What is your name?

Your name changes the whole game. Let me tell you how.

We are born with no choice on the first piece of our identity.

They name us. Without consent.

Leaving a signature of our lineage stamped on our butt. Like a barcode. Our parents’ imaginations. Their Gods. Initials. Perhaps from Google’s name list, if you are a millennial.

And yet, this is the first mark we make on any stranger we meet, isn’t it?

It all begins with the name. A name we think, we are powerless to choose.

But well, there is a catch here.

You wouldn’t believe it if I said it, but your name changes every second.

When I danced in the summer rain on the train station to the raging music inside my head, ‘Crazy’ was my name.

When I told my younger sister, another bedtime story about monsters and kings, with film-like sound effects hushed in blankets, ‘Secret storyteller’ was my name.

When I threatened the bully to stop beating up the five year old for his stutter in the school bus, ‘Tenacious’ was my name.

When I taught that five-year-old boy with ADHD to tell time from a clock, ‘Patience’ was my name.

When he looked across the airport, shivering with the pain of a heartbreak, ‘Lost love’ was my name. ‘Lost’ was the first name that got added that moment.

Until then, ‘Love’ was my name.

When my mum asked the five-year-old me to come forward to welcome the guests from behind her blue Saree, ‘Shy’ was my name.

And once, when I was having lunch with an eighty-four-year-old land-lady of my hostel, the phone rung. The stranger informed me of her husband who had just passed away, On a rainy Sunday noon, when I held her hand and spoke those words, ‘Pain’ became my name.

I wince.

When I found an old friend writing the last letter she thought she would ever write, deciding to take her life away herself, all I had to offer was my voice over the phone for a night. Like a rental.

In that split second, ‘Life’ was my name.

Our name changes, every second. Every passing moment, by making an action.

Funny thing is, Once a while, we even get to choose our names, if we are lucky enough.

When that luck appears, do not let it pass.

Because, sometimes when I write to you, I offer myself the hope of my words and worlds, traveling timezones to reach you, making a far-away-friend.

The hope of beautiful words that carry ideas, after glamorous day-jobs and shitty sandwiches which the 13-year-old me would have named ‘Success’.

Nevertheless, This split second as my words meet your eyes, Go ahead, you are free to name me.

And Your story too, might perhaps begin with a name you didn’t choose.

But it can end with a name, that you get to choose. Let’s choose well.

Love, as always,

A.

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