There is lot in a name!!!

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." This famous line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1594 simply means What matters is what something is, not what it is called.Ah,before you even start thinking that this piece is related to Shakespeare or on any of his play (beacuse everyone is so smart), let me make it very clear this is not the case.

Disclaimer.:-Many of you might find my viewpoint undigestable and may tend to give some examples to justify yourself. But the idea behind my writing is not to offend anyone (not even Shakespeare for that matter) and their opinion but only to consolidate my stand against that famous line.

A name stores a significant value on your personality and the way people resemble you as. In Shakespeare's context, we have to remember that the inability to see the significance of the family names (in the context of a long standing feud) led them both to suicide. Even our so called Bollywood is so much obsessed with the name that many acclaimed actors had to change their change their names before they made it big in the industry. Take for example our 'Tragedy king of Hindi films',Dilip Kumar. When he made it into Bollywood very few people knew that his real name was 'Yusuf Khan'.But Mr.Amiya Chakravarty(one of the leading directors) gave him the screen name of Dilip Kumar because conservative indian audience of that era were not very much comfortable with the actor titled 'Khan' no matter how good his performance is.If that is not enough what about Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia aka 'Akshay Kumar'. Why the hell was he required to change his name? It is because of the tag 'Kumar' which came with screen name. Carrying the family tag undoubtedly helped many actors getting a break or two -Abhishek Bachhan had 17 big flops in a row before giving a hit to the industry- in Bollywood compared to some unknown 'Mac'.

One can find a plethora of people changing their names(or modifying them a bit) with no race,caste,field acting as a boundary. Infact A.R. rahman went a step further and changed his religion altogether. M. F. Husain - one of India's best known artists and whose work over a career of over seven decades has been prolific - found himself in controversy in 1990s because of because of his portrayal of Hindu deities in the nude or in an allegedly sexual manner. The matters got so legally complicated that he had to leave the country and settle in Dubai/London.May be his works hurt the sentiments of people and he was not right but i doubt if the case would have been the same if he had not inherited the name 'Husain'.

We have a number of Gods with differnt names.Some people worship 'Krishna',others are true devotee of 'Hanuman' while others different religion and call their own god by different names.Every now and then we hear people fighting with each other in the name of the religion.If there is nothing in the name why do these people follow religion with different names to give themselves a chance to fight.

Last but not the least there are times when your own name go against you.One of my college friends(he is a boy and and let me make it very clear) have a girlish name.His behaviour and nature in no way justifies his name.He is purely a male.(For those dirty mind who is wondering how can i be so sure it is because he used to stay in the boys' hostel and in no way uesd to dress like a girl).But many people(sometimes even me) used to call him (yeah..him) 'Didi' and all sort of related names to his utmost irritation. Ask such people and they will tell you what is in a name!!!!