Tony Deyal WHENEVER I am in Jamaica, I am always in a Festival mood. It is not so much a knee-jerk reaction as a purely jerk reaction. 'Festival' is the name given to what Trinidadians would describe as a cylindrical fry-bake with a little more sugar added to it than usual and enough corn flour to make it sink smoothly into your stomach rather than rise up in your throat. It is normally associated with "jerk" meat and both go together like peas and rice, crab and callalloo, flying fish and cou-cou, or roti and curry anything.
When people ask me, "What's in a name?" I use the example of 'festival'. It is an extra-ordinary name for a mundane meal. It makes you want to partake and participate. Eric the Red, Norwegian navigator and Viking chief, knew full well the value of using the right name. In 982 he led an expedition westward and discovered Greenland, where he founded a colony. The country is almost completely covered by glaciers and rocks. Eric named it Greenland on the basis that colonists would join him if the settlement had an attractive name.
Some names are not attractive. When Richard Nixon was autographing copies of his book Six Crises at a bookstore, he asked each of the people who approached him to sign their copies, what name he should put on the inscription. One of the customers grinned and replied, "You've just met your seventh crisis. My name is Stanislaus Wojechzleschki."
INFORMAL
It is possible that Nixon might have signed 'To Stan' and let it go at that. Americans are very informal about names, as Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, discovered. He was in New York on an official visit and a photographer was desperately trying to attract his attention. When all else failed, the photographer called out in desperation, "Hey Archie, would you turn your head this way please?" Turning around to face the camera, Ramsey politely corrected the American, "My name, sir, is not Archie," he said. And then with a smile, added, "It's Mike."
Not all princes of the Church are that tolerant. In 19th Century Britain, the landlord of a well-known public house called the 'Cock Inn' in Windermere in northwest England wished to compliment the eminent Dr. Richard Watson, a Bishop and Cambridge Lecturer, who had a house nearby. He changed the name of the inn to 'The Bishop' and hung up a sign with the portrait of Dr. Watson below. The landlord of a rival inn that was less popular seized the opportunity to change his sign to the 'Cock Inn' and attracted a lot of customers of the former Cock Inn. The landlord of the original Cock Inn had to resort to desperate measures to reclaim his lost customers. When Dr. Watson next visited Windermere he was very upset to see the sign painted under his portrait. It read, 'This Is The Old Cock'.
'COCK-UPS'
There were a lot of what the British would call 'cock-ups' when immigrants landed in New York. A visiting German tourist once saw a sign in a Chinatown restaurant listing the proprietor's name as Hans Schmidt. Intrigued, he went in and asked for Herr Schmidt. To his surprise, Schmidt turned out to be a very old Chinese gentleman with nothing German about either his accent or appearance. The Chinese gentleman explained, "When we arrived in New York, the man in front of me was German. He gave his name to immigration as Hans Schmidt. So when my turn came, and the immigration man asked me my name, I told him, "Sam Ting". That is how I became Hans Schmidt."
PREOCCUPATION
My preoccupation with names arose from a conversation I had with a fellow Trinidadian. Following the latest revelation of influence peddling during the previous administration of the United National Congress (UNC) led by Basdeo Panday, he sorrowfully said, "Once people see an Indian name in charge of anything now they immediately feel you are corrupt." Clearly, one does not need a finder's fee to identify a source of continuing concern. However, would a change of name help?
One can see how it would play out. For instance, the same computer that changed the phrase 'out of sight, out of mind' into 'invisible maniac' might take the word 'panday' and convert it into 'a twenty-four hour period devoted to the celebration of Trinidad and Tobago's national invention and only musical innovation of the Twentieth Century'. This is a bit long but can be shorted to 'steeling round the clock'.
The word 'Bas' is not a problem as that can be easily apprehended as Grenadian for 'boss'. A person of East Indian descent with the name of 'Kowlessar Ramjohn' can become 'Carlos John' although that name is already taken. It could be a temporary move pending a change of Government. I can move to Barbados where my name is already 'Tony Dial'.
FAR FROM ORIGINAL
My suggestion is far from original and I would be a 'neemakharam' not to credit it to its rightful owner, Sir Vidia Naipaul. 'Neemakharam' is Hindi for 'ungrateful' and is not to be confused with 'Namkaran' a phenomenon of dubious origin but having something to do with 'abbreviated male apparel for the lower limbs'. In Naipaul's masterpiece The Mystic Masseur, the protagonist Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair became a politician and arrived in Britain for a Conference.
"Pundit Ganesh!" I cried running towards him. "Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair!" "G. Ramsay Muir," he said coldly.
Tony Deyal was last seen asking, "What is yours but is used by everyone else?" Your name.
