What’s in a name? Duh

Starting with the clichéd statement -What’s in a name? Shakespeare gave us this magnificent line to be used repeatedly and rested in his grave…But for people like me- What’s in a name has become a a half broken nail stuck to my skin- it doesn’t breaks away completely nor does it sticks completely. It hurts a lot as soon as the SUBJECT is touched. My name is causing a great unrest amongst various section of people. They are in a total dilemma of my name…such is the importance of nomenclature in today’s world. Phewww. Here is my post sharing the histronics spying against my name changes.

What's in a name?

 

  Anyways my parents were glad and happily enjoying the ten years of wedding and a naughty boy totally unaware of entrance of another bundle knocking their door steps. As its now clear that I was an unplanned joy as my mum believed strictly believed in single child norm specially after Sanjay Gandhi’s preaching. No name was in mind and for a long time I was called as Baby, gudiya, bittoo and all those banal Indian names that grannies used to call just any kid around. Well finally I was christened as Anu considering the fact it means Atom- the smallest component as I was the youngest. Finally time came to send me to school to avoid my constant chattering and non stop questions. When the principal asked my name to be written on the admission form..my mom out of the blue said – Mehak. And similar to my birth my name was also christened – OUT OF THE BLUE. From playschool to 2nd grade my name slip on every book/notebook/drawings sheets was labelled as Mehak Srivastava. It was bit difficult for me to learn the spelling thanks to my long surname. Well when I came in grade three technological changes reflected on my name as well as Papa took out printouts of names to avoid writing again and again. A bad spelling mistake (there was no spell check in those days) made my name Mahak Srivastava and I continued with it. School was changed in grade 4 and here too my name went as Mahak Srivastava on the admission form. But my teachers continued spelling it as Mehak Srivastava in the attendance registers and report cards. When I was in grade tenth my name went as Mahak Srivastava as the name was directly copied from the admission register. Poor me – had to remember myself everytime to spell it as Mahak while adding my name in answer sheets. Well grade 12 was a different story as by then I had already requested CBSE to spell my name as Mehak Srivastava. So my 12th marksheet beared this spelling only.
I got admission in Uni and enjoyed the life there not until that day when a numerologist suggested my mom that I should drop an extra A in the end of my surname to get good grades in exams!!!!!!! I had to give up vainly in front of my mom’s logic as she was already affected by the success of her other daughter -Ekta Kapoor by then (she loved her serials till infinity). So in Uni I was christened as Mehak Srivastav.
Time moved yet again and I was happy somewhere knowing this is the end now. But no – I had to get my passport made and submit my credentials with it. The rude lady in the passport office told me my spelling is wrong- it should be MAHAK SRIVASTAVA as this is what was on grade 10 credentials and Passport authority take that certificate as valid birth certificate. I screamed out loud when I came out of there and gave Papa a quick call and told him how his simple silly spelling mistake is bugging me. I was pissed off completely and kept gritting my teeth whilst I filled second form. Time passed and I got my passport – it bore my name- MAHAK SRIVASTAVA and I showed the passport to Papa’s photo on the mantle and told him that this name is now gonna be symbolic and I drew parallels with Gogol in The Namesake. I wasn’t upset with him that day because I knew somewhere it meant something deeply. Mom consulted that numerologist once again as I was about to get married and she was quite disturbed with the Mehak and Mahak spelling. The numerologist quickly did the calculations and told her that the combination of Mahak Dewan is too good for my future husband and its gonna bring him luck but Mehak Dewan is not a good combination for him. So finally I was christened yet again as Mahak Dewan!

  People here in NZ find it so difficult to pronounce -when I tell them the actual phonetics for my name they get so confused. I don’t care what they call me- Meehaak, Mawhawk, Meehawk or whatever -its not their fault.My name is unique and I have so many stories attached with it…

I am now ending this with a quote I wrote in 2002-

Main to Mehak hu fizaaon mein bikhar jaungi,
Saans zara bhee loge to dil mein bas jaungi.

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