Indianness while playing name game

Priya S Tandon

I found a young girl, staring at her iPad while waiting for her order at a fast food joint at an airport. She was pregnant.

For want of space in the café, I asked her if I could sit on the vacant chair at her table. She nodded. I happened to glance at her iPad and found that she was googling Indian Goddesses names for a baby girl. She got up for a minute to collect her food as her order number flashed on the café monitor.

I read the names Aeindri and Anwita on her screen. I smiled at the girl as she set her tray down on the table and sat down on the hard polymer chair. I asked her if she had finalised a name for her baby to be. She said, “Yes! I am closing in on Aeindri or Anwita.” I asked her what Aeindri meant and she opened the page and read it before saying that it means ‘power of Lord Indra’ and Anwita refers to the ‘all-powerful Mother Goddess’.

She said, “I really want to keep a very traditional Hindu name.” I smiled and said, “Yes, that’s nice!”

I looked at her pizza and her Vietnamese coffee that stood in sharp contrast to the masala dosa I was gorging on. I looked at her unruly curls coloured golden and green, with beads woven into them. Her nails were painted turquoise blue. Her torn jeans had peepholes at the knees and thighs. She sported a handbag of a high-end Italian brand and umpteen weird bracelets.

Conversing in mother tongue

Ironically, she was on the same flight as I was and I was seated next to her. She was watching Game of Thrones on her iPad. Sacrificing sleep, I started a conversation in Hindi, but I noticed that she gave all her replies in English. Well, I am not against English in any way. I think it is a great unifying language, through which we get to communicate with people the world over. But it does bother me when youngsters find it difficult to converse in their mother tongue.

I told her that the baby that she was carrying would be absorbing everything that she was doing, reading or watching on the iPad. I asked her if she ever read anything spiritual. She looked at me and giggled saying, “Nope!” I suggested that she could read or watch something suchlike on YouTube.

Endeavour towards character building

I mentioned to her that many years ago when I was expecting, I used to watch the Ramayana serial recording every day. I would read discourses of Sathya Sai Baba. That was my earnest endeavour towards character building of my unborn child.

As we landed, I noticed her husband, who had come to pick her up. He wore frayed jeans and had tattoos of scorpions and snakes all over his biceps. He was smoking and his hair was sharp razor cut down his temples.

I sometimes wonder why our youngsters want to show their Indianness only while choosing a name for their babies. What about trying to behave Indian? Eating Indian? Conversing in your mother tongue? How about reading and understanding our culture? Wile addressing a convocation at Panjab University recently, Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu said everyone should be proud of their mother tongue. He said, “When anyone addresses a gathering of mixed nationalities on an international forum, he speaks in his mother tongue. A translator does the task of conveying the message to everyone.”

So, why is it that the educated elite of our country do not want to converse in their mother tongue? Perhaps after another two generations, the mother tongue would be English; for the mothers would not be able to converse in the regional dialect and so would not be able to teach it to their children.

Languages becoming extinct

Isn’t it amazing that archaeologists are digging out statues, plaques and writings of people dead and gone of past civilisations? They try to decipher the language written in the caves and walls of the ruins they excavate. But, what of the languages that are presently running the risk of becoming extinct? Are we doing anything to preserve them? Or are we waiting for them to be forgotten and then the generations to come would research on them?

I feel strongly that if we want to preserve our Indian culture and tradition, our attitude needs to change. Well! If our persona reflects Indianness then by all means Aeindri or Anwita would be great choices to go for! Otherwise we would be Indian only in name …