The Game of Names

 

India is a land of customs, of beliefs and indeed of acknowledging things (and people too). No matter where on this diverse and vast-cultured land you put up, there are a set of beliefs and practices that linger there from times immemorial. Though some beliefs and practices change with the boundaries of the state, but some remain dutifully same across the lengths and breadths of this nation.

To begin with, when I was a little child, I remember my parents used to listen to Aakashwani, a then popular radio station. The lady (whom I had often doubted that somewhere inside that little box she had a nest of hers) would begin her broadcast with the monotonous line, "Namaskaar! Yeh Aakashwani ka Nazibabad station hai, aur aap sun rahe hain aaj k mukhya samachar." Then after the completion of her headlines she hosted an on-request music broadcast titled- Aap ki Farmaish, where people from across the nation called her and requested her to play a song of their choice. Before the song began she would read out the names of all the people to whom the desired listener had dedicated the song to. The names would follow in an unending manner, from the youngest son Tinku, then Rinku, Pinku, Tina, Meena, Neena. Then respectively it would go for all their aunts and uncles, a few best friends of the listener, his panwala, and I doubted that if someone would have been spared it would have only been his most hated enemy (by the number of names it seemed a few enemies too had been forgiven and credited).

Well, this doesn't just end up here. Acknowledgement is a hungry offering that one is always ready to give without a reason and the other always ready to take without an appetite. The same goes for novels and books, where a hundred friends say to the author, "Kahin pe hamara bhi naam daaldena."

Coming to cars, have you noticed the similarity in them? The way the owner mentions Dheeraj, Neeraj on the rear pane. I wonder what is it for? Perhaps it's not in the interest of the man-of-the-house, but the woman-of-the-house. It might be an indication of him being married, like she herself bears a red bindi and mangalsutra every time. Poor man, how would he not put the names of his kids behind his own vehicle. Emotionally Atyachar-ged!

Coming to trucks, they have always been the center of everyone's attention. With slogans like "Tanu-Manu di gaddi," "Hum Do Hamare Do," "Buri Najar wale 13 Muh Kala," "Oh Meri Rani, kam-kam pi Iraq ka Paani," "Baja Horan (Horn), Nikal Foran." "Aa ab laut chaley," and remind me if I forgot something.

The last but never the least, from the backside of bus seats to the walls of mosques and temples, from school benches and desks to the wall beside the water taps in a garden and on the rusty street lamp-posts, to public toilets and tree trunks, you'll find names and only names. Names scratched and carved, sprayed and painted, charcoaled and mud-stained, written in circles and boxes, in half made breasts and perfect shaped hearts, in cursive and bold, in smooth flows and undulations- there are names everywhere.

There are names and names everywhere and yet the only thought that haunts a just married couple is, what name would they give their kid?