ExpertDabbler

Dinesh addresses me PK. My colleague Mahim calls me “Filter Coffee PK” based on the divine drink I take twice every day. Now I am really glad that I am getting addressed by initials. I remember only local bigwigs, MLAs and Dadas were addressed with such respect and healthy fear. Add my illustrious late father’s initials and I become PKR. Remember MGR, NTR, KKSSR, PTR, Mu. Ka, JJ?

But I am sure not many are so lucky when it comes to the pranks of the name shortening algorithm that works across the world especially in India after the IT revolution.

A colleague of mine always introduces himself like, “I am Padmanabhan, but you can also call me Paddy“. How modern and generous you might think. The fact is he has resigned to this fate after seeing a few US clients pronounce his name.

What beats me is that some South Indian Thamizh people take enormous pride in their shortened namaharanams.

One Chakkaravarthy is happy that he is fondly called ‘Chucks’. I thought it just sucks.
Zuneira, another colleague of mine has been reduced to a simple Zu but gets stretched to Zoo when she is called at from a distance.

One guy in a different office within chennai in our company was referred to as ‘Oops’. As I was admiring his devotion to Object Oriented Programming paradigm, I was told his name the way his parents saw it was “Uppiliyappan”. What a name!

One Bhoopalan is called Bhups and pronounced with all the right intention as …. I leave it open for there are many readers who are of the opinion that when it comes to saintly good language and behavior, first there is Buddha, and then there is PK.

But it is not to be construed that I am against this name compression funda as a rule. Coming to think of it, Can any of you imagine Richie Benaud trying to say, “ And the new batsman is Vengipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman?”
By the time Richie gets the Venkeeepuurraa appu part right, Laxman with the kind of form he is in nowadays, would have come and gone. It is in Laxman’s own interests that he is referred to as VVS even though his initials made my late father always refer to him as “Nallennai Laxman”.

So the massage, I am sorry the message here is when it comes to shortening names, please do so judiciously without changing the gender, culture, race, religion, and noun of the person addressed.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 26th, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.