I lost my name some five years back. I am no one now. I don’t have any personal hobby, taste, identity, wish, whim, fancies. I am known as ‘W/o’. My real name lies vestigial, in the folder of legal documents.
Do you know where else it lies hidden? In my kitchen cabinet. When guests come, I take out our best silver and arrange them on the dining table – upside down. And my heart swells with pride because there I see my name, inscribed on the most useful part of my bridal trousseau.
I remember how upset I was when I woke up to the thak thak of the bartan-wala just a day before my marriage. On the veranda, the box-full of newly bought utensils, which I will be using in my new home, were arranged in two heaps. And next to it the bartan-wala was busy deforming the smooth surface of the utensils with his little tools. Mother, in her usual overbearing style, was watching his every move like a hawk, double-checking the spelling of my maiden name on every item. “Here, you forgot this,” mother tossed a tea-spoon at him from the Done heap.
“Ma, you have ruined the designs, they look so cheap now.” Oh, so much I detested her orthodox ways. She turned with annoyance writ on her face. I know she must have found me so immature and foolish that day. Even the bartan-wala had a smirk forming on his ashen lips.
“This will prevent anyone stealing your things.” And then she added, “Later you’ll thank me for this.” What my wise mother didn’t tell me that day was that it will prevent people from stealing my name. Because one day, when I’m no longer there to tell my side of the story, the immortal utensils will prove my presence in some part of His-story to future beings.
I know, many of you will find me too dramatic, or exaggerating... but the truth is: we all are together in this.
I will tell you about this girl I once knew as Nisha. Now she is called Lata.
“Why?” I had asked her. “The name is ashubh , inauspicious. It means night, and will bring darkness to my marital home, the pundit has said.” And there is Sapna, now known as Madhuri. “Upon marriage a girl is reborn,” the boy’s mother had put across her point quoting some ancient scripture. “The identity in her parental home is erased and she is born again as a new member of her husband’s family. And anyway the name will be hardly used, from now on you will be bahu, beti , chachi , and very soon chutku ki ma, for everyone,” the woman tried to add some humour to the situation, seeing the trickle of tears in the eyes of the erstwhile Sapna.
This may sound familiar to you. Yes, the factory reset button on cellphones. Just the touch of a button and poof! All apps, data deleted and the gadget is as good as new. The new user (read owner) is ready to make changes in the settings according to his requirements.
I often wonder if it is the same for women who are non-Indians, or women who are working, or women who are working and earning more than their husbands.
This reminds me of a quote by some poet, ‘Women everywhere, in all the parts of the world, speak the same language... of silence.’
That doesn’t mean I’m the silent type. In fact, I’m the loudest one in the house. And that is the root of all problems. Because I resist, I refuse, I think, I give views... and thus I fail as a ‘supposed to be’ wife. Silence is a bargain for a happy life, happiness at least for one member.
So I decided, rather announced, I would not opt for a factory reset. So easy it was, one may think, but it is not. Sometimes the resistance comes from the least expected quarters. As when my husband wanted to add my unchanged name as the nominee to his life insurance policy and the family-friend- cum-LIC agent uncle shifted in his chair uneasily and jotted down the correct as per society norm name. “This will lead to legal complications later,” I had tried to argue reasonably, all my certificates, passport, even the birth certificate of my daughter bore my maiden name. “Oh, the policy is just a formality. Such a situation must and should never arise,” the man looked me in the face and moved over to explain some senior citizen’s policy to my father-in-law.
Or the passport office staff, who almost refused to renew my passport and my toddler’s, seeing that our names didn’t carry the same surname. It was only after calling him to the passport office and making him sign a no-objection affidavit that they were convinced I had no plans to traffick our child to some foreign destination.
I am often asked why I’m so sentimental, and such a trouble-maker about this name thing. How does it matter if I am called Kareena or Katrina? I’m what I am. And I wonder, when a man can, for a small piece of land, kill himself or kill others, live in exile, face hardship, just because that land is his motherland, his very essence, how can I leave my name, the identity I am born with?
neovartika@yahoo.com>
