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Monday, March 8, 2010

62. And thou shall be called.........

I have managed to carry off a name like Bhargavi Gopalakrishnan non-chalantly for more than two decades now. Now, THAT is your Iyer label into this world. Why so specifically, you may ask. The feel, my friend. That's how you identify my breed. The name to a great extent gives it away :|

Having a name like that brings a lot of unwarranted problems in your life. More so, if you are a lazy bum person. The first of such attacks came on the day when we had to fill out our Class X forms. You know those sheets that have lots of boxes on it... Fill in you dad's name, mom's name, maid servant's brother-in-law's name.... followed by lots of circles with alphabets printed inside them. So, first you fill out your name in the boxes, and then colour all the corresponding letters in those circles. Imagine yourself with a name as short as mine and sitting beside one N-E-H-A V-E-R-M-A and doing all this. Half of my life has gone into such productive work.

Quite needless to say, we live in an impatient world. No one wants to put in so much time and effort into a fruitless activity. So what do we do? We shorten the name. Madrasis have this popular trend of adding their initials before / after their names followed by a dot. And thus, I became Bhargavi G. (and sometimes G. Bhargavi) to the world. The northern side of the country has a nice way of treating people with such peculiar(atleast to them) names. They mutate it. As a result, I hopped from 'Jai Bhairavi' to 'Bhargavi Jee(G)' to 'G dot Bhargavi. 8 out of 10 times, I am called Bhairavi or Bhagwati within 2 minutes after I have introduced myself to someone. Hmm, ok. Why Anu then? Good question. See, some in our clan have this unique and intelligent custom of giving their kids two names(sometimes three). Why? Dont ask me. Why I was not called this throughout? Solve this and you will solve the mystery of my existence. Obviously some noble soul thought I would do well to be reminded forever that I was named after the proud Bhrugu lineage.

With friends and others, the above funda doesn't work. Which is why we have names like Chi-chi, Bebo, Lulu, Duggu, Guddu, Sussoo still in existence. Following the same line of thought, I have been Jumbo(owing to size), Popat(owing to foot-in-mouth disease), Kinni(owing to lack of reasoning skills of people who named me so), Anu(owing to publicity of the same), Bhari, Bar and the likes(obvious and logically following) while friends with big names were happily being addressed as Ashu, Sid, Abhi, Sri, so on and so forth. :|

What's your story? Have you had embarassing nicknames ever? Funny? Silly? Witty? (A friend 'Abinav' is called "now nau", "now 9" etc. Abhi = now, Nav/nau = 9) :D 

24 comments:

  1. wateever you say or dnt..kuruvi suits u the best :D :D

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  2. Ha Ha Ha.

    Gils has already commented. :-D

    That bloggy sabbatical has changed something in you for sure. Funny post. May you suffer more, for all our mirth!!! :-D :-D

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  3. Gils,

    Noooooooo !! :( Nice revenge for THAT buzz, I'll get back anyway :P

    Ram,

    Vasishtar vaayala brahmarishi ! :D On another plane, what life do I have with such sadist friends :|

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  4. Thank God (and your parents!) that you don't have a name like Rindo!

    Oh, the trauma I had to endure at school.

    Apart from having to say my name twice (once at normal speed, and then slowly and very spaced out) EVERY SINGLE TIME (honestly, I've spent half my life watching people do double takes when they hear my name), I also think I had the most nicknames at school!

    No, I'm not going to tell you. :P

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  5. And I missed Sussoo - Oh, the vagaries of languages and its interpretations. LOL at this.

    You made me Vashishtar? :-) I am flattered :-) If you are not at the receiving end, you seem to sulk and go silent, otherwise, we have some real funny posts from you. :-)

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  6. //You made me Vashishtar? :-) I am flattered :-)//

    rammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm avanga vasishtar solala..avanga unga sisternu solranga :D u the mistake :D :D kuruvi...ur name in kalyana pathirikai shd be kuruvi engira bargavi :D

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  7. Rindo,

    You have a cute name, Rindo! Come on :) What does your name mean btw? Thank your stars it ain't the name of a goddess(like mine !). Even interviewers don't spare me. One een questioned me about the Bhrigu lineage since Bhargavi was his daughter :|

    Nicks, ahemmmm.. Don't I know atleast one of them Rama?? :P :P

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  8. Ram,

    Lol! Thats one of the very few Tamil sayings I know :)

    Oh thank you, there is always scope of betterment, isn't it? :)

    Gilssssss,

    Once more I hear 'kuruvi' anywhere hear in this space, I am going to spam your FB account with Farmville invites. Watch out (grrrr) :)

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  9. :) enga...kuruvia kuruvi nu koopdama epdi koopdarthu?? :D :D bye the bye..u chn coming?

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  10. //One een questioned me about the Bhrigu lineage since Bhargavi was his daughter :|
    /

    !! paathengala..kuruvinu pera mathitelna intha imsais u wont have :D

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  11. @Anu: Yea. Cute. :|
    Some say "Oh, what a sweet name. You know, a cousin of mine has a dog and he's called Tingoo."

    And they expect me to take THAT as a compliment? :|

    In case you want to know, "Rindo" is the first person singular verb for "rendir", which in Spanish means "to conquer".

    Rindo = I conquer.
    Thank you, Wiktionary! :D

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  12. Gils,

    Yessir, me the Chennai coming, but 2 months to go for that event :)

    Rindo,

    Rindo is a cute name, ok? :| *Guys have no taste*

    Aah, conquer! Thats a powerful name for a Transformers fanatic :)

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  13. I completely understand... I am one such DOT(read B DOT Vivek). Ask siddharth for more details. Man!! these northies...

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  14. Cry baby! Everyone calls you ANU! Who has the time and patience to say names with more than two syllables all the time?

    My nickname is GINNY (the G here is used as in give/giddy etc, NOT jin/gin; means a gold coin in Hindi). Didn't have too much trouble until J K Rowling decided to name a girl with the same spelling of the name (the pronunciation is still different!).

    @rindo
    Believe it or not, I didn't think your name was weird until you mentioned it!

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  15. I don think u shud be complainin at all cos I have heard of names like Titty, Jijo and so on and so forth.... wat is life witout funny nicknames :) Anu and BG and Dodo!! u have nuthin to feel embarrassed abt :D :D!!

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  16. Haha.... this post is as funny as funny can be!! This has got to be one of your most delightful posts! As for someone having to live a very, very embarassing existence with a kilometer-long moniker, I sympathize with such poor chaps. I mean, it ain't ain't easy for folks like us what with our over-enthusiatic parents bent on making our lives miserable by branding us with names such as Muthuswamy Arindramgetam Subramanium Thellaswamy. Oh, I would kill myself with a name like that. Or have second thoughts and then call myself something cool, like 'Rahul' or 'Raj'. Life turns awesomely and fabulously simpler with a name like that. Plus, you become more attractive to the opposite gender.
    I was going to be named 'Gowri' as in Gowri-the-cow for the rest of my life by my doting mother. My granny, God bless her soul, intervened and saved my life by naming me Avanti instead. Not that I haven't had my fair share of problems with a name like that. I end up being called 'Aunty' most of the time (when you say Avanti REAL fast.... it will sound like Aunty). And no one wants to be called an aunty, even my wrinkly, 60-year old grandma. Sigh, whoever said 'what's in a name?' was off his rocker when he said it.

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  17. Vivek,

    Heartfelt sympathies, my friend! :)

    Sid,

    See? :|
    Oh I know that Ginny name of yours. I never figured out why ppl used to call u so. Heard Roch call u that coupla times.

    Vinay,

    Dodo? :O Deiiii!! :) You shouldn't be talking da. We have never spared u - V-nai, Winnie, Vini and what not :P

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  18. Avanti,

    Thanks!! :)

    What do you have to loathe about gal? You have such a short and sweet name. You know not of the Tam-Brahm world :D LOL at Avanti vs Aunty!! :D :D I never imagined we could there :)

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  19. ya ya.... u can call me wat u wanna da !! but Dodo is the name tat suits u best :P

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  20. Great post, Bhargavi (I rather like it).

    C

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  21. Vinay, let's keep it that way then.

    Corinne, so another one joins the league huh? You aren't the first person telling me that, you know! :)

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  22. dodo..kuruvi...pretty birdie names for u i shd say :D :D

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  23. Surprising new look! Your blog looks amazing and pleasant. Good job. Nice post.

    Cheers,
    JPK

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