Imagine This. It’s A True Story!

You wake up one morning, kiss your beloved, roll out of bed, make your coffee, head for a run, shower, gobble up your breakfast and drive to work. You swipe yourself in to work and look at your id and something looks strange. Your name is wrong.

Then you look at it again to make sure you are not holding on to someone else's id, but the picture on it is indeed yours. You run up to your cubicle to realise that it’s not your name on it. You complain to your colleagues around and they laugh at you asking if you had one too many the previous night. You are now checking if it’s Fools Day and it is not.

Now, you are getting angry and open your wallet to show your colleagues your id cards. And you are shocked. Your credit cards, your driving license don’t have your real name. Now you are in a panic mode.

You call your spouse who asks if everything is okay with you and assures your that name is not wrong. Now you are absolutely desperate, you call your father and he says, “What is wrong Beta? Your name is not wrong. It’s correct. Are you stressed at work?”

You hang up and quickly remember that all your school and university certificates are on your google drive. You open your gmail account, and you see your correct name on your mail id. Your sigh in relief. You open the drive and retrieve your certificates and see that they all have your name. The time you stood first in class, the time you won the 100 meter race, your graduation certificate. They all bear your REAL name.

A big sigh of relief comes over your face and look at your colleagues to show it to them. They look at you and acknowledge it and tell you that the ‘system’ changed your name and that you should accept it. You call your spouse and ask what is going on, and the answer is the same. The ‘system’ changed your name and that you have to accept it. Now, you are really saddened, it’s your identity that you were born with. The name that you identify with. The name that defines you, all being taken away by this ‘system’. Now, all you can do is to go to the very roots that defines you. Your parents. So, you call your parents to ask for their help to fight against this ‘system’. And they say, “Beta, no one questions the system.”

Imagine this! It’s true!

This is the story of every girl in this world who is expected to change her name after being married. This is the story of every girl who is denied the very identity that she defined herself with from the day she developed a sense of ‘SELF’. This is the story of every girl who did not question the system.

This is the story of your maid who just cleaned your home.

This is the story of Nina and Deepti who were born Ambanis.

This is the story of every girl across the world, across countries and across cultures.

This is also MY story.

And imagine this, if you are born a boy, your name is never questioned. Your identity is never denied. You die with what you are born. This gives one a lot of security to the sense of self.

Is this patriarchy? Honestly, I don’t care.

Am I making a mountain of a mole hill? I don’t know, but this bothers me. It bothers me that if a girl’s identity can be a matter of discussion in the society, what can a girl claim as hers from her roots?

If you are a father out there, if your little girl asks if she can keep your name, will you deny her that?

If you are a mother out there, if your angel asks if she must follow suit in changing her name, what would you say?

All I request you to do, is to understand this. It is not you that I fight, I fight the ideology that denies me my identity. I do not fight this ideology with anger, I fight it with humility. I don’t know the answer to a lot of questions and problems that might arise if every girl questions the ‘system’.

But I want to find out.