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Anbuselvan K K N is my name. I reiterate, it is A-n-b-u-s-e-l-v-a-n. There are reasons why I reiterated it and you will realise that at the end of this post. I don’t know what made my parents to keep such a name to me. I didn’t really felt anything good or bad about my name till I entered 11th standard after which I felt very much proud of my name when my Tamil sir said in a class after taking attendance that only 2 names are purely in Tamil out of 60 students here. Everyone glanced at me and I felt that I got some fame.
A year after that, during my 2nd year Engineering, my name "Anbuselvan" reverberated in the whole of Tamilnadu. Of course it is not because of me but just because of one Tamil movie Khakha khakha in which the protagonist had my name and the movie was a blockbuster at that time. The protagonist who is an IPS officer in that movie says the name “Anbuselvan” with lot of energy and lucidly such that it made everyone to imitate the protagonist. During that period, I too tried to imitate the protagonist and sometimes I was belted by my friends due to improper imitation. Even I remembered I tried dressing (half sleeves white shirt tucked into blue jeans as shown in the picture) like the protagonist few days to the college and holding my drafter as a gun. Whenever I say my name to some strangers, they immediately say the one or all of the following things:
"oh, Anbuselvan IPS" ( I wanted to say I am not Anbuselvan IPS but Anbuselvan KKN)
"Where are the other three guys"
"Where is maya" (I will say "I am still searching")
The majestic and fame on my name is not lost till now though the movie was released 7 years before. Still few people ask me same questions when I say my name, and I feel good.
But that’s not the complete story. My name was torn into bits & pieces by the people because of their mispronunciation of my name when I started to travel outside Tamilnadu. The first encounter was in Bhubaneswar where I stayed for two months for some training. One guy from Mumbai, who attended the training with me pronounced my name as ambuselvan. “Excuse me! it’s not ambuselvan. Its anbuselvan, a-n-b-u” I said. I took some pain to ask him to pronounce as anbuselvan. Then two other guys also pronounced it as ambuselvan. So I lost my patience and left it, and let it be my name as ambuselvan. Most of my Profs & friends in Mumbai during my M.Tech pronounced me ambuselvan, ambuselvam or ambu and I let it go. I thought the North-Indians can’t pronounce “n”. So whenever a non-Tamilian asks my name I say it as “anbuselvan” at first instance, then immediately I will say to him “probably you can call me as selvan - that will be more comfortable to you”. I also used to think “Yenda anbula ambu vidureega” (which means why these guys wants to darts an arrow (ambu) in my love (anbu)).
One day a professor called me as “Abusalim” in the class.
I wanted to say “oh man!! I am anbuselvan not abusalim. Just in a minute you converted me into a Muslim (oru nimushathula enna muslim akeeteegale)”.
The above various forms of my names were revolving for nearly 2 years and I thought I won’t get any other new forms but it really didn’t stop. I got two more new forms of my names out of one really pissed me off.
Recently I went for a trip where I met few new faces and started interacting. I said my name “Anbuselvan. Probably you can call me selvan that will be comfortable to you”. But they said “instead of selvan, cellone (i.e., BSNL cellone) will be more comfortable to us” and started making fun of me.
In fact one day a guy called me urgently. I went near to him and asked “What?”.
He said “Nothing man. I want to make a call. My network is not proper. You are BSNL cellone right, so thought if you are near to me, I might get network” he laughed (dai ennala mudiyala da).
I digested all these but the most embarrassing is the next: I was having a conversation with one girl who is from UP and I asked her name.
She said “******* (her name)”. Then she asked my name.
I said “anbuselvan. May be selvan will be comfortable to you”.
She said “It’s ok. anna is comfortable to me”. Initially I thought she is kidding me.
I hastily said “Yeah you can call me by that name too but I don’t prefer you calling me anna” (because she was a good-looking girl too :) ).
She said “ok. Then I will call you by selvam”. Then we were having dinner silently. But I was breaking with my head inside “why this gal wants me to call me as anna. Did she really know the meaning of it? Is she trying to make a fun of me?”.
I asked her straight-way “why did you call me anna”.
She said “everyone call you by annaselvam right”.
“Oh god it’s not annaselvam, its anbuselvan. By the way, do u know what anna means”.
She said “no”. I kept mum.
She asked me “what it means”. I can’t mislead the meaning of the word because already one Tamilian was sitting nearby me.
I stammered “anna means brother - elder brother”. She just smiled and started having food. I am totally pissed off.
I am not sure still how many forms of my name, I am going to hear. I remembered this "madhesh and mahesh" comedy scene from the Jeans movie. Whatever, I enjoyed all these various forms of my names and I expect more in my life ----- to enjoy :).
A year after that, during my 2nd year Engineering, my name "Anbuselvan" reverberated in the whole of Tamilnadu. Of course it is not because of me but just because of one Tamil movie Khakha khakha in which the protagonist had my name and the movie was a blockbuster at that time. The protagonist who is an IPS officer in that movie says the name “Anbuselvan” with lot of energy and lucidly such that it made everyone to imitate the protagonist. During that period, I too tried to imitate the protagonist and sometimes I was belted by my friends due to improper imitation. Even I remembered I tried dressing (half sleeves white shirt tucked into blue jeans as shown in the picture) like the protagonist few days to the college and holding my drafter as a gun. Whenever I say my name to some strangers, they immediately say the one or all of the following things:
"oh, Anbuselvan IPS" ( I wanted to say I am not Anbuselvan IPS but Anbuselvan KKN)
"Where are the other three guys"
"Where is maya" (I will say "I am still searching")
The majestic and fame on my name is not lost till now though the movie was released 7 years before. Still few people ask me same questions when I say my name, and I feel good.
But that’s not the complete story. My name was torn into bits & pieces by the people because of their mispronunciation of my name when I started to travel outside Tamilnadu. The first encounter was in Bhubaneswar where I stayed for two months for some training. One guy from Mumbai, who attended the training with me pronounced my name as ambuselvan. “Excuse me! it’s not ambuselvan. Its anbuselvan, a-n-b-u” I said. I took some pain to ask him to pronounce as anbuselvan. Then two other guys also pronounced it as ambuselvan. So I lost my patience and left it, and let it be my name as ambuselvan. Most of my Profs & friends in Mumbai during my M.Tech pronounced me ambuselvan, ambuselvam or ambu and I let it go. I thought the North-Indians can’t pronounce “n”. So whenever a non-Tamilian asks my name I say it as “anbuselvan” at first instance, then immediately I will say to him “probably you can call me as selvan - that will be more comfortable to you”. I also used to think “Yenda anbula ambu vidureega” (which means why these guys wants to darts an arrow (ambu) in my love (anbu)).
One day a professor called me as “Abusalim” in the class.
I wanted to say “oh man!! I am anbuselvan not abusalim. Just in a minute you converted me into a Muslim (oru nimushathula enna muslim akeeteegale)”.
The above various forms of my names were revolving for nearly 2 years and I thought I won’t get any other new forms but it really didn’t stop. I got two more new forms of my names out of one really pissed me off.
Recently I went for a trip where I met few new faces and started interacting. I said my name “Anbuselvan. Probably you can call me selvan that will be comfortable to you”. But they said “instead of selvan, cellone (i.e., BSNL cellone) will be more comfortable to us” and started making fun of me.
In fact one day a guy called me urgently. I went near to him and asked “What?”.
He said “Nothing man. I want to make a call. My network is not proper. You are BSNL cellone right, so thought if you are near to me, I might get network” he laughed (dai ennala mudiyala da).
I digested all these but the most embarrassing is the next: I was having a conversation with one girl who is from UP and I asked her name.
She said “******* (her name)”. Then she asked my name.
I said “anbuselvan. May be selvan will be comfortable to you”.
She said “It’s ok. anna is comfortable to me”. Initially I thought she is kidding me.
I hastily said “Yeah you can call me by that name too but I don’t prefer you calling me anna” (because she was a good-looking girl too :) ).
She said “ok. Then I will call you by selvam”. Then we were having dinner silently. But I was breaking with my head inside “why this gal wants me to call me as anna. Did she really know the meaning of it? Is she trying to make a fun of me?”.
I asked her straight-way “why did you call me anna”.
She said “everyone call you by annaselvam right”.
“Oh god it’s not annaselvam, its anbuselvan. By the way, do u know what anna means”.
She said “no”. I kept mum.
She asked me “what it means”. I can’t mislead the meaning of the word because already one Tamilian was sitting nearby me.
I stammered “anna means brother - elder brother”. She just smiled and started having food. I am totally pissed off.
I am not sure still how many forms of my name, I am going to hear. I remembered this "madhesh and mahesh" comedy scene from the Jeans movie. Whatever, I enjoyed all these various forms of my names and I expect more in my life ----- to enjoy :).
Hey Anbu,
ReplyDeletedont be pissed of just because people cannot remember/pronounce your name properly or making fun of it. See, my last name is "Fell" and every time people start making fun of that too. Such as "Alex fell in love!". And every time it is a NEW joke, that has been told 1000 million times before.
So, take it easy. Rout would say something like that: "Do you get pissed of because of the grow of hair or nails? You cannot do anything about it, you simply accept it."
He told me that after I complained about the Shakira songs, people played on their cell phones during the trek in HP.
Cheers,
Alex
PS: Nice blog btw, now I know, what people are REALLY doing in aero.... >:-D
Wow that's epic :)
ReplyDeleteWow that's epic :)
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