What Is Your Good Name?

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With a name like Dnyanraj, it is difficult for many people to pronounce and spell, and invariably they don't get it right. As a result, I have at least five different variations of my name circulating around. It is all fine with me, and I happily respond to any of them.

However, what one is really touchy about is the pet name or nickname. It is a heavily guarded secret and somehow yoked to our destiny. The name defies logic or any discernible meaning, and if at all you can explain it, it is perhaps due to the temporary bout of insanity that afflicts new parents. How else can one explain a rational mind coming up with names like Babdya, Dinku, Bachu, Jhontu, Pintu, Chintu and, for girls, names like Puchki, Kochi, Lado, Chinna, Buchi or Dhomi?

In our early years, it holds us in a stranglehold. Parents, relatives, neighbours — it is on everyone's lips. Lacking the faculties to register a protest, we gurgle and giggle, thus encouraging its continued usage.

As we grow older, and our sense of identity takes shape, we would like to keep the nickname at the threshold of our home and step out with the “proper” name — the one with which you answer the question, "What is your good name?" But there is always the dread of the day when one of our childhood friends pops up at an official event and shouts from the other end of the room, “Hey Pintu, what are you doing here?” You will try your best to ignore it, but it will already be too late.

Children playing together — a reminder of the childhood years when nicknames are born.
A nickname may embarrass us in public, but it quietly carries the warmth of childhood

In all this you learn an important lesson. You must guard your nickname with your life. You take pains to ensure that your relatives never refer to you as Babla or Babdya, at least not in the initial days of courtship with your fiancée. You spend the rest of your life pretending the nickname does not exist, hoping you have neutralised its threat. But deep in your heart, you know you can never quite be rid of it.

Having said that, the nickname can also be a welcome connection to our younger, happier and more carefree days. It persists within close family circles, particularly with siblings. My sisters had come yesterday for Raksha Bandhan, and without the slightest hesitation they still call me by my nickname. It becomes no secret to the wife or husband, as it is usually the siblings who first spill the beans. Anyway, if the couple has a good sense of humour, these become a good source of fun. My wife and I both don't have very edifying nicknames and, during light-hearted moments, these are exchanged freely, much to the delight of the children.

All said and done, they are remnants of our childhood and may be worth preserving. They allow us to step out, for a moment, from a world that is otherwise quite formal, serious and complicated.

There is also a less harmful and more benign variation of nicknames, where the name is simply shortened. This is typically where a ‘u’ is added at the end. For example, Shanaya becomes Shanu, Ananya becomes Anu. Or Makarand becomes Mak or Makya, depending on where he is.

However, in my daughters' case we simply shortened their names by removing the ‘ka’. So Devika became Devi and Radhika became Radhi. Personally, I tend to call them by their full names, and even on the phone they are saved that way. But girls being girls, my younger daughter once asked me why I call her by the full name and not by her pet name. In fact, she also asked why she did not have some other pet name instead of just a shortened one!

I suppose whether it is daughters or wives, they may consider such names expressions of endearment. But I ask — what is in a name?

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