You are here: What's in a name?
- Originally published in innumerable newspapers on January 28, 1993
- Reports - Editorials: Northeast
- Date: August 10, 2008
- Updated: September 4, 2010
[ In early 1993, while at the regional desk of the Press Trust of India (PTI) in Calcutta, I was given the task of compiling backgrounders for the states of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura which were going to the hustings the following month. As I starting digging out info, there were certain names from Meghalaya which struck me. I asked for the full candidates list from our correspondent in Shillong. The result was this story, appended below. It appeared in almost all the major national and regional dailies I knew of. Except the <i>Telegraph</i> and the <i>Indian Express</i>, which carried their own 'versions' of the story as reported by their staffers two days later. Till this day, every Assembly election in the state sees the same story being recycled, with of course new protagonists. Inspiration is certainly such a sincere form of flattery. Here's the original. ]
With the stage set for the February 15 Assembly polls in the Northeast, a surfeit of names crop up that extend from the ordinary to the bizarre. There are namesakes and names for names' sake.
Adolf Hitler, for once, is not a member of the German National Socialist Party. He is not a protagonist of Nazism either for anybody to be alarmed of but just the Congress(I) nominee for the Rangsakona (ST) seat in Meghalaya. Adolf Hitler R Marak is his full name.
The Great Dictator of the Third Reich is not the only fiend to contest in the ensuing elections in the state. The very name of a candidate for the Mendipather (ST) constituency would send a shiver down the spine of one too many. One was told that Mary Shelley's monster did destroy its creator. But Frankenstein is alive and kicking for he (Frankenstein W Momin) is the Congress(I) man out here.
The sitting MLA from Mawkhar (ST) seat has not jumped out of Daniel Defoe's pages and he is not Robinson Crusoe's Man Friday either. He is simply Friday Lyngdoh of the Congress(I).
It's a battle between the armed forces at Dalamgiri (ST) where Admiral K Sangma of the Congress(I) is firing salvos to upstage the sitting APHLC(A) legislator Armison Marak.
Britain is not at war, but it is certainly a pitched battle at Nartiang (ST) where the congress(I) nominee H Britainwar Dan is fighting it out to retain his seat.
The HPU candidate from the Mawhati (ST) constituency SR Moksha has not attained salvation yet as he sets to defend his seat.
Would the APHLC(A) contestant at Songsak(ST) live up to his name and do something to uplift the economic status of his state? After all, he is Rockefeller Momin. Mountbatten Sangma, an independent candidate at Dalu (ST), however, had nothing to do with the partition of India.
The HPU MLA from Myllem (ST), Dentist Mohon Roy Kharkongor, is determined to show his teeth as he seeks to retain his legislatorship as an independent this time.
The BJP's Hindutva card comes a cropper when it nominates an invader from Pariong (ST). But the party's ace, Darius Lyngkhoi, is not a Persian.
