The name is a person’s primary identity. The association of a person with his name is ‘till death do us part’. As a child one learns to associate himself with his name and I think meeting a new acquaintance becomes a dreadful affair ever after. Every time someone walks up to him for the first time, with a big smile he is confronted by that same question: “What is your name?”
Most love their names by default and I am quite certain that to live without loving your name is miserable and unfortunate. The choice of name depends upon country, religion, sensibility of the parents and other such factors. It does not depend upon the wish of the person concerned (unless it is legally changed later which is still rare).
Throughout my childhood I have heard many names incompatible with any degree of rationality. On the contrary I have always enjoyed the distinction of having a nice and unique name with a ‘meaning’. If Google is to believed there is no one except me with my name. I really love my name. But things started changing once I moved out of Calcutta during my undergraduate days.
I first realized in Delhi that my name is difficult to pronounce. My friends and teachers took over a week to pronounce it correctly. Some have not yet succeeded. No stranger could ever understand my name in the first attempt. So instead of saying my name I started to spell it! This saved time but nonetheless was awkward to say the least.
At present there are half as many versions of my name as the number of people I know. Starting from ‘Arkroop’ to the weird ‘Aur-kurup’ which means something else altogether in Hindi. Weary of saying such a long name, some choose abbreviations like ‘Orky’ or just ‘Aur’ or a little more generous ‘Aurko’.
More recently my well-wishers have found a queer phonetic connection between my name and ‘Orkut’-the internet menace that takes up half the net surfing time of many of us. And some have already started to call me so!
I thus being honoured of having a million versions of my name (a moderate overestimate), respond with equal cheer to whatever people choose to call me. I am amazed not to suffer from identity crisis yet.
The journey of my name has been quite a long one and it is just the beginning I guess. It has picked up so much momentum in the last few years that I have no idea where it will stop. Or it may never. Is that what is meant by ‘Journey of a life time’?
TIFR,
Mumbai.
12.04.08.
2 comments:
Spelling the name instead of pronouncing it makes things slightly better but does not guarantee accuracy :)
Even i spell my name while talking to strangers specially on phone. Otherwise i had to hear "What???" several times.
Both of us seem to suffer from similar problems. In my case even spelling the name does not help most often :(
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