What’s in the name? Some fun, some pain.

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!