BackThere’s more to a name than you know
There’s more to a name than you know
PremiumName game: Devgn’s Singham was a hit. Photo: Prodip Guha/Hindustan Times
Could you be governed by a man called Manmohan Syng? Or by Raahul Gaandhy?
Perhaps our beleaguered (forgive the cliché but it is true) Prime Minister should consider changing the spelling of his name.
Numerology, you know. Everyone is doing it. Actor Ajay Devgan changed his name to Devgn, which sounds more like an asthmatic wheeze than a name. Our Speaker is called Meira, not the more common Meera that M.S. Subbulakshmi portrayed in the movie. I know a guy called Rameysh. Anil Kumble’s brother calls himself Diinesh, with the double “i". Lots of people call themselves Sawhney instead of Sahni. A columnist who shares my name makes it sound like an aardvark. At least two chief ministers of southern states—J. Jayalalithaa, she with the double “a"s, and B.S. Yeddyurappa, he with the crazy “y"s— have used numerological names to improve their fortunes. It worked for the lady but not for Yeddy.
On email, I changed my name from “Shoba" to the north Indian “Shobha". My Indian email contacts didn’t notice anything amiss. But my foreign contacts were all in a tizzy. I got a flurry of emails from Rio and Rome; New York and Nairobi, all stating that my email had been hacked. I am not even going to get into the Indian vernacular spelling of my name and how it is spelled in Tamil, Hindi and other languages that fall into the numerological purview.
There are three categories of Indians: Those who live their lives through astrology; those who disdain it; and those—like me—who don’t discount it but don’t live by it either. I know plenty of people who fall into the third category and they come from the most unlikely places. Scientists and statisticians go from rational to risk-averse when it comes to astrology, or numerology.
What tips normally rational people over the edge? I think it is when life throws you monkey-wrenches that you cannot solve—health issues, financial crises, accidents, death.
Here is the nifty thing about all these astrological things, though. There is no control group. Devgn probably figured that he had a winning run after his name changed, which reinforced this numerological proposition. The fallacy is that he doesn’t know if his success is because his hard work is finally paying off or because he changed his name. Unlike the movie Sliding Doors, there is no scenario in which Devgn was still Devgan and then went on to have the same winning run.
An article in The Atlantic magazine, titled The Triumph of New-age Medicine, says repeated and carefully controlled studies show that alternative therapies like homoeopathy, acupuncture and Ayurveda don’t do much for a patient in a quantifiable way. Yet they have a remarkable ability to make a patient feel better. This seeming paradox is why it is hard to discount numerology, astrology, or even palmistry. They make you feel better in ways that are hard to quantify. The same argument applies to the whole “Return to India" spectrum. India’s benefits are hard to quantify while all of the US’ benefits are easily quantifiable. You can mark a Wall Street bonus down to the very last fraction. You can mark exactly how much you made while selling a Palo Alto, California, home at the peak of the market. What are harder to quantify are the feel-good factors associated with India. How to put a price on being a son or daughter to your parents on their turf, on their terms and on their schedule? How to quantify the transition from “mehmaan" (guest) to son? Numerology, astrology, palmistry and all these inaccurate arts (or sciences) fall into this category. Their effects are hard to quantify, but the patients, or name changers, feel their benefits.
An astrologer in Kerala told me years ago that I should spell my name Sobah Sarmah. That sounds like an Iranian pet dog, I said, and refused. Shobha, in that sense, is a compromise. I didn’t consult a numerologist; I chose a random name change at a random time in my life. Let’s see what happens.
Also Read | Shoba’s previous Lounge columns
Shoba Narayan wishes it to be known that henceforth she will be known as Shobha Narain. Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com
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