“What’s in a name” is as true as “there is much in a name”. A name may have power, visible and hidden, immediate and suggestive, indicative and evocative. The opposite is also true: a name may express lack of power. In the case of former the name denotes a power structure it is associated with that offers its bearer an advantage. In the case of latter the name too denotes a power structure it is associated with which forces its bearer to live with a disadvantage. Our society based on strict caste and class hierarchy has a long historical memory of power and powerlessness whose multiple manifestations keep re-surfacing in our economic, social and cultural life. One of the latest examples is new housing societies that are coming up at breakneck speed in and around Lahore. Not that the other cities are lagging behind but Lahore being the metropolis of Punjab, is a special case.
A cursory glance at one aspect of this urban phenomenon i.e. the names of housing societies, may prove to be revealing.The names of housing societies that are multiplying like rabbits are not neutral. Nor are they new in terms of substance they simultaneously hide and hint at. Names such as Fort, Garden, Paradise, Vista, Royal, Heights, Eden, Orchard and Court are much in vogue. They are all over the place. Such names pop up when you switch on your TV screen, stare you in the face from when you browse your newspapers and burst your eardrums with noisy commercials when you tune in your radio.
You might think real estate tycoons, property developers or simply property dealers, who are considered a few notches down the professional hierarchy, are business people lacking in guile who try to sell pieces of land to unsuspecting buyers. But it’s not as simple as it looks. Neither the seller is guileless nor is the buyer unsuspecting. Both consciously and subconsciously play power game.
High sounding names are seemingly a perfect cultural foil to over-priced pieces of land on sale which have around them an air of phoney opulence associated with upper class way of living. Seller being in possession of bigger resources, in this case the urban land has the greater manipulative power. He, to use a cliché, plans to sell dreams. And one of the perennial dreams for anyone is to have a house of their own, an abode that anchors them and their family in safety, a protective ring from where no one can eject them. This is something primordial engraved on human psyche, a result of fear of jungle life where a human had no fixed abode and was invariably exposed to dangers seen and unseen. But in the evolutionary process the character of house/human habitat kept changing under the influence of changed and changing conditions. It ceased to be merely a dwelling, a sanctuary or a safe haven. Apart from being something tangible, it assumed another dimension of being intangible. The acquired intangibility of house in social life is organically linked with the emergence of the privileged and dispossessed, the rich and poor. In other words, it is fallout from class structure evolved over a long historical period that continues to influence the choices we make. So we now see house as a symbol of social prestige, marker of class and indicator of economic status. You define your house as much as it defines you. By defining your house you define yourself. When you define yourself, it happens that you tend to see in your person more than what actually there is. You unconsciously blur the line between the real and imagined, between fact and wish. It sort of becomes an elusive mix of what is actual and potential. Traces of solidified cultural practices embedded in commercial transactions create a grey area of hazy dreams that are inherently passed on from the past. The past has an enduring subliminal quality. The past doesn’t pass in absolute terms. It offers itself in disguise to be lived as present. This is the moment the merchants come in with all the ware that carry the reflected glories of perceived and imagined past which a human believes, are worth enjoying.
The names of new housing schemes in our context are mostly borrowed from the past as it’s an area where the power game has been played out and the symbols derived from it point to a world that is imperturbable. So the tangible is wrapped in the intangible. Land is sold as an array of promising symbols which make the ware not only more saleable but also gets it imbued with power that may not be real and prove illusory at the end of the day. When a housing society is named “Fort”, it conveys to the prospective buyers though deceptively that they are going to buy houses in a place that is a bastion of power and unassailable in a world full of threatening chaos. “Garden” and “Paradise” point to an uninterrupted state of bliss in a society full of strife and misery. “Royal” and “Court” evoke all the luxuries imaginable in an impoverished land. So there is certainly much in a name. The evocative power hidden in the names of housing societies meant for the rich and not so rich creates a space that potential buyers would like to occupy regardless of the fact whether it offers what it promises. So seller and buyer happily live in an age in which conceit is touted as an art and commercial crap is dished out as a cultural fetish. — soofi01@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2017