Shark Tank India’s Anupam Mittal made a deliberate choice to break away from the tradition of naming his daughter after himself, he said recently.
In a post on LinkedIn, the founder and CEO of People Group and Shaadi.com said that he named his daughter Alyssa Anantara instead of Alyssa Anupam as he did not want her to carry forward anyone else’s legacy but start as herself.
“When my daughter, Alyssa, was born, we wanted to ‘decide’ her middle name. Traditionally in most parts of India, that’s not how it’s done. The father’s first name automatically gets passed down. And in case it’s a girl, it later gets replaced by her husband’s name. It's a quiet tradition. So quiet, in fact, that most don’t question it. But we did,” reads the 50-year-old entrepreneur’s post on the social networking platform.
LinkedIn: Anupam Mittal
In his post, Mittal also explained why he chose the name ‘Anantara’ for his daughter. “Anantara means limitless. Rooted in Ananta, another name for Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom,” he wrote.
Mittal acknowledged that it is only a small step which may not change the world but for him and his family it felt like the right place to begin.
“In a world where women are still introduced as someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, someone’s mother...we just wanted her to start as herself. This wasn’t a grand gesture. It won’t change the world. But for us, it felt like the right place to begin. A quiet way to say - we believe in equality, in her, in her choices, in her future. And that felt enough,” concluded Mittal.
As part of the promotions for Shark Tank India, Mittal has appeared in several other shows like Amitabh Bachchan-hosted Kaun Banega Crorepati and The Kapil Sharma Show.