Banking on your name

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Sure. That may have been true for my man Willy but then he had no bank accounts, PAN numbers or driving licenses to maintain. It’s not like he got a cheque for writing “King Lear” or a wire transfer to his online account for “Macbeth”. Unfortunately, today a strange name could keep you away from your earnings or get you killed, depending on the gravity of the situation. Allow me to elaborate.

It all started in 1983 when my parents decided that the world they were living in wasn’t turbulent enough. So after causing my mother considerable pain, I arrived into this world. Little did she know that the pain of raising me would make the delivery seem like a peck on the cheek. My parents were trying to zero-in on a name and some friend suggested Vinil. The logic (whatever little) being that my father’s name begins with V and my mother’s with L. And if that wasn’t stupid enough - my parents agreed. Now that I think of it, does anybody remember when they first realized or understood what their name was? I don’t. But by the time I knew what my name was and had to tell other people what it was, I realized that I was fucked. I mean I have never met someone who got my name in the first go. Vineet? Vilin? Milind? I swear I have been addressed by more names than Lord Krishna. As far as chicks are concerned, sadly I haven’t been as lucky as him. Sometimes I give out common names like Vinay or Vineet. Saves time and effort. And you might think that’s enough to mess up someone’s life. But the plot thickens.

I come from a part of the country where it is a common practice not to have surnames or last names. What we do instead is add the father’s name to the first name and the name of the village mixed with it. So my father is Venugopal Kolothuparambil Gopala Pillai or Venugopal K.G. So my name would be Vinil V.K or Vinil Venugopal Kolothuparambil. Once again I had a tough time pronouncing and spelling out “Kolothuparambil” which is my father’s village. After graduation, I’d had enough so I cut it down to Vinil Venugopal. But the government had other plans for me. At my current place of employment, I have given my name as Vinil Venugopal but my driving license and my bank account (which was made through my license) says V K Vinil. So my hard-earned money will be a distant dream till I change my name or get a new cheque. This might seem funny to all you Singhs, Aggarwals, Srivastavas and Iyers (these are the only people who read my blog) but this what I go through everyday. It isn’t much considering people get killed for being a Salim or Hussain. Whatever the Bard may say, a there's a lot in a name.

So I've decided that my child will not go through what I went through. I have already begun looking for a cool-sounding last name. Any suggestions are welcome.

Now I must go. My boss will kill me if she finds out I’m blogging instead of doing my work.

“Wait a minute! Did you say ‘she’?”
“Yes?”
“You have a female boss?”
“Ya, so?”
“What her name”
“Natasha”
“Whoa whoa whoa. She hot?”

Yeah, right! What’s in a name.