Thursday, July 06, 2006

Name trouble

My penpal (now more an e-pal or keyboard-pal) from Perth has written to ask:
"Hi Roshan
Do you ever get people writing to you who despite your 'signature' at the end of every email you send them detailing your name etc, insist on misspelling your name? I always get LaWrence, LaurAnce."

i hate people calling me anything other than Rosh or Roshin. Many people, especially in Kerala, call me Roshan or ROshen - both gives me the creeps as they sound masculine. Anyway I have stopped hating my name as i did during childhood. It was an unusual name for one to have in a rural place and i had boys calling me 'Ration' and wanting to know the price of ration rice etc. Secondly, even those who seemed to have heard of such a name opined that it was a boy's name and why I went around with a name like that. Hence I conveniently changed one vowel (e to i) when I reached Class 10 and had to fill in my name and other details for the School Leaving certificate.
My mother tells me that her dad named me after Princess Roshenara, the daughter of Mughal empereror Shahjahan. I visited her room in Agra Fort when I went to see the Taj Mahal during my days in Delhi. Delhi also has a garden named after her.

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