My Name is Bobby

Whoops. I mean Bhabhi. 

Bhabhi means sister-in-law, and it's not only what I am, it's also my name. Well, part of it. To explain why, we have to look at Pakistani names in general. Pakistanis give their kids first names and pet names and nicknames, and the last names those kids get could be the family last name or the father's first name or the grandfather's last name. M's family (used to) do things particularly weird - the last names keep changing back and forth for each new generation to show respect to the previous generation. Like, M's grandfather's last name was Kishore, but when his children were born he made their last names Mukesh because that had been his father's last name. But then those kids named their own kids Kishore out of respect to their own father, and so on and so on. So my FIL's last name is Mukesh and M's last name is Kishore - and the one daughter has a different name entirely, and my MIL kept her maiden name (a common practice in desi culture.)

Sheesh. None of that is important anyway. I don't know why I got off on that tangent. What I really wanted to talk about was how you're not supposed to say the names of people older than you. As a sign of respect to your elders, you have to tack on some extra thing to the end of their name. Usually this extra thing you tack on is the relationship. Just like in America, you would call you mother's brother "Uncle Jack". He's much older than you, so you can't just call him Jack, so you tack on the relationship. 

But desis make it a little harder because all of the family relations there are defined in more detail. Instead of Uncle, you have words for paternal uncle (ChaCha) or maternal uncle (MaMa), and their spouses have their own names, too (ChaChi and Mami, respectively). And then there's maternal aunt (Khala) and parental Aunt (Phoopi) and their spouses (Khalu and Phoopa). You just add these to the end of the name, so your mother-in-law's brother because Pervaiz Mamu, and her sister becomes Radha Khala. The spouses of your uncles and aunts sometimes even lose their entire name - like if you Mahmood Mama married a woman name Ambreen, sometimes she'll be called Mahmood Mami (instead of Ambreen Mami). 

(An aside: a VERY traditional wife doesn't say her husband's name AT ALL - EVER. His first name will never leave her tongue. Instead, she'll either call him some nickname, or she'll call him "sooni-yeh" which translates loosely to "Are you listening to me?" or just "him." This leads to some lengthy round-about conversations trying to find out which 'him' my mother in law is talking about, and when we're out in Bazaars in Karachi, and she yells Suniye!, you should see the number of heads who swivel around! All husbands who are called that at home, too, who thought it was their wives calling them.)

This applies even to elder cousins, although in a somewhat sexist fashion (at least in my family.) It can be sexist because when cousins are born relatively close together- let's say two son are born to two families 9 months apart - because they're so close in age, this formality is dropped and they will usually just call each other only by first names or nicknames. But if a girl and a boy are nine months apart, usually the formality is NOT dropped, and if the boy is even only slightly older, she'll still be told to add some sign of respect to his name.

For cousins and siblings, though, there's no specific thing to add onto the name. Most times they just end up calling each other some variant of 'sister' (Baji) and 'brother' (Bhai). So an older sister becomes Aisha Baji, and the eldest brother becomes Mehfooz Bhai. Except, of course, there are a bajillion other exceptions. (Like the eldest sister is sometimes called just Appa, or the fact that lots of families - especially Western ones - don't do this at all anymore.)

And then there's the nicknames. Everyone's got a nickname. Every name is shortened (or sometimes lengthened!) and "oo" and "isha" or something like it is tacked on. Shahnaz is Shanoo, Muniba is Moonie. Or the nickname can reference some part of the personality or favorite family memory. Even elders can have nicknames. M's maternal aunt was known to take a lot of pictures, and one of the kids was always getting surprised by a flash of a camera and started calling her Bati Mami (meaning "light" auntie.)

So, if your older brother - who you call Mahnoo Bhai - gets married, you also don't say his wife's name. You add something onto her name as well, and that something is Bhabhi, meaning sister-in-law. Like if my name was Aisha, I'll be Aisha Bhabhi, or sometimes just Bhabhi (especially if I'm the ONLY sister-in-law.) A new wife will also be called Bhabhi by her husband's friends - even if those friends are the same age as the husband. Some of this might be because male friends of your husband don't always remember your name, and some of it is because it's considered forward to call a married woman by only her first name. (Again, a lot of this is going away with time and 'westernization'.)

So, because I married the eldest son, all of my brothers- and sister-in-law call me Bhabhi. A lot of M's friends also call me Bhabhi, but not anyone that knew me prior to our marriage. It's nice to be married to the eldest, because there aren't a whole lot of people that *I* have to call Bhabhi! 

Of course, there are a million mamas and khaloos and chachis!

*Names changed to protect my anonymity!

** These relationship terms differ depending on ethnic community and language - there's a pretty good list here if you want to see some other Hindi/Urdu relations. (And a user-generated forum-type list here.)