Name

(To my friend Hasan Mansur)

1
A child is named
after mother’s some unfulfilled wish
or father’s passing fancy,
after somebody’s favourite film star
or freedom fighter
and sometimes after the grandfather-
that egotist who wants to pass on
something more than just his genes,

Like some old fossil trying to gain currency.

2
Few get to choose their own names.
Most keep for a life time
what they have been given-
changing, contorting
to fit their given masks.

Except that Hindu friend of mine,
who turned into a Muslim
and selected a brand new name for himself,
first name, second name and surname inclusive

And that daughter of my friend’s
because he called her by a sound
rather than by a name,
“She must choose hers herself”, he said.

3
To change one’s name
is to unmask oneself,
to strip one’s being of every stitch of belief

and stand naked in public
to receive each passer-by’s barb of stare
and declare one’s loss of faith,

to pick oneself up from the heap
and don the beliefs that have withstood
the singeing heat and walk on

into the crowd as though nothing
ever changed, but one’s own being.