Not too many clicks into the past
when it was likely of those you met for the first time to introduce themselves
as Lakshmi, Gita, Ram, Hanuman, Lakshman, Purshottam, Rajiv, Jyoti, Gautam, Ramnath,
Priyadarshini, Raghu, Anand, Mohan, Rajesh, Manoj, Dilip, Sanjeev, Vinod, Hema,
Mala, Indira and the like, there was little chance you’d get the name wrong the
first time you heard them utter it.
The names were usually drawn from
tradition, mainstream cultural heritage and/or linguistic (read Sanskrit)
heritage and chances were you’d heard of the name before.
This was true of towns and cities
with fairly homogenous populations domiciled over generations with the
exception of communities/castes hailing from the hinterland – usually culturally
unique to the region/geography.
Over time India began to change and other
names happened, trendier, fancier and cutting across formerly unique
cultural/ethnic/caste groupings.
Juhi was one such name. Outside
of people settled in urban concentrations, the name ‘Juhi’ is uncommon to a
non-urban ear like Juhi from @juhipande found out.
"What's your
name?"
"Juhi"
"Julie?"
"No,
Juhi. With an
'h'"
"Huhi?!"
"Yes.
Yes my name is Huhi."
— juice (@juhipande) May
24, 2015
Juhi Pande gave up on getting the other
to get her name right.
The reverse is equally true like
I found out recently, much to my chagrin, when I met a Rajasthani youth
speaking hindi accented by his local dialect.
My exchange with the bare-chested
Rajasthani youth selling colourful balloons tethered to a stick pegged in the
carrier at the back of a bicycle, one of the three outside a dying mall in
Mulund, was no different from the one Juhi had except for the ending.
“What’s your name?” I ask the
smiling youth while two of his fellow kinsmen look on.
“Bhuralal” he replies in an
accent immersed in a Rajasthani dialect likely local to his region.
“Bhurlal?” I repeat to confirm if
I got it right.
“Bhurla?” I try again in quick
succession. He shakes his head.
“Bhuralal,” he repeats, pauses
and smiles, waiting for me to “get” it.
Noticing my still confused
expression, he whips out his hand in front of my face and points to his name tattooed
on his arm, smiling broadly. "Mera Naam," he says.
“Bhuralal,” I repeat, relieved to finally get it right. I'd begun to worry that I’d let him down.
Now I knew his father’s name as
well – Khumanji.
I’m not sure if Juhi Pande needs to get
a tattoo of her name on her arm to flash in the face of incomprehension since, unlike Bhuralal, she has a famous
namesake who captured the imagination of cine goers couple of decades ago, one
who made the name mainstream for quite a while – Juhi Chawla.
I think that was the first time I
heard of “Juhi” the name. QSQT was quite the rage growing up, and Juhi Chawla had cemented her
place on the teenage pantheon. Then there was this other Juhi from back then – bubbly,
mischievous, charming and quite the looker, setting many a hopeful heart
aflutter at where I went to college.
Ah, the memories that some names
evoke!
