Behind Captain Machchhar's Surname: The curious case of Gujarati families named after animals and insects

When Captain Smit Machchhar's name began doing the rounds as the pilot who helped avert disaster on a flydubai flight, the applause came with a raised eyebrow. Machchhar? As in the Hindi word for mosquito? A creature that has logged more flying hours than any airline captain, and has never needed a licence, a type rating or a single boarding pass?

Captain Machchhar was in command of flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv on September 30 when violence broke out in the cockpit. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the co-pilot stabbed the captain. Israeli officials have said that, despite serious injuries, Machchhar managed to operate the cockpit door release, letting passengers and crew in to overpower the attacker.

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The aircraft was diverted and landed safely at Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. flydubai said it was secured by the on-duty crew. The Indian Embassy in Riyadh said Machchhar was taken to hospital in stable condition. The UAE Attorney General has launched an investigation. Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Netanyahu have both praised the Mumbai-born pilot.

According to a Times of India report by Parth Shastri & Manju V, sociologists say Machchhar belongs to a small menagerie of animal and insect surnames found among Gujarati communities such as Nagar Brahmins, Brahmkshatriyas and Lohanas.

The list includes Ghoda (horse), Mankad (bed bug), Mankodi (large ant, such as the carpenter ant), Popat (parakeet), Vinchhi (scorpion), Shiyal (jackal), Tetar (pheasant or partridge) and Hathi (elephant).

Within the Nagar community, one branch can buzz while another trumpets. Captain Manoj Hathi, former director (operations) at Air India, carries a surname that means elephant. He was type-rated on the Boeing 747, and colleagues had a field day with the idea of Captain Hathi flying the jumbo jet.

"The joke wrote itself," Hathi told TOI. He recalled that Air India once also had a Captain Wagh (tiger) and an inflight supervisor named Homi Ghoda, a Parsi.

Abroad, he said, the surname hardly raises an eyebrow and is among the easier Indian names to pronounce. In the UK, people link it to Colonel Hathi from Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book", which helps them remember it. Back home, people used to ask how he could be called elephant when he was so thin. Now that he has put on some weight, they say he has grown into the name.

Gujarati filmmaker Abhilash Ghoda, a Nagar from Junagadh, said the surname turns heads outside the state. "We wear it with pride," he said. Few in his family know its etymology, but they have carried the name with elan for generations.

Machchhar is linked to the Brahmkshatriya community, especially in districts such as Surendranagar, said Raju Dubal, secretary of the community association in Wadhwan.

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Bharti Vinchhi, an Ahmedabad resident from the same community, said such surnames are a minority. Her forefathers told her their ancestors were experts at treating insect bites, scorpion stings included, and the creature became attached to the community. Besides animals and insects, there are also surnames such as Bhoot (ghost) and Jogi (ascetic), she said.

Ahmedabad-based sociologist Gaurang Jani said the only authoritative work on Gujarati surnames is by Vinodini Neelkanth, a Gujarati author and US-trained sociologist. Her 1942 book, "Gujarati Atako no Itihas" (History of Gujarati Surnames), remains an important scholarly reference. She explains such names as possible totems, where a group reveres an animal or identifies with its admired traits.

Jani added that the concentration of such surnames in Saurashtra owes more to the presence of close-knit communities than to any wider caste association.

(With inputs from TOI)