What's in a name?

Strange as it seems, a mere name plays a small but important role in the large scheme of my beliefs and my religion and culture. I am not referring to name of inanimate objects or other living creatures, but referring to our names, mine and yours. At an earlier instance, i had blogged about my name, and how it came about. My name was picked by my grandmother. These days you hear about people picking fancy names with intricate meanings, sanskrit one, ancient ones, new and modern ones, famous ones. Ram, Krishna, Aishwarya and Vijay (name used often by Amitabh in movies) used to be some very common ones. 


How does this all matter? And specially what is the religious connotation? Its clear what link that names like Krishna and Ram have. Children are named after personal gods and goddesses as way to appease their deities. Some parents name their children, in the fervent hope that they live up to their names. That will explain the numerous Kalam and Sachin that abound India.


All this seems so foreign, rather noise to me now. A small, and possibly insignificant lament by elderly neighbour fed my thought cells, with the most brilliant concept. It was not new, and is possibly known for centuries to others in India, but not me. To me this single explanation was meant to last a lifetime. 

We used to call this elderly neigbhour, KRK Uncle. KRK is initials, and i will leave it at that. He had named his children Shankaran, Raman and Narayanan, typical malayalee names of these lords. Of course, school, college and workplace had butchered their names to Shanks, Ram and Nara. I was sitting and have some idle chat with him, when someone referred to his youngest by this short name Nara. He politely answered the query, and sent off the enquirer. He then turned to me, and lamented about how names are being butchered. He then said, "in those days, we used to name our children, after gods. At our death bed, when we called out to our sons and daughters, we had the privilege of dying, while uttering the name of a god. It was believed that would take us to heaven." 


What struck me most was not the heaven or the dying part, but the fact that everytime one called out the child's name, you were calling the lord's name too. As i said earlier this simple explanation, prevailed on me. It was clear to me then, that this would influence the name i chose for my child. I called my son, Govind. A trip to Thirupati, few years before the birth of my son, influenced this particular variant of Krishna's name. 

Well there are intentions, and best laid out plans. I can tell you this. I chant the lord's name almost a thousand times a day. It usually takes about ten utterances of Govind, in increasing  tenor and temper, to gain my son's attention. Someone is surely paying attention, and extracting a price.

A million reasons to pray

Yesterday, i visited Tirupati, or rather the Balaji temple at Tirumala. As it has happened in the past, this time it was not easy to attain the 'darshan' easily. Like many major pilgrimage sites around the world, Tirupati (almost synonymous the temple, located at Tirumala, up in the hills nearby) also regulates the millions visiting the temple. I searched the internet for some statistics on how many people visit this temple annually, and came up with counts ranging from 19 million to 25 million a year.


The process to gain entry using the normal route can be very difficult and time consuming. This has lead to a lot of short-cuts to gain entry and obtain the 'darshan'.  Long back, i had walked away from the temple refusing to wait the time, among the myriad of other reasons, including paying money to see the god, obtaining help to reduce the wait time in the queue, and the manner in which the temple was being maintained. There is a belief, instilled in me, mainly by my mother, that the God of Tirupati, decides when you get to see him. I didnt believe it then, but after many failed attempts, this belief seems to have taken root in my psyche and so my special meaning to the word 'darshan'. Darshan as in, when you are granted the appointment to see the god.

Again, all this comes from the same person, who also toys with the idea of atheism and holds the belief that god is everywhere, literally everywhere and everything we see, feel or touch. So then why endure all this to pray at a temple. To wait hours in a queue to have a glimpse of a decorated piece of stone, covered in gold and other finery. A long serpentine queue filled with people in penury, to see a god who lives in an opulent home that is paved with gold. The biggest paradox is that you are pushed and shoved through a distance of less than 10 feet, during which if you see the idol for more than 2 seconds, you are blessed. And to further add to the anomaly here, like most people you close your eyes as you try to pray.

Yet, the reasons according to me are plenty. To me, today, the time i spent waiting in the queue to obtain the 'darshan', is my time to pray. This wait is almost an humbling process, when you consider that you are no different from the millions others waiting patiently or as restlessly as you to obtain the same fleeting vision. Every step as take to move closer to the inner sanctum, is moment to think and shed a layer of your ego. But most importantly, in todays world, the time spent waiting without a cell phone or tv or other world distractions (electronic kind), is a blessing in itself. You are only sorrounded by people, people like you and me, with all their shortcomings, held up as a mirror to you. So you can observe what you are or can be, or what you should never be, or what you must aspire to be.