Fake Gandhis

Why do parents name their kids after personalities who they think are great? I have rich experience on this subject. I’ll quote two examples. When I was at my grade 6 there was this guy whose name was Sashi Kumar whose father was a judge, this was in Cuddapah, Andhra Pradesh. Suddenly to my surprise one fine morning in school this guy told all his friends that from now on his name is Nelson Nehru. I asked him what the matter is. He replied that he has no idea, as suddenly his father has changed his name. Though I did not get it at that tender age, I could guess what motivated my friend’s father to suddenly change his name to Nelson Nehru, this could possibly be due to his new found love with Nehru & Nelson Mandela? That is an educated guess. 

Another experience was with a guy called Mohammed, he is from Tondiarpet, Chennai who has four male kids and the names of all end with Castro. One thing I know for sure is that his last son who was newly born I recall Mohammed naming him King’s Castro.  Then I asked him a rhetorical question, will it not lead to confusion? I.e., naming all kids with a similar name. He replied that it shows how much he loves Cuba’s Fidel Castro. This Mohammed was an electrician who was working for a daily wage of Rs.110. It is entirely a different matter whether those who were named after such personalities actually live up to the expectations of their parents.

One would wonder as to what would have forced Jawaharlal Nehru to name his daughter Indira as Indira Gandhi, because from then on Feroz Khan has become Feroz Gandhi and their son Rajiv Gandhi and so on. There could be two reasons. One reason could be Nehru would have wanted his kids to emulate the character of the personality (Gandhi, in this case) on whose name he named his daughter. Second possible reason could be that he wanted to appropriate the legacy of the person on whose credentials the whole congress organization stood and turn it in to a family run enterprise; current day congress is exactly that, family run enterprise.

Mahatma Gandhi was the only original Gandhi that Congress party ever had; everyone else is a fake Gandhi. Raul Vince will not become Mahatma Gandhi just because he goes by his another name called as Rahul Gandhi in public. To think otherwise is a great insult to the intelligence of an ordinary Indian citizen. So all that mellow dramas through orchestrated speeches will not change anything on the ground, you are what you are.