My name is Ashesh (with a capital ‘A’)
There aren’t quite a lot of people who pronounce my name rite. Its not that my name is impossibly difficult to pronounce, it’s just that (well I think) people take it for granted. For them it’s nothing more than a tag which says “Ashesh” scribbled under a picture of a lanky young fella in their brains, with which they have nothing to do except to utter with utter negligence. Well, if you think it’s tough, then try “Mimansha” or “Vilakshan”
There are times when I hear my name and I’m drenched in this utmost desire to point a gun to the utterer’s temple and make him say my name a zillion times correctly, and of course with (Itl)love(Itl). People keep surprising me (well, they used to but now I’m used to it) with newer versions of my name. “Ashesh” with an ‘aah’ that sounds nothing like the beginning, a ‘shee’ that sounds nowhere near the middle and a ‘ssss’ that’s not bad an ending, of my name. Some, specially westerns, come up with such extreme variation to it, they induce me to imagine a folk of donkey like little creatures with feathers, circumambulating my skull. Some simply remind me of yucky, flabby rarer ends of our body which we sit on. I just don’t get why they seem to relate it with the word ‘ass’ and not ‘us’, which indeed is a better word and phonetically related to ‘Ashesh’. Well, what’s even worse, is when I meet new people and the few weeks that follows, they seem to try all the possible permutations of the word, until they finally settle with one. I have to respond to such words, which I just can’t remember where I heard before and suddenly I realize, that it sounds somewhat like my name. And an interesting thing about it, they make me feel like one of those people with nome de plume in detective movies.
Well, life isn’t all that bad when you have friends who know just how you like your name tongued. There are fortunately some people who keep me from being a full time imaginary murderer. Even some of my new acquaintances make effort to verbalize those three syllabuses, and perfectly manifest my name. And at times I have a notion that they have been thinking of those three syllabuses for at least 5 minutes before letting out. I suppose most of us take moment like these for granted. Well, I don’t. I cherish each of them. To you guys, my saviors, my buddies, my whatevers…… Thank you. And to my new pals thank you for those 5 minutes you spend on my name.
