What's in a name ?.. they say..
Quite a lot I believe..
I never liked my name that much..liked it but was never excited about it..
I always wanted my name to be a little unique..something with 5 syllables.like kaamayni or riddhima or something a little less ordinary than my present one.
But , when I was told about the various names my mother was toying with..
She thought of naming me 'Java'.. (all you raised eyebrows.. I know.. ) Apparently its the hindi name for Hibiscus..Nice thought but, still.And , in gujarat they would have made such fun of me..because 'java' is a verb meaning 'to go' and its variations . Then its the programming language in IT and its not over yet.. its the Coffee Beans and the old name for Indonesia or something.
Naming someone after hibiscus reminds me of another story.. one of my aunts is actually named 'gudhal', another hindi name for you guessed it, Hibiscus. So, one of my other aunt always gets confused and she stops herself just in time from calling her 'kathal' ( Jackfruit.. and I have not made this up ).
The surname 'Biyaani' always made me feel that a missing 'R' would have made it all wholesome and tasty.
One of our man fridays at one of the PG I used to say was named 'Bechelaal'. Our Pg lady asked us one day, " Have you listened to the story behind his name or not ? You should. Its quite interesting and he loves telling it ".So, we caught hold of Bechelaal of the stinky poccha fame and spiderman acrobatic skills and asked him about it.The story went something like this , all the children born before Bechelaal did not use to survive for long.So, his parents decided to break the jinx by selling him to his naani for a chawanni (25 paise) when he was born and hence, the unique name Bechelaal. By the way, the aunt of mine who used to have problem with names, always ended up calling him 'Chedilaal'.
And Gujaratis top the list in picking weird names for their unsuspecting kids.Once, while travelling in train I asked this 20 something mom about her daughter's name. It was 'Panache".. yes, Panache as in the word 'flair'. Wow !! is all I could say.But , the best I find is NRG's( Non Resident Gujaratis) naming their kids 'Neil' or 'Dave' . Nice names which are there in both Indian and American culture and easy to pronounce for the firangs. Then they also have these unisex names like 'Snehal' and 'Mital' and the worst is 'Peenal'..uh hullo ??
Considering all this, I was glad my parents finally chose what they did.
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5 years ago
5 comments:
Great post. Bechelal as Chedilal? The kathl story is hilarious and so is your account of Gujju names. You know Java could have been a very hep name but for its many unromantic associations. I was called Vidushi for like a year and a half, toyed with Nivedita for sometime, my fresh 2yr old brother used to call me natiala till much into his teen, mum thought that was a nice name too. But in the end we settled with what it is now.
Gud one.
Names n thr meaning vis-a-vis the personality of the person with tht name is fun to observe as well - quite often its ulta... vinamra may just be the most short tempered girl in the class, shweta may b having a miami tan. Vishal might b the shortest guy around n hansmukh may never even smile :)
@ skipper : Natiala is awesssome :)
My chachi always used to egt confused n call him chedilaal.I like Nivedita tho.. n anyways ur getting quite a vidushi even without being named so.. :)
@rk :miami tan..ahaa ;)yeah in coll I knew one shweta who was more of a shyama..
Atleast u were the only one who responded to ur name in college.. think about poor me who has to perennially stay in confusion whether ive been marked for attendance or my namesake...
I like ur surname more though..simply coz i can play around with it more easily .. of the 'Mitli' fame..
P.S alluding to the comment above .. shyama sounds nice and much less common than the name i currently flaunt ... wish u were around to suggest it to my parents when I was born...
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