What's in a name?... No really...

I ran into Piyush Mishra at NSD on Sunday. We had returned from shoot just that morning, and I had gone straight home with no intention of stepping out again, but a few hours and a series of phone calls later, found myself at Café Turtle at Khan Market with the same film crew, or what was left of it in Delhi. Manav was keen to go to NSD and the rest of us followed- I intended to take the Metro from Mandi House, and the others wanted to hang out at the Theatre Festival.

So anyway, I ran into Piyush Mishra. I walked up to him with hands folded in a namaskar, like I always do. He was his flamboyant self, saying Manav mila, usne bola Pooja Sharma ne film shoot ki hai. Main bola kaun Pooja Sharma! I laughed and said, haan aapko to naam se kabhi yaad nahin rahega. ‘Arre tumhara naam hi aisa hai, duniya mein karoron Sharma hain. Mera naam bhi Priyakant Sharma tha, maine badal dala.’ I know this, I told him. I have read the Caravan interview, though I didn’t remember his exact name, and certainly not that he was a Sharma.

This conversation reminded me of another conversation I had had with my father many years back, while on an after dinner walk. I was in high school then, and was due to appear for my 10^th Board exams that year. It was my last opportunity (or so I thought) to change my name. I didn’t like my name. I wasn’t sure what I wanted it to be, the alternatives were equally unimaginative, now that I think about it- Priya or Priyanka… but anything would be better than Pooja, I had then thought. So on that walk I casually asked my father, so who kept my name?- hoping to start a conversation that I would eventually veer towards the idea of changing it. It was me, he said. But Pooja was not such a common name back then, he added apologetically. In that moment my heart melted. To hell with it, I thought.

And Pooja Sharma I stayed.