Your name is quite unique , have never heard it before

The most ludicrous habit of many government officials in India is look at the first alphabet of your name, and then at the last, and fill up the rest themselves. Some of them even decide to correct the way it is spelled and then put in on record.
*sigh* yes, do put it under the label of sigh because I know just what you are talking about..

btw do you know that most kids go through that phase where they dislike their names? They want to be part of the ‘group’ and not stand out..hence the dislike:)
Later as kids grow up and start searching for individuality they start liking their ‘unique’ names:)

My name has been butchered but mostly by non-Indians Indians pronounce it just fine:)
I dont mind the butchering though coz I am tired of correcting them by now:)
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And hey the versions vary from Kunjan, Kunjal Gunja, Gunjal (I have been asked if this one is my surname)

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It really freaks me out when people write it down as “Rajashree” and then some smartass comments “Yeh toh ladki ka naam hai! ” To compound things, my surname is Roychowdhury, which often leads to comments like these:
“Koi ek surname batao – Roy hai kii Choudhury hai?? ” or the classic blooper -”Mummy ka nahi, Papa ka surname batao !! ”

Well, you know even Indians can’t pronounce ‘Indian’ names… I had this Tamilian neighbour… Venkat. And most of my other neighbours (bengali) quite innocently called him: ‘Bang cut’… ‘bang’ as in frog….

As for my Vietnamese classmate… his middle name was ‘Trung’… to be pronounced as ‘Chum’… our professors insisted on calling him ‘Trung’…. as in ‘telephone ki ghanti’… poor chap!!!

I vividly remember one incident… this happened a few months ago… I was plonked on the sofa… in front of the television, watching an India-Australia cricket match. The match was nothing spectacular but the commentary surely was. Some chap – probably from our national network – was doing the honours, in our national language… hindi. The Aussie cricketer, Michael Clarke was in the crease and going all out against our hapless bowlers. The commentator came up with a gem of a line, “…Aur Michael Clarke, ‘clerk’ ki tarah nehi ‘malik’ ki tarah batting kar rahe hain”…!!! That translates to… Michael Clarke is batting like a ‘king’/'owner’/'leader’ and not like a ‘clerk’… !!! I nearly choked on my popcorn… !! Now, this Michael Clarke chappie also goes by the sobriquet: “Pup”. No, not ‘inspired’ by “Slumdog Millionaire”… he has been carrying this nickname for several years now. Ummm… perhaps taking the “Man’s best friend” tagline a tad too seriously… what say?!!

The other day, I was watching one of the Aus-Pak cricket matches currently underway in Dubai. There were several references to ‘Ten Beer’, ‘Ten Bear’ and ‘Ten Veer’. I was bewildered!! Number one: A certain high flying, firangi pani guzzling, business magnate is in South Africa at the moment and not in Dubai. Number two: Bears are currently found @ stock markets, in profusion… though their population has dwindled in the forests… they have never been found on the cricket field! Number three: None of the cricketers were descendents of the great ‘Pandava’ Bhima, did not have anything to do with the ‘Pavan Putra’ Veer Hanuman, nor were any of them a part of the under production Salman Khan aka Sallu Mian starrer “Veer”… the frequently derailed Rawalpindi Express, Shoaib Akhtar notwithstanding! The mystery unraveled a while later and I discovered that it was none of the above three… but Pakistani cricketer, Sohail Tanvir… who was being referred to by some ‘firang’ commentators!! Tongue twisters of an exotic kind… na???

I switched channels… to the IPL matches… ‘Chennai Super Kings’ vs ‘Kings XI Punjab’. Ahh! This should be entertaining and won’t require brainstorming… or so I thought. Umm… looks like I have been bitten by the ‘rhyming bug’ lately…! After watching for a while, I heard the word ‘High Den’ being spoken of several times. This set me thinking. The “King of the Jungle” is not known to be a cricket enthusiast or even a ‘cheerleader’. Then… ??? After a while, I cracked it… that was recently retired Aussie cricketer Matthew Hayden, who was being spoken of. Ummm… Hayden and the “King of the Jungle” (???)… a toothless one perhaps… one who is feeding on a lot of humble pie these days!!!

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