Sunday, October 23, 2005

What's in a name?

Lots of fun if your name is anything like my name. I am called laxmi at home and in the neighbourhood. When I was a kid there was this younger kid called Bradley who just couldn’t say laxmi, so he called me dappatti. His uncle who happened to be my tuition teacher would say, Bradley why do you take the trouble of calling her dappatti, why not just call her chapatti. I would have called him (Bradley) names too, but then there was his uncle to be considered.

During my days of technical support for Americans, one of my colleagues got a caller (read moron) who insisted to know his real name, as we used pseudo names on the phone. My colleague wasn’t very keen about giving out his name, but the caller persisted. So he told him his name is Pravin. No marks to guess the caller couldn’t pronounce his name correctly, Pravin had a great idea and he said this is nothing now try saying Bhagyalaxmi. The caller had to be taken to a hospital for mental trauma. Pravin and me almost lost our jobs.

Yesterday at the hospital a woman asked me my name, I told her my name. She said, ‘bahut hard naam hai’. Well ma’am wait until I change my name to Sparklingwater. Is it soft enough?

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

:) i love your name............

cerisecarnations said...

bhagya- good fortune
lakshmi- goddess of wealth..well u have everything one needs in ur name ;-)

A Chrysanthemum by any other name... said...

Let me do a (psycho) analysis of your name. It means you will always have to strive hard to retain whatever you have. Your name is Bhag-ya-laksmi. Which literally translated means run or money. Rather, run or else I will take your money. You have therefore been keeping on running (i.e. striving) to earn money. You would be well advised to change your name to Aish-ya-lakshmi so that you can live your life at leisure. Now since aish-ya-lakshmi sounds wierd, people changed it to Aishwariya (which not so coincidently means good fortune) and this is the genesis of the name Aishwarya.

PS: If you even CONSIDER believing any of this, you shall be delivered one cyber thappad. Gift wrapped.

Anonymous said...

hehe..
whats in a name ..so true..
but then i think "bhagya" sounds good....
and bhagya laxmi is not hard to pronounce..unless u speak it out in such a way that the other person is all confused..lol.

and let us know when we have to attend ur second "nam-karan"

Anonymous said...

Chrys said what I had to say.... Bhagya bhag ja :D

Anonymous said...

Isnt Laxmi easier to pronounce than Dappati - maybe he did hv some ulterior motives :-))

Waise, i hv hd a simple name like mine converted to all sort of things by these firangs - including 'peacock' when i was a kid, and 'de-pak' which in hindi almost sounds like some vulgar thing!

Anonymous said...

And yeah, the less said about the surname the better, wonder y everyone, and that is EVERYONE presumes, that i m a JAISWAL !

Kuldeep Prakash said...

but why did u visit the hospital , I hope everything is fine .....

Kon ?? said...

well-2 funny enough ppl find my name hard to pronounce too :))
btw u can change ur name to "lax" or "lux" for easier pronounciation ;)

:)))))
~Kon ??

Flying Machine said...

Dreams - thats really nice of u, I love my name too.

Flying Machine said...

cerisecarnations - yes everything in my name, but nothing really.

What's this getting to know a lot of flowers lately.

Flying Machine said...

Chrys - I hate to say it but u are right again.
There is already a famous Aishwarya, why confuse ppl. with two famous stunning girls with the same name. :D

If ur gonna send me the cyber thapad, make sure the gift wrapper is red in colour.

Flying Machine said...

Vicky - second naam-karan is over, u can still send gifts, I will accept them.

Flying Machine said...

Seema - Aapke aur Chrys ke khayalat bahut milte hai.

Flying Machine said...

HA HA Deejay ur story is funnier than mine, peocock why wud somebody call u that.

Firangs???????? were u abroad when u were a kid.

Please forgive me even I was under the impression that maybe ur jaiswal. Maine kaan pakad liya aur uth baith bhi kar liya.

Flying Machine said...

Dukhee_Aatamaa - my dad is hospitalised, but things are fine.

Flying Machine said...

Kon ?? - whats ur name?
I like my name, don't want to change it. and my sis does call me lux.

n.g. said...

i suggest sparkling sodawaterbottleopenerwaala. your nick name could be baatli.

cerisecarnations said...

ok chrys is match making seema with bhagya and bhagya is hinting something here between chrys and seema.time for seemas knight in shinning armour to come to rescue..or maybe jhansi ki rani will resue herself :D

Anonymous said...

hei..actually i like the name so much and shortened to bhagya also is nice.
lol for dapatti..ha ha.

Anks said...

Sparklingwater???? not bad....... when are u changing it??? :D

IcEyeZ said...

There was a friend of mine by name "Arthee"...her job happened to be on UK support...
They simply wasnt able to pronounce her name...Finally , they started calling her "RT"..heehee..Ofcourse..at times we get on our nerves if r names r not said the right way !

Kon ?? said...

@lux [aka bhagya]
well mez Kon ?? :)))
actual name is upto u to find out :D

SwB said...

hey Bhagyalaxmi!

Anonymous said...

'Bhaginder Singh Chor Party Powai Wala' would have been easier to pronounce... cha men! Anyways, make sure you give your children these kind of simple names :p

And CC, don't worry, my knight need not be disturbed for such small matters, JKR akeli hi kaafi in dono ke liye muahahahaha

cerisecarnations said...

@seema
arre esa naam diya tho B ke bache se log puchenge
beta isme tumhara naam kahan khatam hotha hain and address kahan se shuru hotha hai
;)))

Neel Arurkar said...

Not that hard :-). And its a nice name too

Anonymous said...

Lux, you forgot "Laspuni"??!!!

Flying Machine said...

Parna - what angry yaar,it is very amusing.

Nish - Nicknames, lets not even get into that, will have to do a book to cover all the nicknames I have had.

CC - You are one smart girl.

Godolphin - Thanks Go

Anks - Not in this lifetime. It is too many legal hassles :-)

Flying Machine said...

IcEyeZ - and we can pronounce those firangs names correctly.

Kon ?? - yeh hai kon? yeh hai kon? nahi Don nahi Konark.

Seema - actually its your knight who needs to be rescued.

Harsh - yups me and my name is all about positivity :D

Flying Machine said...

CC - I see one traumatised life for my kids.

Neel Arurkar - Thnks neel.

Pulse - and also laxumi.