'Droupadi is not my real name,' declares the new president: Report

Rucha Umapurkar : Droupadi Murmu, who took the oath of office today, previously informed a magazine that her name was not always 'Droupadi,' and that her schoolteacher altered it.

Droupadi Murmu, dressed in a white saree with a green-and-red border, took the oath of office as India's 15th President on Monday. Murmu, the first tribal leader to become the head of state, disclosed that her given name, 'Droupadi,' is based on a figure from the epic 'Mahabharata,' and is not her real name. In reality, her schoolteacher gave her the moniker 'Droupadi.'

Murmu said in an interview with an Odia video magazine that her Santhali name is 'Puti,' but that it was changed to 'Droupadi' by a teacher 'for good'.

"Droupadi was not my birth name." "It was supplied by my instructor, who was from another district and not from my hometown of Mayurbhanj," Murmu claimed, according to news agency PTI.

In the 1960s, teachers in the tribal-dominated Mayurbanjh district would go from either Balasore or Cuttack, she told the magazine.

"The instructor didn't like my prior name and changed it permanently," Murmu explained, adding that her name has changed multiple times - from 'Durpadi' to 'Dorpdi' and other versions.

In Santhali culture, names do not perish, according to Murmu. "If a girl is born, she inherits her grandmother's surname, whereas a son inherits his grandfather's surname."