Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

What is there in names?

Posted : June 27, 2004 at 10:41 am [IST]

As usual I was going through the newspaper. I found a full page ad from a coaching institute that prepares the prospective candidates wishing to join IIT or medical colleges. The page was full of small photographs of successful candidates. I had some time today. I started looking into the names. The first names of these young boys and girls are really unique and very nice sounding these days- Rahul, Rajat, Akash, Nikhil, Barun,— The traditionally old names are no more popular.. Suddenly something started pinching me. Surnames have remained mostly the same which we are seeing from good old days—Bansal, Yadav, Banerjee, Rai, Das, Paswan—. And there lies the trouble. Why can’t we decide and drop the surnames? In north the surname starts kicking some thing strange in readers’ mind. It gets identified with a caste, a specific community. Politicians are trying to take the maximum advantages out of that. Caste ridden politics has divided the society so badly, more so in villages. Caste based political parties have caused the biggest damage to the social fabrics of this as otherwise great country. Why can not the parents go for only first name, as we find in names of characters of our epics and other old literature? I know the four brothers of one family who all use only one word names starting with ‘V’. Another suggestion may be to use a simpler version of the first name of one of the parents as surname if it is to be two words instead of one. Perhaps it is done the same way in south.

The caste system must die. The caste system has come much later in history of the country. It has no merit. It must go out of our society. The religious leaders must declare a war against the caste system. The latest call for reservation in private sectors will further accentuate the bitterness. There is no study on the benefits that the reservation has given to actually needy ones. But it has surely divided the society. If religious gurus and political leaders will fail, the lead will come only from the younger generation. We all are seeing this coming though slowlyl. They will choose life partners based on the quality of the person rather his caste. Tomorrow we are organizing a ring ceremony for a young couple where the boy is Sikh (but no hair, no beard) and the girl is Brahmin. My wife has convinced the father of the girl that if they love each other, he should not have any objection. He agreed. We feel proud to facilitate the marriage. Both of them will be flying to USA as the boy has already got some employment in New York. Both of them are post graduate in medical sciences. We are very happy that we played a positive role in this relationship. Let the Great bless them a very great married life too. What will be the caste of the offspring- perhaps certainly not of his father in all probability? He may not even be able to pronounce that word.

The Story of My Name
And here is the story of my name- the official one with three words in it. At my birth perhaps someone was knowledgeable about our old mythology. He selected ‘Dhanwantar’ as my name. ‘Dhanwantari was the great doctor of that era.. Rai was the surname used by our caste in the village. With my grandfather I came to live in Calcutta where he was a teacher. My grandfather thought Dhanwantari is old fashioned for his grandson whom he loved the most and wanted him to become someday great. He consulted one of his neighbour as well as friend of our own community. He suggested Indra as there can not be anyone bigger than Indra. According to his argument, Indra was god of gods. He also suggested that the surname must change to Sharma. But perhaps my grandfather never wanted to drop the original surname neither he wanted to displease his friend so my surname became ‘Roy Sharma’. And one day in 1954, I was to fill my form for appearing to School Final examination. My class teacher was one Shri Kishori Mohan Ray Chaudhry. He insisted that I must write ‘Ray Sarma’. Perhaps that was the way the Bengalis used to write or he was trying to bring me to his clan. But then I always I found myself uncomfortable with ‘Ray Sarma’ among my North Indian friends in IIT. I started writing Roy Sharma as they thought it to be right. In my factory as short names were popular I became more popular as IR Sharma. That is the name by which all in HM knew me and so did all others who came to know me in those days. But let me tell you I love to be called by ‘Indra’ only as my identity. Some of my Bengali friends call me ‘Indro-o’ as per Bengali pronunciation and my Punjabi friend call as ‘Inder Raj’ So is there any thing in the name? I wish every Indian drops his surname. I shall like the same by my sons and grand sons even if it requires some legal notices to make that official.

- Indra

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