NO NAME LEFT
- Madhukar Dama
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Who are you without caste, creed, or certificate?
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LONG-FORM ESSAY: THE TENDER BRAVERY OF BEING NAMELESS
The moment you say, “I am,”
The world finishes your sentence for you.
“I am a Hindu.”
“I am an engineer.”
“I am a citizen of India.”
“I am Ramesh Rao, son of Ganapathi Rao, of Tumkur district.”
By the time you’re seven years old, your identity has been thoroughly laminated — not just on paper, but inside your cells.
By seventeen, you defend it.
By seventy, you are buried under it.
But what if one day, like a snake shedding a too-tight skin, you decide:
“I don’t want this name anymore.”
That’s what our hermit family did.
Not because of rebellion. Not out of rage.
But because they realized that their entire suffering — anxiety, fatigue, hierarchy, superiority, shame, fear, and pride — came not from living…
…but from the effort to protect an image.
The image had a name.
The image had a religion.
The image had a family tree, an institution stamp, a caste affiliation, and an annual income range.
And every day, they had to uphold it.
Not for themselves. But to belong.
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THE BURDEN OF BELONGING
In India, the burden of identity begins early.
You don’t just go to school —
You are admitted based on your father’s name, his qualification, his job, his annual income, and your own ability to sit still in a test that makes no sense.
You don’t just eat —
You eat based on your caste’s tradition, your region’s soil, your religion’s rulebook, and your grandmother’s inherited fear of “impure combinations.”
You don’t just marry —
You marry a horoscope, not a human.
You marry up, or you marry shame.
You marry for surname compatibility and social safety nets, not soul resonance.
And the whole time, you think:
“This is culture.”
“This is faith.”
“This is who I am.”
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THE MYTH OF A FIXED SELF
But Gandhi, in a letter to Tagore, once wrote:
"I am not a Hindu if to be Hindu means to belong to a religion."
He knew.
He sensed that real freedom was not political.
It was existential.
You are not free until your name stops owning you.
Dr. Ambedkar, too, rejected the name he was given by his society. He said:
"A just society is one where ascending is open to talent, not to caste."
But even “talent” becomes a trap when it comes with awards, resumes, and false humility.
So our hermit family began questioning — not others, but themselves.
They asked:
Why do we hold on to our last names even when they carry the weight of discrimination?
Why do we say “we are Indian” but still depend on imports for food, energy, education, and validation?
Why do we tell our daughters that they can be anything… as long as it fits into a box?
And one day, they stopped asking.
They packed up. They moved out.
Not to rebel — but to remember.
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THE REMEMBERING
In the forest, nobody asked their surname.
In the soil, no caste determined the growth of spinach.
In the stream, the water did not flow faster for Brahmins and slower for Dalits.
The bird did not ask for a passport.
The sun did not read scriptures.
And their children — who once had Aadhar numbers and school IDs —
suddenly had only skin, eyes, breath, and joy.
And slowly, each of them began to return.
Not to a previous identity.
But to a nameless presence that never left.
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THE GIFT OF FORGETTING
To be nameless is not to be invisible.
It is to become part of the world again.
Not superior. Not inferior. Just… woven.
You are no longer someone with a narrative.
You are something with a heartbeat.
Your daughters grow up not as legacies, but as experiments.
Your wife is no longer a Mrs., a mother, or a martyr. She is once again a woman, raw and full.
You — the former “Sharma,” the former “CEO,” the former “Mr.” — now walk the land without label.
And this is what Kabir meant when he sang:
"Naam ke paar jo satya hai, wohi jeevan ka saar hai."
(Beyond the name is the truth. And that truth is life itself.)
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EXTENDED DIALOGUE: A FAMILY STRUGGLING WITH THE WEIGHT OF NAMES
Setting:
Mid-morning in the forest courtyard. The hermit family of four tends to their chores — cleaning banana leaves, grinding ragi, drawing water.
A visiting family from Mysuru walks in. They are tired, educated, and worn from trying to balance careers, reputations, and expectations.
Characters:
Ravi and Deepa (urban couple)
Nila (15, their daughter, recently had an emotional breakdown)
The hermit father, mother, and two daughters
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RAVI (business shirt still tucked in):
We heard there’s a family living here… off-grid, without names, without IDs… We didn’t believe it at first. But here you are.
HERMIT FATHER (smiling):
Yes, we are here. But we are not who we were.
DEEPA:
But how is that even possible? My daughter has just been told she needs therapy, medication… but maybe she just needs… this?
HERMIT MOTHER:
Maybe she needs permission to be no one for a while.
NILA (quietly):
Can I really do that?
HERMIT DAUGHTER (giggling):
You just did. When you spoke without your school badge, without your mother introducing you, you became… free.
RAVI:
But don’t you feel lost without any identity?
HERMIT FATHER:
We were never more lost than when we were carrying five.
Engineer. Father. Brahmin. Citizen. Hindu.
Each one demanding maintenance.
DEEPA:
So what do you do when people ask… “who are you?”
HERMIT MOTHER:
We smile.
Sometimes we say, “We grow radish.”
Sometimes we say, “We wake up and laugh.”
Sometimes we say nothing.
RAVI:
But no IDs? No Aadhar? No bank? No certificates?
HERMIT FATHER:
All destroyed.
Even the one I used to frame on the wall — my MBA from IIM Bangalore.
It was the most expensive lie I ever bought.
NILA (eyes widening):
So who teaches your daughters?
HERMIT MOTHER:
The moon.
The fire.
The cow’s breath.
The ache in their legs after walking barefoot for hours.
They are learning truth, not syllabus.
DEEPA (tearing up):
I don’t know what’s happening… I feel both scared and free.
HERMIT FATHER:
That’s what being nameless feels like.
Like sky after rain.
Clean. Unknown. Alive.
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NO NAME LEFT
(a Bukowski-style poem for the family that vanished to live)
they called him
son of a mason,
called her
wife of a clerk,
called the kids
future toppers,
called the dog
a pedigree.
they named everything,
tagged everything,
filed it in blue folders,
stamped it
with purpose.
and then —
they wondered why
everyone was bleeding
on the inside.
you carry a name
like a coffin
you’re forced to sleep in
while alive.
every job application,
every wedding invite,
every resume,
every school uniform —
a rope tied tighter
around the part of you
that still wanted to
howl like a child.
he walked away first.
no more Mr. Anything.
just a man
with rough hands,
and a mango in his pocket.
she followed next.
no more Mrs.
just a woman
whose shoulders had forgotten
how to apologize.
the girls laughed.
they weren’t prodigies anymore.
just monkeys,
wild-eyed,
biting sugarcane,
stealing guavas.
the city didn't even notice.
names are replaced
easier than love.
but in the jungle,
everything remembered.
the ants didn’t bow.
the cow didn’t care.
the wind didn’t stop
to check your certificate.
and the rain —
it touched them
without permission.
somewhere far,
a cousin said,
"they've gone mad."
a neighbor whispered,
"what a waste of potential."
a former employer
deleted the contact.
a priest
tossed a curse
into a copper pot.
they were untraceable now.
and so,
unpunishable.
unmarketable.
unworthy of news.
they had become
something more dangerous
than rebels.
they had become
nameless.
and that meant —
they could never
be owned again.
no last name.
no lineage.
no bank pin.
no belief.
no achievement.
no scar
they didn’t understand.
just breath.
just food.
just fingers in soil.
just laughter without camera.
just walking without direction.
and for the first time,
they weren’t trying to live up to anything.
they were just
living.
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