Secret Daughter

Names shift throughout Secret Daughter: Usha becomes Asha when Somer and Kris adopt her; Krishnan becomes Kris when he moves to America; Kavita and Somer both take their husband’s family names when they are married; Bombay becomes Mumbai. As Kavita reflects in Chapter 5, there is great power in giving a name to another human being:

What power there is in naming another living being, she realizes, looking at the child. When she married Jasu, his family changed her name to Kavita, which suited them and the village astrologer are better than Lalita, the only name her parents had chosen for her […] Usha is Kavita's choice alone, a secret name for her secret daughter. The thought brings a smile to her face (25).

When Kavita names her daughter Usha, she reclaims some of the power she does not have as a woman in traditional Indian society. When Krishnan is named Kris, it reflects the power of American culture to suppress one’s “foreignness,” if one wants to partake in the American Dream. When Kavita and Somer both take on names dictated by their husbands’ families, it shows how women, regardless of whether they are wealthy Westerners or impoverished Indian women, are subjugated to their husbands.