Let me begin with something as sundry as 'name'. My thinking with 'names' began last year. I was at Singapore airport, waiting for boarding to Manila. A man sitting next to me, asked about Philippines (his first visit). I told him, it was my first visit too. Then he asked me, "What are you?" That question stumped me. I figured he wanted me to tell him my nationality. So I said 'I am an Indian'. He looked surprised and said, 'but you dont look like an Indian'. I controlled my urge to ask him 'how an Indian looks like'. Instead told him that, I belong to the geographical margin of Indian nation-state where identities are confusing.
In Manila, similar problem awaited me. On the first-day morning, one of the participants (I was there to attend a workshop, on Orality and History, at the University of Philippines organised by South-South Exchange Program for the History of Development and South-east Asia Studies and Regional Exchange Program), searching for the scholar from India glanced towards me and enquired if I have met the person concern. The question baffled me. I smiled and joked "is there any philosophical possibility that I am able to meet me?" The confusion originated from the reason that I had an Indic name but did not look like one.
Names tell many things. Name of a person or name of place are the texts written on the body. I was named Rhaikwchak (a legendary general during the manikya period) by my great grandfather. Later, when I was admitted to village school, the headmaster (a Bengali) changed my name to Ram (a Hindu mythological ruler or god). As if this change was not enough the Christian missionaries gave me a new name, 'Francis' (a catholic saint). Behind these name-changes lies deep-seated ideology of silencing. In the opinion of the Bengali headmaster to attend school implies stepping into gateway of civilisation. Therefore, I must reject my indigenous name and adopt a new name from Hindu pantheon. To the Christian missionaries to be 'born again' I must re-name myself after a Christian saint. The original names have been pushed to the margin. Almost silenced.
Name change is a form of colonialism. The target is the body of the colonised. I picked up an intriguing book from National Archives of Philippines, "Catalogo Alfabetico de Apellidos". The book contained lists of Spanish names the Philippinos were decreed to adopt by Governor-General Narciso Claveria y Zaldua in 1849 (Philippines was the colony of Spain then, later USA). The list was prepared in alphabetical order and distributed area wise. So people belonging to certain town or village have surnames beginning with same letter. Example, inhabitants of 'A' town got the list beginning with letter 'S', so all the inhabitants of that town will have their surnames beginning with letter 'S'.
Modern identities (indigenous) in Tripura also intrigues me. The surname or last name is the name of the tribe (I do not understand why the people with permanent last name 'debbarmas' are distinguished as Tripuri by the state when they should be 'debbarma' like other tribes). I also find it silly, rather funny, in fact queer, to hear debbarmas making claims that former rulers of Tippera or Tripura rose from amongst them, the 'debbarmas', the real Tripuris. Let me remind these debbarmas that the former rulers claimed descent from the 'Lunar race', not Tripuri race or debbarma race.
Surnames are state-effect. They are produced or constructed by the state for classifying people in order to make rule or administration modern, disciplined, ordered. Manikya dynasty rose when this claissficatory grid (Reang, Debbarma, Jamatia, Koloi etc) did not exist. These surnames appeared only in the 18th century when the kings wanted to increase tax return from the 'hill people'. This required introduction of census and thereby classification. Therefore the claim that former ruling family emerged from debbarma community can be problematic.
Surnames are required only when people become subjects to the modern state. One way (there can be other views) of understanding the beginning of modern surnames in Tripura, perhaps, is that the state (manikya period) classified people based on nature of subjection. The ambassadors of Ahom ruler Rudra Singha, who visited Tipperah three times during 1709-15, provide insightful account of people. They (accompanied by Tippera ambassadors) travelled from the Cachar capital, at Khaspur, through mountainous region up to Tippera capital at Udeypur. Their description of the people inhabiting the mountainous terrain traversed by them offers interesting account of people and space. The population living farthest to Tippera capital were categorised as kukis or kookies, and Rupinis. Those inhabiting the hills closer to the capital were categorised as Tipperas (it is these people who took up the surname debbarma later). The Kookies and Rupinis (who speak kokborok) were deemed mobile with no fixed settlement; they paid annual tax to the Tippera king in kind elephant teeth, cotton, woven clothes and spice. The Tipperas lived in settled villages eat pork, cremate dead, drink alcohol, religious activities overseen by chontais - and paid annual tax of Rupees Four. The Rupinis are clubbed together with the kookies.
This then is the spatial arrangement of hill population. Tipperas who quit sedentary life, reject the control by kings (like the rupinis) are clubbed as kookies by the Tripura ambassadors (because they were the source for the Ahom ambassadors). Any kokbork speaking group who refused to live near the capital, under the subjection of the king, becomes non-Tippera or non subject. They become like kookies, Rupinis, Jamatia, Reangs etc
The people who use surname 'Reang' today were the last group of kokborok speaking people subjugated or subjected by the state (in 1940s by using kookie mercenaries; the jamatias were subjected in 1860s). Large group of Reangs, then, fled to Chittagong Hill tracts. They were later joined by another group of Reangs who were forcibly evicted (to settle Bengali refugees in 1948) from their newly cleared lands in Kanchanpur area. These Reangs were later driven out by East Pakistan army. They than took shelter in the jungles of present day Mizoram. From here every one knows the history. I will use the word Bru to differentiate them from the subjugated Reangs.
The Brus who are today 'captured' in refugee camps are the kokborok speaking groups who refused to be incorporated into the state as subjects. I used the word 'captured' to emphasis the history of capture that have taken place. The capture of our gods and the capture of our bodies (refer to my article Is Goria a Hindu God?). So the state now capture them and dump them in refugee camps. The French NGO, Doctors Without Borders, was denied permission to work among the refugees by the government of Tripura.
The Debbarmas, Jamatias, Reangs, Kolois etc are those that have been incorporated into the cosmography invented by the manikya dynasty. Those who refused subjection, incorporation have been pushed to the margins of state power. From the margins, when they aspire to assert, defy, subvert and confront the state they are extruded, captured and dumped in refugee camps. Enclosed. Silenced.
The Brus dont use any surname. And their language is difficult to grasp even by the recently incorporated Reangs. To understand their words you have to make them speak slowly. For their kokborok words have not yet been polluted by other hegemonic languages, neither have they been able to give them surnames (their days are numbered).
The 'nothing' in my title is to suggest that there is nothing great in your surname. The great stories some people tell about their surnames are fictive. And the manythings is to suggest that surnames imply subjection, subjugation and incorporation into certain hegemonic cosmography.
So whats your (sur)name??????
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Aaphu, northmechuria@gmail.com 
