Why do some people call me by my caste? Why do well-read individuals hesitate to utter my name, as if it carries some ominous weight, as if speaking it might summon a curse upon them? I do not know. I have no definite answers. But I have lived with this reality since childhood.

At the end of my fifth class in a small primary school, I packed my belongings and prepared for a new journey. A new town awaited me, eight kilometers away. With a fresh uniform, a brand-new rucksack, an identity card, and a tiffin box, I was ready. But one thing remained painfully unchanged—the replacement of my name with my caste.

Classmates would call me by my caste, and soon, some teachers followed. A few exceptions existed—some boys, all the girls, and most of the teachers addressed me by my actual name. But as I grew older, the percentage of those exceptions dwindled. In college and university, it almost disappeared. Interestingly, my classmates from Srinagar never used my caste. They never tried to mould my name to fit their tongues, never sought to diminish it into something more........

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