What's in a Name?

A friend asked me yesterday, 'What's your mother's name?'. I was quite amused by the question, till she told me the reason. The background goes that her grandmother used to make all the grandkids call her by name because with age she realized that there were hardly a handful of people who called her by her first name. This decision of hers, led to all the grandkids calling her by her name. An almost unthinkable thing in any Indian family. But because she had initiated it from the time they were very young, that is how my friend and her cousins addressed their grandmother.

When that piece of information sank in, i realized the depth of that question. In a family set-up like ours in India, the relationships overtake names. And especially a lady, once married, would mostly be addressed with a relationship. She would be a 'bhabhi'(sister-in-law),a 'didi' (elder sister), a 'chachi',a 'mami' (aunty) graduating on to a 'dadi' and 'nani' (Granny).

While the men still go out and get addressed by their first names, the stay-at-home ladies are addressed lesser and lesser by their first names. In a social do, they are invariably referred to as Mrs. so and so, Ma'am, aunty, Bhabhiji or such. In fact, most ladies would even forget to introduce themselves by their names and would often resort to introducing themselves as Mrs. so and so or as so and so's mother in a PTA. I am not too sure, how many women think of this whole process as losing their names. But it's something to think about!

While some may take it in their stride and never even pause to ponder, there would be ladies like my friend's grandmother who had it in them to think about it and act on it. " What's in a name?" asked the great Bard. But, that's the whole point isn't it? That i should be recognized as an individual first and foremost before all relationships.

Just a few days before my friend asked me the question, my mother mentioned in passing that a family friend of ours was one of the very few who called her by name. I didn't think too much about it...till now, that is. To think that as we age fewer and fewer people would call us by name is a sobering thought and i know that one of the things my mother would miss most would be hearing her name echo within the walls of our home.