Name Me Right

My mother had once alarmed meBy saying that I had almost been given 
Another name.
A name that a grand-aunt had suggestedAs per the astrological charts,Confirming to the day I was born.
It was a good name, no doubt,But somehow my mother didn’t take a fondness to it.
(I don't think I would have, either)Her daughter was all that that name meant,But her precious daughter was something more too.
My mother was nothing but the daughter-in-lawWhose voice was supposed to be unheard.And when the senior matriarch pronounced an edict,All that the others could do Was to nod in agreement or mute their say.
The stroke of destiny, however, was dealt by my fatherWho refused to comply with the decree.I was his darling daughter and none but he could name me, he said.His statement was more pronounced than the solid tone of his auntThat she yielded with a whimper.
By now, the others had found their voicesAnd suggestions poured in.“The name is too small, give it a prefix or a suffix,”they said.“What about adding a ‘h’ to it to make it fuller?Or interchanging the letters to make it sound Similar, yet different?”
But my father would have none of this.He knew what he wanted his daughter called,And I am mightily glad he stuck by itAnd not any other.
People say that it was my father’s audacityTo make his voice heard that gave me my name.But I believe that it was my mother’s silent loveThat spoke louder than all the hollering That gave me a name I could live by.
                                             — Vidya Shankar
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