Over the weekend, I attended the traditional naming ceremony of a relative's child (known in Kannada as Namakarana). I'm usually not inclined to attending these (simply as there are too many such occasions usually and people take objection to attending one and missing an another). However, in this case, the process was special as the child was adopted. My respect to parents is always going to be higher for these cases. I think it takes courage and a certain level of broadmindedness not usually apparent in the society.
The key portion of the ceremony is when the father of the child gets the child to write on a plate with rice atleast 5 names. One for the week / month, one based on the scriptures, one for some ancestor in the family, one for god and then the "Vyavahara nama or business name" which will be the actual given name.
This is where my reflective nature kicked in.... What if I were to make a list of all the names and then put out the key characteristic of each name for the future ? Would that influence the individual ? How many of us know what was thought of for us as the name options ?
I personally feel that there is an influence - my own experience in highlighting the "Sun" is an example. American Indians (I've read) are named after key characteristics that they are expected to display. What if we did the same in India ?
I think this would work - unless there is a name that someone is not proud of ?
What would that be ?
What did I learn today ?
That the results of the 2001 census is being collated - take a look at the latest India today report on the education divide between muslim and other communities in India. Frankly, I'm still trying to think through what this means....shocking is a very light word. When will we learn that primary education is the foundation of progress ?
No comments:
Post a Comment