That’s my name

“What’s your name?", people here in Boston ask me. I answer. I can make out from their face that my answer did not register in their mind at all. Americans find it very difficult to pronounce my name. Chinese think it’s impossible! North Indians think the name is way too long. But some nice people (very very few) simply called me ‘Sri’ without any effort from my side to let them know that they can call me so.

I had always complained to my parents that I did not like my name. I thought, and still do, that my little brother has a very beautiful name – Rohith Raghuram D J. People appended various prefixes and post-fixes to ‘Lakshmi’ to address me, which I hated totally. Some people used to call me ‘Lakshmana’, ‘Lakshman Rao’ while I was in school owing to my boy-hair-cut then.

My relatives and people who do not like me called me (and still do) ‘Lakshmi’. My closest friends call me ‘Sri’. My college friends call me DJ (my initials), which I think is a super cool nick name. My friends in Boston call me ‘Ubuntu’! Hi-Bye acquaintances call me by first name.

Now, I do not really complain about my name. In fact, I’m proud of it. If someone wants to remember my full name he/she will. My non-Indian friends are happy to call me “Sri”, which I appreciate since they made an effort to pronounce it right!

***
A bit of trivia

The very first message transmitted on the ARPANET, on October 29, 1969, was from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) to SRI (Stanford Research Institute). The Internet had its beginnings in the late 1960s as the "ARPANET". Google for it, if you are interested in Computer Networks. It has a very nice history.

*****

Current Song
Ab Na Jaa by Euphoria
...kehne de taaro ko kahani ankahi...
... pal mein beete kitne saal...