The Weighty Burden of Honourable Names

By Shilpa Phadke & Sameera Khan

Clearly Sanjay Dutt hasn’t read his Shakespeare for he doesn’t seem to recollect the Bard’s pronouncement, “What’s in a Name?” But then perhaps for one with his nose in all kinds of things rotten, nothing smells sweet to him at all.

We allude to Sanjay Dutt’s recent assertion of his and his wife’s right to the Dutt name, simultaneously questioning his married sister Priya Dutt’s right to the same name, thereby annoying not just his sister but all women who choose to keep their birth names. The annoyance of course is mild. In any case, most of us don’t rate a convicted criminal’s approval very high on our list of priorities. Nonetheless since the issue has come up, its worth not just reiterating rehearsed arguments on women’s rights to their birth names but also asking Sanjay Dutt ke banyan ke peeche kya hai?