What’s in a name?
Shakespeare says, ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. Really, Mr William? Ask me. Every
time I go home (one or twice a year) one discussion that I always have with my
mom is on my did she name me ‘Kinshuk’
and the associated miseries that I have with this supposedly beautiful
and well thought of name, that she decided upon with a lot of pride. She loves
my name and feels that those who can’t pronounce it right are the real fools.
Well, it’s not that I don’t like the name either, but I would be lying if I say
that I am not annoyed with the way a lot of intelligent and learned folks say
it grossly incorrectly. And this has been the trend right from the childhood.
The most commonly misused
one – ‘Kaushik’. I don’t know
how Kinshuk and Kaushik read and sound similar but even the most respected and
learned teachers of my school used to call me as Kaushik on several occasions.
And those were the days when I also had my Dad’s name included in my full name,
so my attendance register name used to be Kinshuk
Sharad Awasthi. Now a lot of south Indian teachers literally struggled to
call out my name correctly, on occasions they were so confused that took the
easiest of the 3 as their lucky pick in calling out my name. So on days I was
Kaushik, on others Sharad and on some Awasthi. There were also some horror
moments when the otherwise simple reading names like Sharad and Awasthi were
also pronounced as Sharda and Aswathi. Such was my plight on those days that if
my roll no. was 15 I stood by the time roll no. 13 was called out and shouted ‘Present Maam’ even before the teacher
made a horrendous attempt to call out my name incorrectly J.
The royal classico’ – ‘Kanishk’.
A generous bunch has also been calling me as Kanishk. Giving me a false sense
of hope that somehow I am connected to the good old Kanishka dynasty about
which we read about in our history lessons. No clue again, how Kinshuk and
Kanishk read and sound similar but probably these people took their history
lessons way too seriously or they hardly care about reading my name rightly. Interestingly,
when I correct them with the right name, some blatantly say ‘o it’s pretty much the same’. What a way to grace someone’s name J.
The tongue twister – ‘Kinushk’.
Kinushk, as some folks call me, probably feel is better rhyming and more
correct than rather awkward Kinshuk. I do try to correct them with the right name
though, but they are hardly convinced, firstly with Kinshuk and secondly on why
the hell am I named something so complex J.
Ahmedabad fame - ‘Kinsukh
(bhai)’. Now I don’t blame
those who call me Kinsukh as much, as there are a considerable amount of people
who pronounce ‘Sh’ as ‘S(a)’. Though, by that logic too it should be Kinsuk,
but the Kinsukh way is probably
their way of adding some happiness in my life J.
The king of parrots – ‘Kingshuk’. Howsoever, annoyed I might get with people
calling me with all the wrong and weird names but their generosity never ends. Kingshuk, is another prime example, the
extra ‘G’ generously adds that touch of royalty and promotes me to a king. But
hardly do these people know that ‘Shuk’ also means parrot and their unintentional
sense of generosity has makes me the King of Parrots J.
Dubai return – ‘Yusuf’. The biggest struggle I always have is
with the marketing and sales folks who call randomly on mobile to sell all
those nonsensical schemes and products and to make it worse for me they also
make a mockery of my name. More often than not, the moment they call my name
incorrectly I hang up saying ‘sorry wrong
number’ and I keep doing that till they call out my name correctly. But the
most comic incident happened recently when one of these marketing folks called
me ‘Yusuf’. I genuinely thought that it’s a wrong no. but after he kept calling
me twice thrice and even read out my right mobile no. I inquisitively asked
him, ‘Sir how on earth are Kinshuk and Yusuf similar?’ His out of the box
response was ‘Sir, they sound similar’. I could do nothing but to marvel on his
brilliance J.
And then there is a
streak of other awkward names too. I have always felt that people from the west
incorrectly calling out Indian names as still understandable. But people from
our country doing that, is actually surprising. ‘Kinshuk’ for that matter is
still not a very common name and many people struggle to call it out correctly
in the first go. But what I always find unacceptable and surprising is how they
are not able to even pronounce it correctly after reading it from a piece of
paper or from the screen. Forget that, I
have even got email replies where in people couldn’t even correctly copy my
name from the email trail below. That is certainly unpardonable and my mom
would certainly not take the blame for such laxities J.
I remember how I used to
fight with my mom on why didn’t she name me ‘Rocky’, ‘Vicky’ or ‘Jacky’ because
as a kid I used to find those names very macho and fancy. On second thoughts
now, I feel a rather simple sounding name like ‘Ram’, ‘Shyam’ or ‘Mohan’ would
have done the trick too J. Though, as a counterproductive measure, I have resorted
to calling myself as Mr Awasthi to people I feel might struggle with Kinshuk.
In normal circumstances, I would have done this say 5 or 10 years down the line
but with the kind of mockery my name has experienced already, I decided to
uncle out a bit too early J.
And now let somebody
say, what’s in the name J.
--
kin…
Post Script – I was equally worried on how my son would struggle to call
out my name when he starts speaking. Eventually, when he started speaking few
months back and when he actually called out my name, I heard it as ‘Tinshuk’. I
was sad but pretty soon realized that he is actually calling me ‘Kinshuk’ the
clearest anybody would have ever called out the name. Redemption!
