What's in a name?

What's in a name? A name is, after all, a name. In my case, there is something more. I was born as the first child of my parents. Like any other loving parents, my parents used to call me "Mon", "Kuttan" and "Raja", that are some words equivalent to son, darling, prince, etc in my native tongue. Life was going so smoothly and happily. And one fine morning my dad handed over a letter to my mother. That was a birthday invitation. It went like this-"We cordially invite you with your family to be part of the birthday celebrations of our son Girija Vallabha Raja Kumar.U.R. on .....". On reading this my mother was equally shocked and confused. She thought over and over and could not figure out who exactly are these Girija, Vallabha, Raja, and Kumar. She was sure that she gave birth to a baby boy only. Seeing my mother in a really confused state, my dad started explaining. It was actually a long lecture which required a deep and thorough understanding of Hindu mythology and Sanskrit. He started dissecting the name and interpreted every word in it. It went somewhat like this.

Giri = Mountain (Per my dad, it's the Himalayas)

Girija = Daughter of Himalayas = Goddess Parvathi

Vallabha =Husband

Raja = King

Kumar = Son

So when putting together it means

Son of the husband of the daughter of the Himalayas = Son of the husband of Parvathi = Son of Siva

Still clouds of confusion prevailed in my mother's mind. She knew that Lord Shiva and Parvathi had two sons - Lord Ganesh and Lord Muruga (Lord Karthikeya as he is known in some parts of India). She could not figure out among the two, after who her son was named. Suddenly came the clarification from my father. "As I am a devotee of Lord Muruga, my son shall be named after him." My father is a devotee of Lord Muruga. My parents used to make pilgrimages to one of the famous Muruga temples in Thiruchandur, in the state of Tamilnadu. Long ago, he had made an offering there, that he would name his first child after Lord Muruga if it was a boy. My father is a great admirer of Col.Goda Varma Raja, brother-in-law of Travancore Maharaja, who was popularly known as G.V.Raja. Later my father told me that while planning my name, he wanted to reflect his admiration for Col.G.V.Raja also in my name. When I asked him how he managed to do that, he told me that if I abbreviate the first two parts of my name, it would become "G.V.Raja" Kumar. Thus I was officially christened "Girija Vallabha Raja Kumar.U.R", sparing only a few letters from the English alphabet.

My first birthday party went fine and two more years passed by. Time has arrived for my formal education. I was a mom's baby and felt sad when I came to know that I could not stay with my mother at home all day if I go to school. On my first day at school, my dad took me to school on his bicycle. When my father left me with the teacher and was about to leave, I was heartbroken and cried like anything. My teacher consoled me and made me sit on a chair. She then asked us, children, to tell our names. Kids started telling their names. I heard beautiful names like Hari, Prem, Anita, Renjith, Faizal, etc. I began to worry. What should I tell my teacher? I could not tell her my name is "Mon" as I knew that was not my actual name. I tried to remember the set of obscure words my parents told me a few times as my name. Nothing came to my mind. I felt very sad and tears were about to trickle down my eyes again. At last, I could recollect one word "Girija". With much relief, I told this to my teacher. Then came the lethal blow. "How come your name is that of a girl whereas you are a boy?", she asked me. That was the first embarrassing moment in my life I could remember and also the beginning of being called "Girija" for several years to come. The teacher might have had afterthoughts about mentally torturing a kindergartner on his first day at school. So she asked me to sit down. After school, my father who was waiting at the school, anxious about my first day picked me up from school. On our way back, I presented my problem regarding my name to him. My dad tried to make me spell my full name. Soon he realized that the entire exercise would be futile. He thought over for a while and told me he would solve this problem in a couple of days. As promised, after two days, my dad called me by his side and asked me to bring all my books. When I did that, he took something out of a wrapper and pressed that against a pad and again pressed that on one of my books. It printed something long on my book. And then my dad told me, that was my name. He told me that next time when my teacher asks my full name, I could show my book to her. He said that the added advantage was that I don't have to write my name in the books. I used that rubber stamp till my 10th grade. It was really a blessing as it relieved me of the Herculean task of writing 23 letters plus 2 initials, every time I had to write my name.

As I grew up, my parents felt the need for a pet name to call me other than "Mon". My mom and grandma called me "Chankaran". My dad wasn't a fan of that name and so he started calling me "Raja" which became my name for those in the neighborhood. I don't remember when exactly my father started calling me "Girija". But whenever my mom heard him calling me "Girija" she got mad for challenging my "masculinity".

Another occasion where my name used to put me on the tough spot was when I had to introduce myself to a new teacher in front of the entire class. The moment I finish telling my name, there used to be a burst of laughter from the whole class. Most of the times, the teacher who was expecting a "normal" name gets confused on hearing my unusual name and asks me to repeat it. And my dear classmates who have been waiting for another opportunity to laugh at me wouldn't miss it. After hearing me repeat the long name, the response from the teacher would be "Well, it's a great name, but what should I call you?" A reasonable question indeed! I would politely tell them they could call me "Girija", by which I was already known in the entire school.

Two of my schoolmates got into trouble because of my name. While taking a bus ride, they were talking about some mischief we all did together and they kept referring to my name "Girija". Unbeknownst to them, a relative of one of my friends was sitting behind them overhearing their conversation. After a while, he asked them "Don't you guys have anything useful to do other than talking about girls and what kind of girl hangs out with boys like you and does such things??". They had to bear his chastisement until they got down at their stops.

By the time I reached high school, I was conscious of the female aspect and the unusual length of my name. I had suggested a few times to my parents about changing my name to something "short" and "manly". But this was always diplomatically rejected by my father by explaining the various advantages of having such a "wonderful and thoughtful" name. Some of my friends found calling me  "Girija" awkward, and they picked a "masculine" part of my name, "Raj Kumar" and started addressing me by that. Another friend of mine, who used to play cricket with me, told me frankly that he doesn't want to call me "Girija". He started calling me "Giri" and thus I was re-christened. Suddenly I became "Giri", at least to my friends. But the situation in school didn't change. 

I finished high school and started college. On my first day at college, when the professor asked the students to introduce themselves, I said my full name and suggested that I be called "Giri". Since that day, I became "Giri" to the entire world. My mom was happy as her son finally got a "masculine" name. Initially, my dad didn't approve of my "new" name. Eventually, he also started addressing me as "Giri" at least in his letters. When I meet my school friends, they still call me "Girija". My math teacher used to call me "Girija Vallabha". When I asked her why is she taking the pain of addressing me by a long name while she has the option to address me "Giri". She told me that by doing so she is chanting the name of Lord Shiva, which is the best way to attain "Moksha" (self-realization). I didn't want to stop her pursuit of "Moksha" by suggesting otherwise.

My unusually long name had caused some hiccups while filling up application forms. Many times, I had run out of space in the forms where I had to fill in my full name. While I applied for my passport I was really worried, as they do not allow initializing the last name. So my name should be typed as "Girija Vallabha Raja Kumar Unnikrishnan Rema" which came out to be a name with 39 letters! Fortunately, the passport office authorities managed to put my name in a single passport. 

After completing my bachelor's, I was waiting for my degree certificate. Most of my friends received theirs and I was the only person left. I made an inquiry in the University office and I was told that processing of my certificate was being withheld as the names in my school diploma and bachelor's mark sheets are different. He then showed me the "difference". There were spaces between each word of my name in the SSLC book while the spaces were missing in the bachelor's degree mark sheets. Honestly, I noticed that "difference" for the first time. Soon I was directed to follow the lengthy process to make the correction in all the mark sheets.

Post Script:

Since I moved to the United States, I had been dealt with some fresh challenges by my name. When I applied for a Social Security Number, they summoned me to their offices. The lady at the counter asked me out of the 6 words in my name, which one is my first name. I told her it's "Girija Vallabha Raja Kumar". She told me that the first name field in her computer will not accept it as it's too long. She suggested she will go with the first word from my first name. Then she wanted to know about my last name. Fortunately, she could enter my last name or rather last names in their system. I dread that day when SSA will ask me to prove my identity because they don't see my "full" name in their system. Maybe I should check again with them to see if they have upgraded their systems to accept longer names of the poor souls like mine.

Another hurdle I had to overcome was when I applied for the US driver's license. After looking at my passport, the person at the DMV told me it's not possible to put all the names in the license. Again I suggested picking the first word of first name and the last names. When I moved to Connecticut, the DMV office told me their system cannot take spaces in the last name. So I suggested hyphenating the last names. Later, when I moved to New Jersey, they told me they will use the second word from my first name as my middle name. I tried to tell them I don't have a middle name. But they insisted that they put as much of my name as possible in their systems. I had been there already a few times already. Since I didn't want to go there again, I complied. 

I get credit card offers in the mail with different variations of my name. I am worried these days when FBI will knock down my door and charging me with a felony for identify theft and fake id...

When it's tax time, I run into issues with the IRS. Not for tax evasion, but my name again. Apparently, the IRS system also cannot contain my first name and it got truncated. So they issued a corrected W2 with just the initial "G" as my first name.

While I was living in Phoenix, AZ many people used to pronounce my name as "Giriha" because of the large Spanish-speaking demography there. So far very few people have been able to pronounce my last name correctly. Some go by the last word "Rema" of my last name and skip the tongue twister "Unnikrishnan". My neighbor in Phoenix used to call me "Greer". I tried to correct her a few times and later gave up. I don't roll my "r". So when I say "Giri", native speakers sometimes hear it as "Giti" or "Gidi".

When I got married, my wife refused to change her last name. I think that was a smart move considering all the hassles I am going through with my name. When we had our daughter, we gave her a short name; not a tongue twister like mine. We named her Gia Cannaught (Cannaught is my father's family name). So in my family, all three of us have different last names. While we fly, I carry a copy of my daughter's birth certificate in case someone suddenly thinks I am not her father because we don't share the same last name!

My name has always been throwing curveballs at me. Like the Johnny Cash song goes, life ain't easy for a boy named Girija...