Call Me Raju

My boyfriend’s mother is called Raju. It’s an abbreviation of her first name, and it is the only name I’ve heard her called. It’s easy to make jokes about, and it is always a novelty to those who first hear about it. Even when I talk about her, she is Raju. Not Aunty, or ‘your mom’, but Raju.

I know it’s been asked, but what’s in a name?

Quite a lot, I’d say.

Raju has chosen this name for herself. My boyfriend has only ever called her Raju. So do her nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters. I’m sure even the neighbours call her that. I don’t know what they call her at work, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same. She has refused to let anybody call her anything other than Raju.

I have laughed about it. If I did marry my boyfriend, I probably wouldn’t have to do that thing I hate about marriage – I wouldn’t have to call my mother-in-law any of the names we call our moms. I’d probably have to call her Raju. And in that moment of relieved clarity, the nature of her decision came to light for me.

Also read: What’s in a Name?

A decision that is no novelty or joke, but a decision that is revolutionary.

A decision that speaks of a woman who didn’t give up her name.

A woman who never changed herself for anyone else. A woman who did not let her designation become her name. She became a wife, and she became a mother. She became an aunt and a friend’s mom. But her name did not change with any of those identities. She did not slip into the shifting blanket the rest of us cover ourselves with.

I have asked this question of many people because I am curious. ‘What do you call your parents?’ ‘What do you want your kids to call you?’ Essentially, I have asked: What is your identity going to be? And is it the same as what your parents chose?

But here is a woman who has not allowed the world to change her identity even as it gave her new roles and new lifetimes. Because even if she changed a million times over, she wasn’t going to lose her name to the whirlwind. Even if all of it stripped away, she would still only be Raju braving through it all. Armed with a name, and armed with that name, perhaps she did what none of us think to.

Perhaps she held onto herself while the rest of us are so willing to let go.

Mareena Francis is a 25-year-old writer and poet who has been writing in multiple spaces for nearly two years in India.

Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty