What146;s in a second name?

At that point in time, I didn8217;t take it seriously and dismissed it as a one-off incident. However, I was in for a major shock when I reached Raipur. Even an attempt at a little friendly conversation would begin only after I had revealed my 8216;true identity8217;. The seriousness of the full name syndrome can be gauged from the fact that even educated people in the city seem to suffer from it. I had to give my complete name to my landlord, cablewallah, grocery shop owner, fellow reporters and even senior government officials. In my interaction with bureaucrats so far, I have found it amusing to note that after getting to know my full name, some get apparently over-friendly while others display a downright indifferent attitude.

What complicates this insistence on knowing my full name is that many of the people I encounter aren8217;t familiar with the caste specificities of my Punjabi second name. They sometimes presume it to be a Maharashtrian second name, made famous by the BJP leader 8212; the late Pramod Mahajan. But I seem to be handling this problem rather well, and in fact sometimes use it to my advantage 8212; switching on my Maharashtrian or Punjabi persona as the occasion demands.

However, over the past few weeks, I have also noticed an ominous trend. The other day I heard myself asking someone I met what his full name was. The syndrome seems to be infectious.