HELLO JI!
A WORD (OR TWO HUNDRED) FROM THE EDITOR
Names can be tricky and who knows that better than immigrants with long, difficult-to-pronounce names? Image credit: DEEPAK DHIAN on Unsplash.
Atul is a popular Indian name. Most desis know (or know of) an Atul. As in actor Atul Kulkarni! I’d have said it’s definitely not one of those hard-to-pronounce names many of us are blessed with. That was until I spoke to Atul Tiwari, this month’s Grant’s Desi Achiever. He came to Canada when he was two and growing up in Alberta was very aware of his friends’ struggle to pronounce his name.
He’d come home with a plaintive question. Why hadn’t his parents thought to call him Bob?
I tell him he’s looking for sympathy in the wrong quarter – that he can’t begin to imagine the number of ways in which Shagorika can be mangled. I’d have settled for Anita any day!
Stand-up comedian Rasul Somji used to do a whole segment devoted to his name.
But jokes apart, names can be tricky and who knows that better than immigrants with long, difficult-to-pronounce names? People have been truncating or anglicising names for years in an effort to make interactions less fraught.
Grant’s Desi Achiever Shrad Rao changed the spelling of his name, Sharad, to improve efficiency.
“People were struggling with my name, one person called me Shrub!” he says, explaining the when and why. “I’m a creature of efficiency, and I thought, this enunciating one’s name slowly and clearly at the beginning of each conversation takes too much time, let’s shorten that cycle – let’s really get to know each other, let’s talk about more interesting stuff.”
People have tried creative spelling. When I read of a girl called Cullie in Sonali Dev’s The Vibrant Years, I think nothing of it until I see that it’s another way of spelling Kali (flower bud)! And I think of Grant’s Desi Achiever Isha Khan. The spelling of her name is an example of a mix of cultural influences. Her father asked his non-desi friends how they would spell Aisha and they all said, I-S-H-A.
“You know, Irene, Ida, Isha?” she says with a laugh. “They thought that would make my life easier!”
I recall a neighbour telling me that she would never vote for someone whose name she couldn’t wrap her tongue around.
She was referring to Boris Wrzesnewskyj who represented his riding for several years, but ironically, she saw no conflict in mentioning that to me, someone with a name that was just as much of a tongue twister. Perhaps that’s human nature, we make allowances for those we know, and don’t bother trying with those we don’t.
We don’t get to choose our names – those are gifts to us from our parents who bestow on us a name, an identity that is imbued with all their love and holds a special meaning. Sometimes there’s a cultural or religious reference, or we are named after a grandparent.
How we live up to that legacy – with or without a change of name and spelling – is up to us.
Happy Family Day!
Shagorika Easwar