Today I called up my four year old niece to wish her for her birthday. Her mother(My sister) called out to her: “Saanvi,” “Badi Mausi”...........I could hear an excited voice enquire and exclaim “Badi Mausi?!” ..........and then with more excitement on the phone she went on .... “Badi Mausi aaj mera birthday hai......I went to school.....cake aayega......and soon she was lost in the excitement of the party and friends in her house...........But the gentle loving words “Badi mausi”.....kept echoing in my ears for a long time after I disconnected the phone.....being the eldest of six siblings and of the whole of my generation in my family “badi” has become an epithet to the different “roles” I Play. Off late I realise my mother always introduces me to her new found friends, the elderly women in the society who spend a few hours together chit-chatting and sunning themselves in the cold Delhi weather in their evening years of their life, whenever I visit her... “Ye meri Badi Beti hai......Nainital se aayi hai”..... It mesmerises me the way “names” and “roles” have changed or has been added in the last four decades of my Life!
I am told by my mother when I was born my mother was staying with her uncle’s family as my father was away in the US pursuing his executive management programme. At Patna it was a family of my mother’s Uncle and my uncles (mamas) who stayed in the city pursuing their jobs and education and I was the only little baby in the family then and so, my mother’s uncle my grandfather named me “Baano”.......the little child then “Baano” is still called “Baano” whevenver she visits them.....not only do I love this name with which I was born it brings me fond fading memories of my childhood.
I am told one of my aunts was fond of the character “Bunty” of a serial story with the same title she was reading in a magazine and gave me the name Bunty which became my nickname for the rest of my life!
Soon it was time to go to school and register an official name and another aunt of mine decided on “Jyoti” as she thought the first child of the next generation of the family befitted this name. It was also the time when caste in India was becoming a disability rather than identity and also that perhaps my father a congresi by ideology and a rather un-proclaimed admirer of one of our nation’s most fiery Prime minister, preferred to suffix “Priyadarshini” rather than the family surname.
Schooling in the southern part of the country I heard very interesting accents of my name and also my teachers and friends liked to take some liberty with my name. One of my favourite teacher till now calls me “Jyotipriya”......which I so love to hear.
When my marriage was fixed, my to be husband’s friends and Bhabhees also gave me names I cherish, one of them called me “Ujala” perhaps associating it with the “Jyothi Laboratories” product, which I still use as a password to many accounts!
When I stepped into my marital home shy to call me by my name my husband always called out “Listen” to which once my mother-in-law remarked “Ye tumne badhiya naam rakha hai “Listen”......... I guess he just translated the commonly used “suniye ji or suno”!
When I was teaching in a college I also had the privilege of the names my students kept for me some of which I know and some I don’t......I often asked them to tell me their nickname for me as a farewell gift in their last semester and once a supposedly brave student said “Mam ye sab aasp se dartey hain aur aapko nahin bata rahe hai......ye aapko “Jyoti Moti” bulatey hai...” I stood smiling to a class of undergraduates fearing about their internal marks !
Few Years ago my sister was blessed with a son and our younger sister was babysitting during her visit to their place and she spent quite some time teaching the three year old about relatives and friends. He was introduced to his “Badi Mausi” at the Bangalore Railway station when we visited my sister a few years ago. I haven’t forgotten the deep brown eyes looking into the mirror of the car sitting in my lap on the way from the station to his house he kept saying “Badi Mausi” several times. Since they migrated to the US I hadn’t heard it in several years. Today again my little niece with her gentle and loving voice took me on a voyage of memories.
“What’s in a name”...... they say, Lots I guess... my names bring me memories, memories filled with love, warmth and identity ........from Bano to Badi Mausi life has been a mixed bag of feelings!
