Pseudonyms and Suffixes

Some people don't like their names. I didn't, for a long time. But got used to being called names- so many, that it ceased to matter after a while. And I am not including the unflattering ones that I may not have heard of. At home, in school, in college, at IIMB, and in the US of A, I always had a re-christening of sorts. But I find the recent news item about a certain Iqbal Mirchi quite intriguing. What makes a gangster tick? A suitable name?

One would assume that to be a gangster, one must be able to throw one's weight around- even if you are a featherweight in real life. As a part of this need, you must have a suitable name which suits you- jo shobha deta hai (as in Shobhraj?). Chhota Shakeel has a ring to it that just Shakeel does not. What if you were confused with the lyricist Shakeel Badayuni? Just think. Al Capone would not be Al Capone with any other name. It has a certain respectable (for a gangster) ring to it. Branding the bootlegger? Maybe.

But it would be a mistake to assume that just any suffix or prefix would do. For example, you can't substitute with gay abandon a tamatar or aloo for 'mirchi' in the aforesaid man's name. Wouldn't be good for the business.

Of course, one could use terse one letter acronyms as in C, D or G. For a long time, Hindi films had a villain named J.K. But this can get confusing if two godfathers with the same initial/s heat up the same turf. Maybe then, just a term of endearment like Bhai would suffice, instead of this apt name rigmarole. Even countries try to play Big Brother at times. Sounds more palatable than Supercop, maybe.