Two weeks ago, we wrote about the bold courage of an Afghani Pushtun Muslim Bollywood actor in naming his new born son as Taimur, the Muslim conqueror who had reportedly massacred 100,000 civilians in Delhi. That is tantamount to a White German resident of Israel naming his new born son as Hitler. The Bollywood actor had conviction & guts to do so and he stood firm against the criticism that came from some Hindus in India. That comes from a victorious inheritance.
Hindus are not Muslim Pushtuns or Pathans as they were called by the British. That was brought home to us once again this week. CNBC interviewed a superstar economist this week, an economist who happens to be Hindu, at least we so infer from his celebrated name.
The economist spells his name as Raghuram, a name that seems so hard to Financial TV anchors like Tom Keene of Bloomberg & Steve Liesman of CNBC. It is a pretty simple name that these big shot American anchors should be able to pronounce. But they don’t seem to care enough to do so. They can pronounce a similar Muslim name easily enough – like Mohammed Al Talal for example. That name means, as we understand, Mohammed of the family name Talal. So why can’t they say Raghuram?
Frankly, the fault really lies with the Hindu economist. His name is a compound Sanskrut word that means Ram of the family Raghu (just like Mohammed of the family Talal above). If he cared, he could tell his interviewers to split up his compound name as Raghu-Ram which would be both correct & easy to pronounce for them.
Not quite, actually. This economist goes by the nickname of Raghu, itself a great & celebrated name. But Tom Keene of BTV & Steve Liesman butchered this simple name too. That comes from the great deficiency of the English script which has no ability to differentiate between “a” & “aa” sounds. The only way to fix this, at least until people get it & remember it, is to spell it phonetically in English. This economist would free himself of the pain of hearing his name butchered by spelling it simply & correctly as Raghu-Raam Raajan. That would signal that Raghu is pronounced with a single “a” not with a “aa” as in Raaghu.
We are happy to report that spelling the economist’s last name as Raajan has taught Fin TV anchors to say it properly. To wit;
- Editor Viewpoint
@MacroViewpoints – Jan 6 –@steveliesman@SaraEisen WOW; u actually said Raajan mostly correctly; Kudos
We felt really good as we sent the above tweet. But guess we jinxed it. Because Steve Liesman promptly butchered Raghu as Raaghu. After an initial pang of anger, we proceeded to tell them the holy & celebrated meaning of the name Raghu-Raam Raajan:
- Raajan means King and Raghu-Raam is a compound word that means Raam of the family of Raghu.
Then we came up with a light hearted suggestion:
- Editor Viewpoint
@MacroViewpoints – Jan 6 –@steveliesman@tomkeene@SaraEisen seriously folks- call Raajan Your Majesty;easiest way & funny use of hs name=King Raam of Raghu dynasty;
We think we get Steve Liesman better than the other two anchors. We don’t think Steve Liesman has any built-in negative reactions to Hindus or Indians. And he has an excellent sense of humor. So it would be fun to hear Liesman call Dr. Raajan as Your Majesty in his next interview. They both might have a big public laugh about it. What do you say, Steve?
Most people know that Mohammed is probably the most sacred name in Islam. They should also know that, Raam of the Raghu family, Raghu-Raam in short, is the most sacred name in Indian Dharma & Culture, at least one of the two most sacred names, the other being Krishna.
Many people, even TV anchors in America, may know the importance of Raam, an Avataar of God on earth. But not many people know of Raghu, the name Dr. Raajan uses as his nickname.
In modern terminology, Raghu was the superstar of the Solar Dynasty which was named after the founder Ikshwaku. But Raghu’s achievements of world conquest, his decision to give up all his wealth after conquest & his perfect qualities made him so great & so unique that the Solar Dynasty was renamed as Raghu’s Dynasty after him.
The story of Raghu & his Dynasty is told in the epic Raghu-Vamsha by the great poet Kalidaas of 4 th century CE. The language & poetry of Kalidaas is absolutely exquisite, perfectly befitting the accolade given to Sanskrut as the “Language of the Gods”.
Fathers give names to their sons as a reflection of their expectations from their sons. Raghu’s father, King Dileep the Protector, was no different:
- “So that his son might go to the end of the Ved in knowledge and to the end of his enemies in war, the King, who was an expert in etymology, named his son Raghu (after the root Ragh which means to go)” – RaghuVamsha III.21.
We can say that Dr. Raajan has come close to the first goal set forth before the original Raghu by becoming a global superstar in economics, his chosen field of knowledge. But alas, he has failed miserably in the second goal. Far from winning against those who butcher the name of Raghu, Dr. Raajan has consistently & sheepishly stayed mum.
Via this parable becomes evident the history of India over the past 1,000 years, the history of being conquered by every single Afghani Pushtun Muslim tribe from 998 CE to 1761 CE. That is why a Afghani Pushtun Muslim proudly stands up and names his son after a horrible killer of Hindus in Hindu-majority India while a global superstar Hindu professor shirks from confronting TV anchors who butcher his name to his face.
Is this the famed tolerance of Hindus or the notorious running-away-from-any-confrontation reputation of Hindus? You decide.
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