What's in a name? Apparently, a lot

Tshering Phintso Denzongpa: the name’s quite a mouthful, eh? And if you are on your way to make it big in Bollywood, you wouldn’t want a name that would blow your chances for an audition because somebody couldn’t pronounce it. So why not pick something like Danny? Easy on the tongue and you don’t even need to go through the ordeal of having to decode your name. Hence the transition from Tshering Phintso Denzongpa to Danny Denzongpa was necessary. Also, if Yusuf Khan can be Dilip Kuamr, Balbirraj Kapoor can be Shashi Kapoor, Balraj Dutt can be Sunil Dutt, Shamsher Raj Kapoor can be Shammi Kapoor, you can say it was a trend of sorts.The name game’s a tough nut to crack and it’s sometimes very exasperating, especially when you are ordering food over the phone. A simple name (well simple for me, but Greek to them) is mispronounced and misspelt so many times, that now I’ve stopped giving out my name while ordering food, I use my colleague’s instead. I particularly remember one episode in a temple in Orissa, where an emissary of God thought that he’d be our best bet for a go-between us and God. But before he put forth our application to God, he needed our names, for identification purposes. Well, God needed to know for sure who the prayers were coming from! Having done the needful, we folded our hands in pure devotion. He uttered some mumbo jumbo, which was followed by each of our names, and then we heard ‘STADIUM’. Yes, he thought PEDEN was STADIUM. Some lucky stadium that must be to have had all my wishes answered! At work, my colleagues are always making sure that they get the correct pronunciation of my name and the ones who get it right on the first day itself have this triumphant look on their faces. But then the times they are a-changing and Bob Dylan has nothing to do with it. How? Why? When? We started with the name Tenzing in commercials, then we had a Tashi, the Tibetan druglord of Kaminey, played by Tenzin Nima. But then the baap of them all is 3 Idiots, where we have a protagonist called Phunshuk Wangdu, so what if their Wangdu sounds very much like Kishore Kumar’s ‘bangdu’ in Padosan. With Aamir Khan as the emissary, all izz well, never mind if he turned down the appeal to boycott the Olympic torch. With Hindi films being the torchbearer of change in society, this is one change that we’d love to witness. And if any producer, director needs any ideas on names for their next heroine, how would Peden be for starters? Now, didn’t a certain bard ask, “What’s in a name?” Apparently, a lot, Mr William!