Better Call me Jack, not Veipaole

John Basho Pou

The value of name has long been immortalized in prose, poetry and religious ceremony. Name of a person is not just a mere grouping of several letters of an alphabet, or other symbols, it represents an identification the value of a name has long been immortalized in prose, poetry and religious of a bearer. 

Thus we’re our names. And what’s in your name is ‘you’. Dale Carnegie, the author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, once said, “ceremony. Name of a person is not just a mere grouping of several Remember that a  name is, to him or her, the sweetest and most important sound ever in any.”

After creation God didn’t give little sparrows different names, nor did He call myriad stars by different names, yet He named the first man ‘Adam’ and let Adam christen the first woman ‘Eve’. Hence God bestowed upon us freedom to choose a name for a new-born child to identify himself or herself from others. We’ve been named after persons picked from the holy books, history, legends, literatures etc. that we may be able to cultivate their attributes in our upbringing. And there’re also some names that have been meaningfully and creatively coined by parents.

As name of a person mirrors an identity of a community, clan, family or religion (s) he belongs to, I would like to emphasize particularly on traditional names and its identity in our social context and bring to light the fact that due to our failure to value and safeguard our identity we blindly let aliens names drive our traditional names backseat. Underline this: this write-up is not a slice of my imagination But rather a voice of our cultural treasure in the downswing and eclipsed by our westernized outlook in our society.

Amita Malik, a well-known columnist once bravely confessed in the ‘Hindustan Time’ that she feels many inches taller when people call her Amita Bedi , her pre-marriage name. She says, “Because it’s a gracious form of address. It’s Indian and it gives me a distinct identity by using only my first name……”

I sometimes wonder how many of us have that Amita’s in us. Do we feel taller or hold our head high when someone calls us by traditional names (our identity) we bear? Or are we shying off our values and pride by sheepishly introducing ourselves as, for instance, “I’m Veipaole Jack, but better call me ‘Jack’, with a touch of cosmetic pride forgetting our traditional identity, because ‘Jack’ sounds smarter, modern and more catchy than ‘Veipaole’ which is  ancient, tongue punishing, and only raising others eyebrow? If the answer is yes, then I feel that we’re progressing backward with sophisticated western ideals. We’ll have to start from the start as culture and traditional being the pride of every civilization and inevitable element for progress in every aspects of life. Therefore, we need to cherish it and carry it on and on.

As per ‘Atlas of the world’s Tribal Languages and Names in Disappearing’, not only the world’s tribal culture, language but names are also under threat as a result of globalization and Darwinian battle for survival. It’s indeed a wake-up call especially for our society where traditional names are being pushed to an edge of extinction. I wonder why sometimes we try to become puppets of the west, and want to be foreigners and live an exile life in our own land. 

This notion springs up while judging upon the way we deal with our names in the social circuit and at the naming ceremony which has been virtually altered into a feast of traditional sacrifice/slaughter by forgetting our great names handed down by our forefathers and simply copying others. The creativity in conjuring up those great  numerous names from our own history, literature and folklore , and coining unique names for a child has been barely utilized by our parents. And this one of the reasons why they blindly pick up whatever names pops up in their mind while naming a child.

Playing with names becomes a common craze among the today’s youngsters. Feeling unease with names given by parents, names are simply changed or beautified by many youngsters. And it is commonly done without the approval of their family and not realizing that modified or changed name only downgrades one’s identity and virtually (s)he becomes a new person. It takes time to regain it. And it’s another big headache for students. Just to get name replaced with a new one , one has to toil through pile of files in the institutions, judicial procedure and so on. Therefore, one needs to rethink before (s) he tags on new name. And parents also need to be futuristic  about the matter  and culture-minded while choosing a name for a child, because name plays a prominent role in one’s life and influence one’s character.

Therefore let us keep our cultures and traditions alive. Because it’s our treasure and our pride. We shall not wait for someone to dig out our past glory in the future. Let us celebrate it now.

The writer is a Delhi based journalist