Namesake!
Being in Worcester, I always had the complaint that I don't get to watch bollywood movies in the theater. So after moving to London, how could I miss this experience ? :) I watched 'Kahaani' at Cineworld,London and what a brilliant movie to start with ! I am not going to talk about the movie or its story etc because I don't want to kill the suspense for you but I would definitely recommend it to you. Watch it before someone else reveals everything out :D..... I wasn't very happy with the ending of the movie but 'woh chal jayega' :) And of course , Vidya Balan is at her best!!
The fact about the movie that brought a real big smile on my face was that it was based in Calcutta! No offence but honestly I am just so bored of watching movies running around Delhi , Mumbai , Punjabi weddings :) It was a pleasant change and being from the eastern part of India , it reminded me of so many wonderful things that is such an integral part of who I am. The traditional Oriya hulhuli (sacred ululation), Bishthu (Asking for forgiveness when you you touch someone with your foot), the Durga Puja celebration to name a few :)
Now lets talk about pronunciation and spellings. We(The people from the eastern side of India) are the pioneers in spoiling the pronunciation/spelling of the names :) Vidya becomes 'Bidya' and Abhay become 'Abhoy' and as they said in the movie- 'yahan Bidya , Vidya sab ek hi hai'. Lol! But for your surprise, it happens around the world. I have spent almost more than half of my life in North India and since my name is a hindi name 'Chetna' , I never had any issues with that one. But none ever got the spelling of my surname right! :) i.e 'Pattanayak' became 'Patnaik' , 'Patnayak' and what not!
(A new school , first class)
Teacher : What's you name new girl.
(Every student in the class staring at me)
Myself : Chetna Pattanayak
Teacher : Oh, Pattanayak!
(My surname always stole the show)
Myself : Yes Ma'am/Sir!
Teacher : Are you a relative of Biju Patnaik!(Trust me , everyone asked me this question :D)
And the teacher happily notes down my name :Chetna Patnaik! And the students think I am a South Indian.
With the start of every new year,our letter box used to be full of greeting cards and I used to be extremely excited to open them and see who it is from. And I never used to be surprised to see various spellings for my name.Never mind! I still enjoyed them :)
Moving south ..... Post my graduation, I moved to the Southern part of the country and spent some fair enough time over there! And the situation was no different!
(First day in Office)
Mr x : Hi,I am X and you are?
Myself : Chetna
(I stopped introducing myself with my full name as I wanted my first name to get some importance now :P).................................
.....Converstaion continues......
.................................
Mr X : Whats your full name? I need to look into the address book to send you an email.
Myself : Chetna Pattanayak
Mr X : I still can't find you!
Myself : Let me take a look...... Oh! you typed my name as 'Chethana', its 'Chetna' :)
(And then the argument follows that I should spell my name as 'Chethana' instead of 'Chetna' :D)
And then I landed on the land of the Queen and this name thing went into the whole new different level.
(I make call to someone)
Speaker : Hi, May I know who is calling?
Myself : This is Chetna.
Speaker : Could you spell that for me please.
(When in doubt, just ask! Best Policy)
Myself : (That's fine but please don't ask my surname later as its really long !;))
C for Charlie
H for hectar
E for echo
T for Tango
N for november
A for Alpha
Speaker : And your last name please?
Myself: (There you go !!!!!)
That's why I often ask Abhay to make a call :P
So, when I watched the movie and saw Vidya who struggles to remain Vidya, I couldn't stop myself to write down my experience with names and places. Where some people accept this change, I for one like to be called with the name I was born with. Yes! My first name has a 'T' and no 'H' following it. My surname has double T and Biju Patnaik is not my relative! :)
Disclaimer : The examples I have given are based on the experiences I have had in the past! :)
The fact about the movie that brought a real big smile on my face was that it was based in Calcutta! No offence but honestly I am just so bored of watching movies running around Delhi , Mumbai , Punjabi weddings :) It was a pleasant change and being from the eastern part of India , it reminded me of so many wonderful things that is such an integral part of who I am. The traditional Oriya hulhuli (sacred ululation), Bishthu (Asking for forgiveness when you you touch someone with your foot), the Durga Puja celebration to name a few :)
Now lets talk about pronunciation and spellings. We(The people from the eastern side of India) are the pioneers in spoiling the pronunciation/spelling of the names :) Vidya becomes 'Bidya' and Abhay become 'Abhoy' and as they said in the movie- 'yahan Bidya , Vidya sab ek hi hai'. Lol! But for your surprise, it happens around the world. I have spent almost more than half of my life in North India and since my name is a hindi name 'Chetna' , I never had any issues with that one. But none ever got the spelling of my surname right! :) i.e 'Pattanayak' became 'Patnaik' , 'Patnayak' and what not!
(A new school , first class)
Teacher : What's you name new girl.
(Every student in the class staring at me)
Myself : Chetna Pattanayak
Teacher : Oh, Pattanayak!
(My surname always stole the show)
Myself : Yes Ma'am/Sir!
Teacher : Are you a relative of Biju Patnaik!(Trust me , everyone asked me this question :D)
And the teacher happily notes down my name :Chetna Patnaik! And the students think I am a South Indian.
With the start of every new year,our letter box used to be full of greeting cards and I used to be extremely excited to open them and see who it is from. And I never used to be surprised to see various spellings for my name.Never mind! I still enjoyed them :)
Moving south ..... Post my graduation, I moved to the Southern part of the country and spent some fair enough time over there! And the situation was no different!
(First day in Office)
Mr x : Hi,I am X and you are?
Myself : Chetna
(I stopped introducing myself with my full name as I wanted my first name to get some importance now :P).................................
.....Converstaion continues......
.................................
Mr X : Whats your full name? I need to look into the address book to send you an email.
Myself : Chetna Pattanayak
Mr X : I still can't find you!
Myself : Let me take a look...... Oh! you typed my name as 'Chethana', its 'Chetna' :)
(And then the argument follows that I should spell my name as 'Chethana' instead of 'Chetna' :D)
And then I landed on the land of the Queen and this name thing went into the whole new different level.
(I make call to someone)
Speaker : Hi, May I know who is calling?
Myself : This is Chetna.
Speaker : Could you spell that for me please.
(When in doubt, just ask! Best Policy)
Myself : (That's fine but please don't ask my surname later as its really long !;))
C for Charlie
H for hectar
E for echo
T for Tango
N for november
A for Alpha
Speaker : And your last name please?
Myself: (There you go !!!!!)
That's why I often ask Abhay to make a call :P
So, when I watched the movie and saw Vidya who struggles to remain Vidya, I couldn't stop myself to write down my experience with names and places. Where some people accept this change, I for one like to be called with the name I was born with. Yes! My first name has a 'T' and no 'H' following it. My surname has double T and Biju Patnaik is not my relative! :)
Disclaimer : The examples I have given are based on the experiences I have had in the past! :)
posted by Consciousness at 2:44 PM
3 Comments:
soo well written..really enjoyed it..u cud just say "Conscious" the next time around..hehe..u knowkinda deja vu...i always tell ppl stories how they spell and pronounce MY name!!!very rarely someone gets it right the first time.....hehe..wish i cud tell u stories abt my name fiascos..but then again.. Yours Truely....M
I wish you could :)
haha... nice one :)
Post a Comment
<< Home