Daichang, is my pseudonym, nickname or my alter ego or whatever I would like to call it. The name I gave it to myself when I was studying in grade 9, around 14 years old.
There are multiple stories behind this name,
1. I didn’t like my name to be honest, more than that nobody used to call me by my name till that age except during class attendance. It was so easy to modify which made it so easy for name calling, achidho, ashey, ashu, asstoast
2. Ashu did sound like a girl’s name, and whenever I used to pick up phone at my home, due to my squeaky teenage voice back then, I was confused for being a girl. Hence, I started sounding rude and husky whenever I picked up the phone at home.
3. There was some home paint advertisement featuring a kid named ashu and everyone started teasing me asking when am I gonna get married. [the ad was funny cause an old girl would say she’d wait for ashu to grow up so she can get married and have the house with the paint]
4. Psychological reason: I grew up as the youngest in the family and dai means elder brother and daichang sounds like a really cool mongolian name [derived from maichyang] and gave me sense of being older and different than others.
5. I probably over heard my brother saying daichang sometime back in the days, and I had a DHL booklet/stickers, which had words Taichang printed on it, So I changed it to Daichang to sound relevant.
6. I once wrote down Daichang in my notebook and my friend started asking me what it is, and I said it’s a name and they were trying to tease me “haha daichang re” but I started laughing along with them, tried to embrace it and started being known as daichang.
7. Later I started developing anagram and tried to derive meanings to it, [acid hang]
Daichang once meant, deadly ashutosh is charming, handsome and naughty guy
OR dangerous ashutosh intimidates charming hot and naughty girls
OR damn Ash is cute hot and nice guy. [OK i just invented that]
Probably, I had a very inferior self image while I was growing up so I wanted to wear a mask of something cool. And it is easier to remember the name daichang than Ashutosh.
“Daichang” has had many transformations, and after almost 14 years when I come to think about it, I didn’t want to conform to the society and their definition, your name is probably your identity that was handed down by someone else. Especially in hinduism, it gives away your cast and creed and that itself is problematic and discriminatory if you wanna be treated as any other human being or would like to envision an equal society.
I once tried to associate daichang as being my ideal self, the person that I would like to be, which is me without the hatred for things I wish I had done differently or my enlightened image of myself, compassionate and considerate.
so far, this definition is my favorite.
Daichang is the name that you give meaning to.
So w/h your daichang? 😉