From now on, I is you

What is common to Vaiko, Vijaya T Rajendhar, T R Baalu, Thol Thirmuvalavan? Correct: They are all men. And long after they were born men (okay, they were born boys), when they sat down to figure out what prevented them from being highly successful, it kind of intelligently occurred to them that the culprit was their names.

How on earth could somebody with the appellation V Gopalsamy ever become a firebrand leader? So out went V Gopalsamy and in came Vaiko. Now, the name change indeed worked miracles. After he became Vaiko, he was arrested under the POTA and the entire nation discussed the issue with bated breath. Even Parliament debated the matter at great length with members heroically putting off their strong urge to commit their usual pandemonium and walkout. It is impossible to think that they would have shown the same patience and perseverance were the person in question been a mere V Gopalsamy.

Same is the case with Baalu. Would he have been entrusted the job of botching up the Sethusamudram project had he remained a nondescript Balu, without the benefit of that all-important ‘a’ that otherwise gives his name girth and ground. So the wise man that he is went and quickly embraced the ‘a’. Lo and behold, the canal of success opened for Baalu.

Ditto with Vijaya T Rajendhar and Thol Thirumavalavan and hundreds of others who boldly and bravely have changed their names to change their destiny, while the cowardly rest of us are either writing or reading about them.

The point is namology, or numerology or by whatever name they call it, it works. If you are still sceptical, I can always tell Vijaya T Rajendhar to come and explain to you in person. I know you will now have no doubts.

Namology is not some blind science based on some assumed beliefs. It is well grounded on believable assumptions, like when you are not doing well, especially losing heavily in business, it is your name that is the root-cause of all your problems and not the fact that your employees are unskilful and your partners have been cheating more than Sobhraj ever did in his life.

But what are the things one has to look for before getting down to change one’s name? First of all, only those with names can think of changing it. So that immediately disqualifies all those who are yet to be born. All those dead, who despite having names, cannot even start to think about refurbishing it, because well, I dont know. Statistics show that no dead person has ever applied for a name change. Probably dead people have lost their ration cards or some other document that are so vital for applying for a name change.

Once you decide to change your name, you must immediately get in touch with a good namologist whose name is well known in the field. Changing name on your own without the supervision and services of a trained professional namologist is extremely dangerous.

You may wonder why no namologist has ever changed her or his name. I also wondered about it and felt sleepy. So I stopped wondering any further. But since all namologists print a lot of letter-heads, visiting-cards and sundry other papers and paraphernalia that they need to establish that they are indeed namologists, I presume it is not practical to expect them to change their names.

Once you go to a namologist, he or she will take a hard look at your name, initials and other alphabets alongside. They will give it a thorough professional check-up. Some evolved namologists are not averse to suggesting an MRI or CT scan for your name. Once this preliminary part is over, the business end of the deal comes in, which is how much he is going to fleece you. Oops sorry, the previous sentence should read as…which is what part of your name has to be changed.

If your problems are simple and tractable, you can escape, as did Baalu, with a mere addition of a few vowels or some minor tinkering with consonants. A few unlucky have been told to add an enigmatic ‘Q’ or ‘Z’ even though those letters can be incorporated only if your spelling skills are lesser than that of an illiterate.

Extreme cases are called upon to change their initials. In such times, you must possibly contemplate taking a time machine to go back in eras and try and change the name of your father so that you can eventually end up with a different initial. Or if you are desperate, while going back in time, you can even think about the prospect of changing the dad himself. I don’t know what Thirumavalavan did. He was once R Thirumalavan. Now he is Thol Thirumavalavan.

If you are a young woman of marriageable age and have been advised a name change, then you can take the same time machine and travel ahead to change the name of your prospective husband.

But if for some strange reason you are unable to find a time machine, the thing to do is to cheat: Which is to shove a totally unexpected name just before your initial. This is how T Rajendhar ended up as the hugely successful Vijaya T Rajendhar.

It is not just enough to change the spelling of your name. True namology enjoins you to alter the way you pronounce it. If your name is, say, Rajesh, you have to write it as Suresh and pronounce it as Ramesh.

Such practices are handy and efficient when you are on the run from loan agents or signing cheques when you don’t have enough cash in bank.So that clinches it folks. Namology works. I didn’t say that. You said so.

PS: A namologist told me to change ‘I’ to ‘You’ to make this column a success.