissonance both in the person and others. 

We had been children whose parents were in transferable jobs that compelled us to shift to a new cantonment city or town, every few years. We would make ourselves at home in our new abode making new friends and memories wherever we went. All these places, their timeless geographical features like mountains or lakes, historical monuments, events and occurrences, big or small, are etched in our minds and often revisited longingly, as fond reminiscences.

Yes, what’s in a name? What isn’t! Isn’t there nostalgia, association, identity, evocation and warmth attached to a name? We, the Gen X seem to lose a piece of our childhood each time a place is rechristened.

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