When I do creative writing workshops with teenagers or teachers, one of my favourite activities is to get participants to explore their relationship with their name. These are the guiding questions I offer: What does your name mean? Who gave you this name? Is there a story behind it? Do you like it? Have you ever felt like changing it? What would you change it to? Has it ever landed you in a funny, crazy or embarrassing situation?

It’s fun to hear the sheer variety of stories that fill the room. At one such workshop in May 2014, I sat down to write along with the participants. Here is what I came up with:

When I was a child, I had a funny relationship with my name. I didn’t quite know what it meant. I wondered why I had been given such a complicated name. It didn’t make sense.

Then, one day, I learnt that it was a custom in my family to have the child’s paternal aunt give the child her/his name. Mamta, my aunt, wanted me to have a philosophical name, so ‘Chintan’ is what she picked.

Somehow, I liked ‘Dhruv’ instead. It sounded cool — the Indian name of the pole star, and also of a child prodigy in Hindu mythology. No one I personally knew had this name. That uniqueness too was something I treasured.

Eventually, as I grew up, I began to appreciate my name. Exploring Buddhism and meditation practices, ‘Chintan’ became something that now had a special meaning.

The word itself means ‘contemplation’, a deep sort of concentration, delving within oneself. You can now imagine how little this would mean to a toddler, how much to an adolescent trying to find his place in the world.