The Name of the Beloved

BY A. N. MOORTHY RAO, M.A.

It is an ancient and beautiful custom among us that on the marriage day, when the dhara ceremony is over, and the young couple are pronounced man and wife, the bridegroom takes the bride’s hand in his and leads her to the altar of the household deity, there to seek the benediction, first of the deity and then of the elders of the family. It is a straight path that leads to God, and one beset with obstacles seemingly fair. Even so on this occasion. By the threshold of the altar-room there is a company of smiling but determined young women barring the way. These amazons are supported by a rear-guard of women in the thirties who, though not in action like their younger and more forward sisters, are clearly keeping themselves in reserve for emergencies. Most of them are strangers to you; but since they are doubtless near and dear to your bride, you cannot rudely brush them aside. Your mother and your sisters, whose support you may normally count on, have now turned traitors and made common cause with the enemy, And the fair girl who has agreed to be your companion through life,–is she not also a fifth columnist? That mischievous glint in the eye and the dimple leaping to the cheek, in spite of efforts at suppression, would seem to indicate as much.

The terms of the enemy, voiced shrilly by a dozen fair throats, are that you cannot step across the threshold until you tell them the name of your bride. It is true that their unwritten regulations require that the bride also should pronounce the name of her husband. But clannish and loyal to their sex as they are, they let the girl off cheap and are satisfied with a barely audible mumble. And you, poor unprotected male, are left alone to bear the brunt of the attack. It has become an indispensable part of the ritual connected with marriage–this testing whether the bridegroom has the courage to utter the name of the girl who has just become his. It is not really so frightfully difficult. A day might come when that name becomes a symbol of nameless terrors. But that time when the unsophisticated bride develops into the self-asserting wife, is not yet. It would therefore appear to be a simple matter to comply with the demand of the amazons. But,–consider. If, at the very first onset, you tamely strike your colours and succumb, what is to become of the pride which, alas, is often the only prop of male superiority! And further, look at it from their point of view,–it is not as if they not know the girl’s name. The truth is that they expect from you a display of shy hesitation; they are out to have a little innocent fun at your expense. You would be doing them out of the pleasure of wresting the name from you if, bold as brass, you shout it for all the world to hear. Defeat in battle after a manly fight involves no disgrace. But to yield without a blow, to show the white feather the moment you sight the enemy,–that indeed were shame for you and precious small triumph for the victor. It follows then that, under the circumstances, to hesitate to pronounce the bride’s name, or at least to give a respectable imitation of shyness, is a matter of duty.

A few months later you answer the eagerly awaited invitation to spend the Dipavali week at your father-in-law’s. It is tea-time. The others in the house are busy, or more likely pretend to be busy; and your wife brings in your tea. She comes in as though uncertain of her welcome, with eyes seemingly intent on the cup and saucer. You rise and take a look round to make sure there are no prying eyes about. An unaccountable timidity seizes hold of you. But borne on the crest of a more powerful impulse, you take her hand and make your first successful essay in calling her by name or perhaps by a sweeter substitute. But this is in the privacy of your room. Common decency requires that you should not be so brazen as to refer to your wife by name in the presence of her parents, as who should say, “You people belong to a by-gone age. We are no respectors of flimsy conventions.” You cannot thus flaunt your new young civilisation in their faces. When you talk of your wife in their presence, she has to remain “she”. Even after she comes to live under your own roof, you cannot be so free with her when your parents are about,–it is not respectful, and what is of far greater moment from the point of view of domestic harmony, it is not discrete. Thus it comes about that you almost never get into the habit of addressing her by name. To do so even when you are alone with her appears strange and unnatural. The young man has perforce to cultivate the art of getting through conversation without bringing in her name at all.

The men of the last generation must for some reason have felt that to address their life’s partner by name was not respectable, was almost indecent. We cannot otherwise understand their strict adherence to this tradition which they have handed down to us also. It is amusing to watch the shifts they are put to in their effort to avoid mention of that name. I know an elderly gentleman past middle age, a husband of thirty years’ standing and the father of five or six children. Far from addressing his wife by name, he does not even talk to her directly. Poor lady, let alone getting the benefit of the name her parents gave her, she is denied even the satisfaction of hearing the second personal pronoun from her lord and master. When he has anything to say to her, he generally addresses the message to somebody that is not there. His sons are all employed in different towns. But if he wants a cup of water to drink he calls out, “Here, Ramu, ask her to bring me a cup of ‘Gangamrita’, will you?” He knows, and his wife knows, that Ramu is scores of miles away. But they talk exactly as though he was present, and this quaint play-acting goes on day after day. The husband’s wishes are let fly in the direction of an absent son and must then curve round to her ears. If he has to refer to her when in conversation with others he,–would not if he can help it,–he generally speaks of “she in my house” or of his ‘yajamaniti’ i.e., the person in control. The other day when he met me in the street he said, “I say, M, why don’t you bring your yajamaniti to our house some day? He meant no offence. But I was nevertheless conscious of a feeling of wounded pride. Who put Lalita in control over me, I should like to know. She was given to me in marriage, not I to her. Should anybody doubt my word I call the ‘Lagnapatrika,’* in witness thereof. My soul revolts against the idea of bowing the knee to a woman, even if she be my life. It may be I have never yet gone against her wishes. I am not so crazy as to call black white to please her and then again to recant at her wedding. But I do not go to the other extreme and call black white just to spite her and prove to myself that I am the master in the house. She is not a shrew that needs taming. Besides, she is tender, fragile, and I would not for worlds that she should feel hurt; and so out of the fullness of my love for her I generally let her have her way. But to concede to her the title of yajamaniti–I could never hold my head high again after it….And even of she is the final authority in the house, would you have me cry it from the house-top? But this is by the way.

Even in these days when the fetters of old social conventions are getting loose, young and romantic lovers, fondly as they repeat to themselves the loved one’s name, fight shy of uttering it in the presence of others. They have reasons of their own. It is wise to observe economy, even parsimony, the use of the things we prize most; else familiarity would cloud our appreciation of their worth. The name of our darling, so sweet when savored on the tongue, so musical when sounded on the ear, should not have to jostle with the thousand common words which are our daily drudges. To those who, for any reason, have been parted from their brides soon after honeymoon, the charm of that name is enhanced a hundred-fold. When we alone we repeat it to ourselves in soft tones, ecstatically drawing out its sweetness on the tongue. We sit at work, but our thoughts are far away, and without our knowledge the papers on the table are scribbled all over with the name of the absent one, and when we wake up from the reverie we destroy that testament of love, lest vulgar eyes should light upon it.

While talking to a friend in the street the foot traces her name on the ground independently of our will. Orlando carved the name of Rosalind on every tree in the forest of Arden. Fantastic exaggeration, some may say. Fools! “He that is without love, what can he know of the sweetness of the name!” Tyagaraja was wise in his generation. The wild delight that quivers all over us when we taste of that honey-dew–it is given only to the lover and the “Bhakta” to attain that experience. In both of it has the same profoundly mystical quality. They say that among some uncivilised tribes one way or showing respect to a well-loved and honoured name is never to pronounce it. The name of the beloved is doubtless a thing we honour and hold dear. It should not be brought out into the open to dry in the sun and drench in the rain. That is no sign of civilisation. Those magic syllables which, when our lips first framed them had the power to send the blood coursing madly through the veins–shall they be forced to do duty as a sort of maid of all work! The enchantment that surrounds the name is too delicate to survive exposure to vulgar daylight. That is why we treasure it as the miser would his pearl and gold, in the innermost recesses of our heart. Love has its own mystical raptures and religious carnivals; and it is only on such occasions that our lips are touched with the music of that name.

There are few names in our language that are worthy of such use. Even beautiful names like Kamala, Lalita, and Sarada have either lost caste by misuse or been staled by custom. Some old-time names given by crass parents to their daughters are so harsh that, even if their owners were fair as the Apsaras, we wouldn’t call them by name. The very word for wife in Kannada, ‘Hendati’–dumpy and consonantal, has nothing of the liquid grace and delicacy that we associate with women. The Bengalis have stolen a march over us in this respect. When we read their stories we cannot help being struck with the lovely names they give their women. Lavanya, Hemangini, Kiranamala, Rupalekha,–what prevents our giving such names to our girls? Religion has been so much with us that at the time of christening nobody remembers the need for euphony in a woman’s name.

The sins of which the parents are guilty have to be set right by the lover; and he shoulders the task with enthusiasm. For, however lovely and musical the name, it can never have the emotional charge which love alone can give it. If the name were nothing more than a means of identification, we might also exclaim with the foolish poet, “What’s in a name!” But it is much more than that. When we see the beloved, when we but think of her, when the soft swish of her dress flits across the memory, our whole being and love flames up as though it would consume the heart. It is such passion that has to get concentrated in that word. It is inevitable, therefore, that the lover should have a name of his own choice for his beloved. It may be the name of an animal or a bird. It may be merely a shortening of her real name and may even sound harsh to other ears. But then, it is not meant for other ears. Whatever it be, none but the lover can give it form. It is born of the meeting of two love-laden hearts, even as lightning is born of the meeting of clouds. Others may see nothing specially beautiful in the name. It acquires beauty and power from the richness of feeling within us. There is nothing special in the word ‘Chinna’. Indeed, to the wise, gold is something despicable. But when I call my beloved by that name, I am not thinking of that gross metal. What takes shape in my imagination, as I utter the word, is not merely the form of a woman, not her complexion of gold, her clothes and jewelery; not the perfume that hovers around her; not the grace of her stance or the rhythm of her gait–not these things alone. That name is the symbol not merely of things perceived and hoarded by the senses, but of some power which, while including all these, is more than they. It is a power which makes the whole universe dance to its own rhythm and fills the heart with the bliss which the true mystic finds in the knowledge of the Absolute.

How rare is the use of such names in the Kannada Country! Sanskrit certainly gives us some beautiful words. ‘Rama uses words like ‘Priyadarsini’, ‘Varavarnini’ when addressing Sita. I do not know whether in the age of the epics such words were in daily use and had the requisite emotional content. But now the taint of the literary is upon them, and however beautiful to read in the Sanskrit, they are unusable in Kannada. ‘Priye,’ ‘Kanthe,’ and ‘Nalle’ are doubtless in use; but lyrics and stage-plays claim a monopoly in them. The man that mouths such words has to wear a coat with spangles, and a woman thus addressed can make her appearance only through the wings of the professional stage. To the Englishman the use of words like ‘Darling’ ‘Sweet’ and ‘Love’ comes naturally. We use them too, but only occasionally in love-letters. Their use in daily conversation appears outlandish. No, the privilege of being addressed in sweet euphonious words is denied to our fair ones. Indeed, the time is fast approaching when such words, unsuitable for our use, will be discarded even by the stage and get entombed in the dictionary.

I yield to none in my devotion to the mother-tongue. But I cannot help registering this complaint against the Mother: I have worshipped at her shrine for years and babbled the speech she taught me. And yet when I need a word to call my beloved by, I am forced to sue for help from others, and to suffer the humiliation of a denial. Psychologists tell us that when a mother sees her son’s affections being monopolised by his wife, she cannot help feeling jealous. Mother Kannada is perhaps similarly possessed by the green-eyed monster,–she denies us the privilege of addressing our wives in the tongue she gave us.

* Wedding Invitation.

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