Instead of calling their mother by her name Kamal Mani-ji suggested that his children address their mother as ‘Deviji’ and the name stayed
Parents’ naming their children is the normal process but today I am going to write about children doing the naming. Surprised? Don’t be because they can do it with the help of parents and elders, but often they do it on their own too. The difference between the two is parents sometimes come up with difficult names for their children but the names children choose are often simple and sometimes even sound. Just the thought takes me back to my childhood and reminds me of an incident associated with my late brother and (former prime minister) Krishna Prasad Bhattarai.
It must have been in the late fifties. I remember during the winter Bhattarai used to come to our place in the morning wrapped in a dolai. The first thing he did after meeting my young brother was to address him as hari lamphu (“slow-wit”). He did that many times.
One day my brother called Bhattarai hari lamphu in response as obviously my brother did not like being called so. The next incident that comes to mind is me naming other elders.
I called Kishunji kaka (“uncle”). For me Kishunji was the name and kaka something I called all my father’s friends. Later I figured out ‘ji’ was something people used for respect, but by that time it was too late to change. So Kishunji kaka stayed.
Coming from a political family, there were lots of people from Nepali Congress who worked closely with my father and were in constant contact. For little children it was odd to call them by their names, with ‘ji’ attached at the end of their names, as our parents did, but we could call them kaka. So it turned out we were calling all the male members kaka and their wives kaki (“aunt”). So BP Koirala was BP kaka (BP uncle) and Sushila aunt was called Sushila kaki, Keshab Prasad Koirala was Kosu kaka. We addressed the members of Koirala family as Nona kaki, Tarini kaka and Rosa kaki, and Girija kaka and Sushma kaki. Keshab Raj Pidali was Pidali kaka and Parsu Narayan Chaudhary was Mahamantri kaka (because he was Congress general secretary at the time). He later became Chaudhary kaka.
During the time we lived in exile, I found the way Koirala family children addressed their parents highly unusual: BP baba, Kosu baba, Tarini baba and Sanu buwa, both baba and buwa meaning “father”. Similarly, all mothers were addressed as ama (“mother”): Sushila ama, Nona ama. Later, when I had my own children, I faced the same situation. My children started calling my parents baba-ama just as I did. To avoid confusion, my elder son started calling me Usha ama and my father, Mala baba, because he used to wear a small rudraksha mala (“necklace”) at the time.
It is interesting how children come up with names but sometimes it’s also the adults who help with the naming process. My father in law (Ba) started the tradition of calling his oldest son ‘father’. It is entirely possible that Ba wanted his grandson to call his father ‘daddy’ but the literal translation of baba, as he knew, was ‘father’ so ‘father’ stayed and everyone afterwards addressed Ram Chandra dai (“brother”) as ‘father’. Now it so happened that Kishna Chandra dai was staying in Darbhanga for his higher studies, so he was called Darbhanga ba. Later, his children started calling him buwa. My husband in Greece became uncle. So he became Uncle hubba and I became Usha ama for most of my natis and natinis (“grandsons” and “granddaughters”) because that’s how I liked being addressed.
The other day I noticed my friend Rupa’s post on Facebook regarding her father’s demise, but instead of writing baba or buwa or even dad, or any other name commonly used for father, she had mentioned her Dada (“brother”). I was puzzled. Finally, I figured she was mentioning her father when a picture accompanied the post. Now I was curious about how that name stuck with her father. So the other day, when we visited Kundaji, Kanakji and Rupa to convey our condolence at their father’s demise, I asked Kanakji about it. His response made a lot of sense to me. He said that his father had spent some time in Kolkata for education purposes and there the Bengalis called him dada as a respect for older brother and that ‘dada’ stayed and everyone called him dada from that day. Now my next question to him was about their mother.
They called their mother, Deviji. She passed away last year. Rupa had also posted about her mother’s demise on Facebook, but unfortunately, I did not connect the name to their mother. By the time I figured it out, it was too late to convey my condolence to the family.
It sure was an unusual name for mother. So I asked the family why they called their mother Deviji. Kundaji came forward to respond. It turns out that initially they called their mother by her name, Anju, by copying other elders in the family. But the family members thought this rude and so Kamal Maniji suggested that the children call their mother Deviji and it stayed. At that time, Kanakji also informed me that all family members, including grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins called Rupa, bahini (“younger sister”).
Later Rupa added that she was addressed as bahini didi (“elder younger sister”) by her kaka’s sons and was called bahini phupu (now how do you translate this?) by her cousin’s children!
Finally, naming is something humans do. Sometimes, names that children give to their parents do not make sense at all. Basu Dev Risal’s children called him Gumba, and his wife as Ang and they were known by that name to the whole family and other children. I, however, alternated between Basukaka and ‘gumba’ depending on my mood and the audience. I felt curious and one day asked for the reason. Ang told me that her eldest son could not say baba and often said ‘umba’ and others interpreted it as ‘gumba’. Again it was their oldest son who called her ‘Ang’ and it stayed. So never underestimate the power of children to name their parents and others.
An afterthought: If I had the opportunity to name my parents, what could I call them? This question brings a smile to my face. Have you ever thought of something like this?
Refusing to grant citizenship in name of mother is unconstituti...
The author is an educationist and author of several children’s books
usha@pokharel.net
