By Any Other Name
Santha Rama Rau
At the Anglo-Indian day school in Zorinabad to which my sister and I were sent when she was eight and I was five and a half, they changed our names. On the first day of school, a hot, windless morning of a north Indian September, we stood in the headmistress’s study, and she said, “Now you’re the new girls. What are your names?”
My sister answered for us. “I am Premila, and she”—nodding in my direction—“is Santha.”
The headmistress had been in India, I suppose, fifteen years or so, but she still smiled her helpless inability to cope with Indian names. Her rimless half-glasses glittered, and the precarious bun on the top of her head trembled as she shook her head. “Oh, my dears, those are much too hard for me. Suppose we give you pretty English names. Wouldn’t that be more jolly? Let’s see, now—Pamela for you, I think.” She shrugged in a baffled way at my sister. “That’s as close as I can get. And for you,” she said to me, “how about Cynthia? Isn’t that nice?”
2
My sister was always less easily intimidated than I was, and while she kept a stubborn silence, I said “Thank you,” in a very tiny voice.
We had been sent to that school because my father, among his responsibilities as an officer of the civil service, had a tour of duty to perform in the villages around that steamy little provincial town, where he had his headquarters at that time. He used to make his shorter inspection tours on horseback, and a week before, in the stale heat of a typically
postmonsoon day, we had waved goodbye to him and a little procession—an assistant, a secretary, two bearers, and the man to look after the bedding rolls and luggage. They rode away through our large garden, still bright green from the rains, and we turned back into the twilight of the house and the sound of fans whispering in every room.
3
Up to then, my mother had refused to send Premila to school in the British-run establishments of that time, because, she used to say, “You can bury a dog’s tail for seven years and it still comes out curly, and you can take a Britisher away from his home for a lifetime and he still remains insular.” The examinations and degrees from entirely Indian schools were not, in those days, considered valid. In my case, the question had never come up and probably never would have come up if Mother’s extraordinary good health had not broken down. For the first time in my life, she was not able to continue the lessons she had been giving us every morning. So our
Hindi books were put away, the stories of the Lord Krishna as a little boy were left in midair, and we were sent to the Anglo-Indian school.
That first day at school is still, when I think of it, a remarkable one. At that age, if one’s name is changed, one develops a curious form of dual personality. I remember having a certain detached and disbelieving concern in the actions of “Cynthia,” but certainly no responsibility. Accordingly, I followed the thin, erect back of the headmistress down the veranda to my classroom, feeling, at most, a passing interest in what was going to happen to me in this strange, new atmosphere of School.
4
The building was Indian in design, with wide verandas opening onto a central courtyard, but Indian verandas are usually whitewashed, with stone floors. These, in the tradition of British schools, were painted dark brown and had matting on the floors. It gave a feeling of extra intensity to the heat.
I suppose there were about a dozen Indian children in the school—which contained perhaps forty children in all—and four of them were in my class. They were all sitting at the back of the room, and I went to join them. I sat next to a small, solemn girl, who didn’t smile at me. She had long, glossy black braids and wore a cotton dress, but she still kept on her Indian jewelry—a gold chain around her neck, thin gold bracelets, and tiny ruby studs in her ears. Like most Indian children, she had a rim of black kohl4 around her eyes. The cotton dress should have looked strange, but all I could think of was that I should ask my mother if I couldn’t wear a dress to school, too, instead of my Indian clothes.
5
I can’t remember too much about the proceedings in class that day, except for the beginning. The teacher pointed to me and asked me to stand up. “Now, dear, tell the class your name.”
I said nothing.
“Come along,” she said, frowning slightly. “What’s your name, dear?”
“I don’t know,” I said, finally.
The English children in the front of the class—there were about eight or ten of them—giggled and twisted around in their chairs to look at me. I sat down quickly and opened my eyes very wide, hoping in that way to dry them off. The little girl with the braids put out her hand and very lightly touched my arm. She still didn’t smile.