O my name!
What is it? Shoe what? Could you please come again Mr Shoe…
No problem sir, you can call me Super Tech
Hey …that sounds so cool…So you are Super Tech for us here in XYZ.
In the professional world, that was my first attempt in
twisting my name for the benefit of my clients. I became Super Tech for my
American and English speaking European clients; much later, when I came back
from France and was given charge for France and Francophone countries, I became
Sous Pratique for them. Never mind that it meant someone who was kind of
deranged? Jesus do I even disagree; the other day I saw myself kissing my
plate because I could have my meal on it! Even now, I sometimes kiss my pair of
sneakers after coming from long walks! But that's how I am!
And those childhood scribbles on the walls? Did they ever
show any sign of being ‘normal’; my mom, while cleaning the walls had just one
word as a refrain, obnoxious! And she was creative enough to stress her
syllables that could mean as someone who is perpetually or
incorrigibly obnoxious! These premonitions were stark and vivid in me
since childhood, and I am quite composed with my state of insanity; so coming
back to the main stroy of Super Tech or Sous Pratique now - that was how I
was known to ‘them’; the names became so popular that I even heard discussions
on whether the two were one and the same; I was flattered, but deep inside,
somewhere I was also reminded of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde too. But in my case it
would be Dr Jekyll and Dr Jekyll, wouldn’t it? Enough! Enough of basking in
self glory!
Worst moments
Let me now bring out one of the most embarrassing moments
concerning my name; I went to Delhi to deliver a training on 'cultural sensitisation',
and had two juniors with me. As was the norm, one was not supposed to talk too
much with the juniors, maintain a distance, have different rooms; I never gave
a damn to all these, never, ever, and I had one room booked for three, with one
extra bed. One of the juniors brought me the first bill from the reception and
was laughing his lungs out. Now laughing being infectious, we two also started
laughing without knowing what the reason was; sometimes it does happen, doesn’t
it? But when he pointed out the typo in my name I was shocked; instead of a
‘t’, it became a ‘d’; and because those juniors were so close to me, they were
asking me, is it?
I was furious, and thought, for the first time, of my
mistake; maybe I should have booked a different room, and maybe what they say
about maintaining hierarchical difference was true; I hated them at the moment.
I took the bill and went straight to the reception, was about to storm at the
receptionist but couldn’t say a word because there was a lady sitting there.
When I went back into the room, I saw the disobedient grins on their faces. How
irreverent I thought, they never call me sir, they hug me instead of showing
respect. Wait I will see them at their next appraisal I thought! Next morning,
when I saw a different receptionist; I explained, and we three left for our
first day. The second day’s bill was even more shocking; supra became super;
luckily the bill was with me this time; I sat with a different receptionist and
saw to it that my name was correctly spelt once and for all, but will I ever
forget this worst moment ever in my life I wonder! Never mind, I became my
ordinary self with my juniors again, as it were.
Names at different places
In Hyderabad, I was referred to as Supratika; however much I
tried to make them stop at the /k/ sound, it became /ka/ changing my gender;
later on I thought of it as a compliment; didn’t resist anymore because it was
pointless. In Kerala, I was called Suprakrishna, I still fail to understand the
logic, but when someone called me as Muthukrishna there, I thought I have to
accept anything that came with my name, it’s good as long as they are calling
me something.
The origin of the sin
My mom first named me as Pratik, then she added the ‘Su’ to
mean a good symbol; later she was happy to discover that Supratik is also one
of the elephants of Indra, the God of rain; she always wanted me to be fat,
don’t know why; much later, when I shared with her different versions of my
name, she thought she could have called me Pratik, or Gaurav (that
was the first option, to rhyme with my elder bother’s name, Sourav). But what
is done cannot be undone, besides, having your name changed is quite an ordeal
and could land you up in even more trouble. I have grown up being in soup with
my name; literally, because for most of my friends, I was soup; I was also
called tick by many of my colleagues; one of my bosses would call me tic tic
tic thrice. My non-bong friends would make fun of me by making the ‘su’ sound
like a ‘shoe’ and pronounce it as ‘shoeproteeek’! They knew very well that for
Bongs, it is pedestrian to pronounce /s/, so for all /s/, it is cultured to say
/sh/!
Pet name
When I hug my friends now, I distinctly remember how I hated
them during our cricket-football days. Most of our friends remember those frustrating
days of hatred and animosity, which mostly centered around distorting names,
with love and affection. Those who still do not know, Bongs have two names, one
exclusively for the families and relatives and the other for the outside or for
the professional world. And in Bengali, it is called ‘daaknaam’ which loosely
translates into pet name, pet meaning ‘daak’ or ‘posha’, hence pet. I was named
as Anto, as a short form of Antony; again it was my mom’s imaginative mind that
tried to trap the glory of a film, a super hit one called Antony Firangi where
our all time favourite Uttam Kumar played the role of Antony. Just as my
bhalonaam (or good name, you get to hear this literally translated into English
quite often, like what is your good name sir?!), my daaknaam (pet name) too
went through many versions, of agony and discomposure; Tanto, Santo, Langto (in
Bengali it means naked), Sando banyan, Aunty (this seemed like Supratika or
Supreeti, much to my chagrin as a child) and a whole range of them; until much
later I decided to give a meaning to it; I changed the spelling of my name as
Unto, which means a preposition ‘next to’ or ‘toward’; I like the way it is
enunciated in English by also maintaining the same momentum in Bengali too! I
perhaps meant I could be next to or toward most anything? Nah!! But chalo thik
hai.
What is (not) in a name
With time, with all the versions of my name I have come to
realize the flexibility my name has; therefore, despite the vexations and mild
irritations at times, I have come to terms with it; I have started loving it
since a long time; from food to mood, my name, what does it not have in it I
wonder! But I am what I am.
