Namma name game

Bengaluru businesses discovered a short cut to instant belonging

Bengalureans of a certain vintage like to complain that the city no longer feels like the one they grew up in. There is a lot of bemoaning the loss of quieter, cleaner roads and an oft-expressed longing for the Bengaluru remembered from “back in our time”. Accompanying that nostalgia is the desire to see the city as a place that is still “ours”. Businesses, quick to cash in on such things, have found a convenient way to do it, with the prefix namma.

They are everywhere now: Namma Café, Namma Laundry, Namma Bakery, and Namma Dosa Corner. Er, namma trash heap too, in time. Namma simply means ‘our’, and putting it on a signboard is meant to give the business a friendly neighbourhood vibe that earns your loyalty. It implies a certain homeyness, a promise that the establishment belongs to you. 

If you’ve lived in Bengaluru for a while, you will know the city has seen naming fashions before. A darshini, now a common noun meaning a stand-and-eat café, was first a proper noun—the actual name of a pioneering eatery. In the 1980s, a successful clothing shop on Kempe Gowda Road inadvertently started a trend of its own. Little shops calling themselves Shoe Kemp and Bangle Kemp popped up, apparently under the impression that ‘Kemp’ was a sophisticated retail term meaning something like ‘mart’. In fact, it merely referred to the street where the store stood, but that small detail did not prevent the suffix from going up on signboards across the city.

Along with the current affection for namma, I see other companion words: the super-industrious ajji—Ajji Tiffins, Ajji Kitchen and Ajji Mane Oota. Who doesn’t like to think there’s a kindly grandmother supervising their sambar? Whether any of these places has an actual ajji is beside the point. The idea of her is enough: the customer is happy to go along with the fiction. There’s also the folksy halli (village) on many signboards, with the décor inside suitably pastoral. The promise of hearty simplicity comes with some in-built flattery: this authentic, unpretentious fare is just right for authentic, unpretentious you.

To be fair, namma works well in some places. Few things produce a quiet swell of civic pride like the sight of Namma Metro gliding into the station exactly when it is meant to, its doors swishing open precisely where you expect them to. In those moments the word feels perfectly chosen. At others, you might find yourself staring with perplexity at the impossible whimsy of something called Namma Cake Palace.

Of course, the relationship implied by namma also creates certain expectations. In the hour of need, who else can we count on but our own people? You take it for granted that namma tailor will deliver on time when namma niece’s wedding is at hand. So, what do you do when you stand there explaining that it’s hard for you to come again tomorrow, and he smoothly says, “Adu nimma problem”?

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.