In the name of the Nair, and of the Papoos and of the Aboobacker!!

Besides the sound of cluttering knives and spaghetti that was more interested in giving me an Italian facial than navigate towards the mouth, lunch was going fine until someone thundered….

“Could you pass on the salt, NUMB ASIAN?”

Wolfgang didn’t bat an eyelid while requesting, though it did mightily offend some ayyo paavam guy in the lunch table. Later in the day with profound feelings my colleague expressed regret at the racial slur which he seemed to regularly face from Wolfgang…

NAMBESAN WAS ONE HURT GUY!!

As was done in college's back home, he began considering ways to import his Chettiar uncles to teach the Wolf’gang a lesson or two…Thirunelveli style!! Thankfully it cost me only two Budweiser’s to get him back in good spirits and ofcourse comfortably numb…Needless to say, as a country blessed with surplus of names ranging from Mukherjee’s to Chatterjee’s and Venkatapathy’s to Chakrapani’s, we have often the most mispronounced name’s in the world. And this was no mere flash in the pan.

Infact many folks in office have asked in hushed tones whether SubHash did really trade in it… or why NiThin was not really thin…mea culpa, partly my fault I taught european colleagues how to pronounce Indian names...

Banerjee became B-energy
Nambiar became Numb-Beer
Naidu became N- “I Do”

As a result one fine day, B-energy, Numb-beer and N- I do did give a nice sermon to this madrasi…what to say, they got it wrong…Madras is just one of our little offshore colonies thampi!!… Kadavulei …all my fault!!!

Talking of names, I have a name that sounds great only if you have a Dr. besides it like in Dr.Drake Ramoray and my brother has a name which he should have shed by the time he was three…But then its in our genes to stay young forever and it was a greater plan by our forefathers to have a dozen kunjumon’s, a couple of kunjachen’s and a sprinkling of kuttitachen’s maintained in police records of changanasseri every financial year…a well executed family tradition for the frigging old to stay young forever… In our household even Sarah Palin is fondly called Sarahkutty!!

As people often are reminded more of unusual mallu names which actually are derived from ancient Sanskrit sloka’s (for eg. Sunny Thomas comes from the sun god), we often miss the gems from other states…Other day my roommate told me about his cousin who is apparently called ‘New Begin’…
Yes, it’s a name with all due respect to his bro must have come from parents who were not happy with the elder one and all hopes were on a ‘new beginning’ in their sordid lives…
If there are heights of creative names. This is it!!
Thank god, he did not have a younger bro who would in all probability might have been ‘Apocalypse Now’!!

As New Begin is currently onsite in New York I have to stick with names here. But again germans have a weird sense of humor coz someone like George Fock doesn’t have the best surname in the world for a pleasing ‘Good morning Mr.…..”
As a matter of fact, I am now used to an office having boring Boris and wonder Gunther and such names don’t scare me anymore!! Hitler though does…

But who am I to blame about names…After all back home our people understand this catastrophic problem and I have learned to know that most kannadigas are either a boss or a helli saar….most malayalees are aliyan’s and machambi’s and most north Indians are baap of someone!! Who cares about real names anyways!!

P.S. watching my city video..:-)