Hidden names, the new parlour game

Hold on to the rails, because this can get bumpy and convoluted. In the latest episode of award-winning muckraking, it has been reportedly (sic) ascertained that Sameer Wankhede is actually Sameer Dawood Wankhede. Let that sink in. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) zonal director under the scanner for alleged action linked to a high-profile (supposed) charas bust case was, according to Wankhede's first wife's father, a - wait for it - Muslim. Tauba-tauba, a Dawood connection in a Khan case!

To understand the gravity of this discovery, one needs to reach out to other cases of 'sleeping' middle names creating ripples once woken up. This includes the practice from some quarters of always mentioning Hussein in the middle of Barack Obama and of addressing former chief election commissioner J M Lyngdoh by de-initialising his name to James Michael. The purpose of 'exposing' and underlining 'Dawood', 'Hussein' and 'James Michael' is to send out a subliminal message in each case - Muslim 'gangster-sounding', Muslim, and Christian 'missionary-type' respectively - that these 'discoveries' reveal identities that were kept 'hidden' for (probably) nefarious purposes. For the religious fluid, however, there is nothing to get flustered by such subliminal nomenclature-'shaming'. Everything is naam ka wastey, anyway.