Skip to main content

What’s in a dog’s name?



Bruno poses for me
Bruno is the name of the only favourite dog on my school’s campus.  He has been on the campus for more years than I can trace my memory back to.  Recently he posed for two snaps for me.  He was so meek and obedient when I approached with my mobile phone’s camera, when the sun had already set far below the horizon, that I began to wonder who gave him the name of Bruno.

The Western Christians gave the name Bruno to dogs in the olden days in order to disparage the great philosopher, mathematician, astrologer and poet of the same name who was burnt to death as a heretic by the Catholic church in the year 1600.  Bruno, according to the Catholic church, was teaching things that went against the teachings of the Bible.  It was Bruno who taught Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) to recant his science for the sake of religion so that he could say, “Religion teaches how to go to heaven, science teaches how the heavens go.” [I have taken a little liberty with what he actually said: replace the word religion with ‘the Bible’ and you’ll get what Galileo actually said.]

He loved the attention.
Who on my campus could have thought of Bruno as a name for such a meek dog when the real Bruno was a rebel who died for the truth?

Some questions have no answers. 

Do dogs’ names actually mean anything?  As Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?”  Especially a dog’s?

In my childhood I knew quite a few dogs in my village which were named Kaiser.  In fact, the owners of those dogs could have known nothing about Kaiser being the German emperor in the olden days.  Probably, the British in India had named some of their dogs Kaiser just as some other people of the West named their dogs Bruno.  And the people of my village might have plagiarised the name with the naiveté that usually and magnanimously accompanies snobs and dumb wits. 

I’m not a lover of animals at all except from a considerable distance.  I like to watch them from far.  Especially if they are in the cage in some zoo.  Safe distance is what I desire when it comes to animals.  [Even people J ] The only time that an animal’s death elicited some feelings from my recalcitrant heart was when I was about seven or eight years old.  My father had ordered our domestic assistant to kill our family dog named Jimmy.  I pleaded with the young man not to kill the dog.  I had grown up feeding it and playing with it as much as the ferocious creature allowed me to.  My tears did not last longer than the dog’s burial in the evening.  But I have wondered time and again why my father had named the dog Jimmy.  Jimmy Carter became the President of America quite a few years after the dog’s assassination.

A few years ago, when I visited my village my brother’s children were fondling a puppy.  I asked them what name they had given to the puppy.  Nothing, they said.  I suggested the name Larry spontaneously.  “What a stupid name!” my nephew and niece said simultaneously.  They continued to call the puppy ‘Putti’ which is the simplest Malayalam equivalent of the Hindi ‘Kuta’.  And, understandably, Putti was not there when I visited the village the next time.  There were three other dogs (two of which were German shepherds) each of which had an exotic name.  Nothing can last without a name.  I wondered more than once why I had suggested that name for the putti.  It took me a while to remember that Larry was the name of the person to whom I had dedicated a book of mine.  The book contained short stories I had written while I was going through the toughest time of my life.

So, what’s in a name?  Especially a dog’s? 


I dedicate this post to Bruno who is a hero on the campus. 

Comments

  1. Interesting words on a dog...in fact,no one cares a dog that much...a real tribute to dog world.:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are people who care a lot for their own dogs. But Bruno in this post is cared for by a lot of people.

      Delete
  2. It's amazing to know how Bruno came to be a name associated with the dogs. But then, I agree, what's in a name. A hero will always be a hero, no matter what the name. Interesting post; Bruno looks adorable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Names make people as well as animals unique individuals. So there's much in a name. But, of course, the history of the name doesn't matter really.

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cant bear the thought of a dog bein assassinated....but why did your dad do so ? though I love all the animals byt dogs are my hot fav...just like u i maintain distance from human beings but i get too too attached to dogs , i love to pamper them...they sleep in my bed , they eat in my plate ...and it does not apply to my pet dogs alone but I like to cuddle and take care of any dog immaterial of name , breed etc etc.

      Delete
    2. Alka, doing away with aged animals was a common practice in villages in those days, a kind of euthanasia. Nothing surprising about it. Conditions were such that dying animals could be a serious health hazard for people in days when vets were not available easily. The practice has not vanished from villages even today, I believe.

      Delete
    3. Alka, doing away with aged animals was a common practice in villages in those days, a kind of euthanasia. Nothing surprising about it. Conditions were such that dying animals could be a serious health hazard for people in days when vets were not available easily. The practice has not vanished from villages even today, I believe.

      Delete
  4. I love dogs passionately. YOur story about Jimmy being assassinated is extremely disturbing.
    Secondly - would you like to be called Matthias instead of Matheikal? I guess not. A dog;s name is his identity. It's important to him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That happened almost half a century ago in a remote village, Kalpana. The world was a different place then. Circumstances demanded certain killings. Otherwise there would be greater evils.

      Delete
  5. Interesting post.. Just to tickle a bone, there is an old joke. A man was standing along with his dog when a passerby asked its name. "William bell". The passerby was amused so he went on asking the man's name and he replied "Bruno" :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country where humour died

Humour died a thousand deaths in India after May 2014. The reason – let me put it as someone put it on X.  The stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra called a politician some names like ‘traitor’ which made his audience laugh because they misunderstood it as a joke. Kunal Kamra has to explain the joke now in a court of justice. I hope his judge won’t be caught with crores of rupees of black money in his store room . India itself is the biggest joke now. Our courts of justice are huge jokes. Our universities are. Our temples, our textbooks, even our markets. Let alone our Parliament. I’m studying the Ramayana these days in detail because I’ve joined an A-to-Z blog challenge and my theme is Ramayana, as I wrote already in an earlier post . In order to understand the culture behind Ramayana, I even took the trouble to brush up my little knowledge of Sanskrit by attending a brief course. For proof, here’s part of a lesson in my handwriting.  The last day taught me some subhashit...

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...

56-Inch Self-Image

The cover story of the latest issue of The Caravan [March 2025] is titled The Balakot Misdirection: How the Modi government drew political mileage out of military failure . The essay that runs to over 20 pages is a bold slap on the glowing cheek of India’s Prime Minister. The entire series of military actions taken by Narendra Modi against Pakistan, right from the surgical strike of 2016, turns out to be mere sham in this essay. War was used by all inefficient kings in the past in order to augment the patriotism of the citizens, particularly in times of trouble. For example, the Controller of the Exchequer taxed the citizens as much as he thought they could bear without violent protest and when he was wrong the King declared a war against a neighbouring country. Patriotism, nationalism, and religion – the best thing about these is that a king can use them all very effectively to control the citizens’ sentiments. Nowadays a lot of leaders emulate the ancient kings’ examples enviabl...

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...

Violence and Leaders

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...