when my parents christened me karthik, they had thought it was a unique name. coincidentally, this unique thought occurred to quite a good number of parents in the late 70s and the early 80s. end result, scores of karthiks were released into this world.
whatever school i attended, coaching class i went to, there was a minimum of two karthiks on the roll-call. the max number was at my college that had 4 karthiks in the class. i did not dare to take the count across the 2000 batch, or across my college. definitely karthik would have made it to the podium at the most-common-name-contest.
class was divided into groups of 4 or 5 to do experiments in the labs. my group consisted of karthik, karthik, karthik and kiran.
even though karthik's spelling varied from karthik to kaarthik to karthick to kartic, the name was pronounced one and the same. in order to distinguish the beings, some characteristic or the other was used to qualify the karthiks. for eg - nettai (tall), bodhai (drug- the guy was always in a trance), dumm (cigarette), delhi, current.
year 2008. i am attending evening accounting classes at new york university. the strength of the class is 20, and the only other desi in the class is also named karthik. now what are the odds?
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9 comments:
odds are great.. cos you are in NJ/ NY - which are extended states of the country we call India.
i do remember that you were rechristened "current" instead of using an adjective... maybe there will be another blog commenting on that?
now i can put our yesterday's conversation into perspective..lemme see how many karthik's do i know..wow..its indeed a big number..
traditionally numerous factors have gone into namings..geo is one factor.. like the venkat derivatives among the andhrites, the pan india abhisheks and vijays..the sexless names of the sikhs..the "o"phile bong names(at least when pronouncing)..
then there is nakshatram mine being krithigai., consider yourself lucky my uncle was a shashi kapoor fan :)
My engineering college batch had 4 karthik's, my MBA batch had 5 karthik's, i've so many of them in my office that we have formed a group to mutually send emails of some other karthik's that we receive by mistake. good post...
think of the bright side though. maybe everyone will think its the indian equivalent of john or bob and may actually make the effort to pronounce it right.
- swetha
Ya, but how abt being christened Arun?
@sway - 'cathy' is the worst possible way my name has been pronounced here.
but, as you had said, population of karthik has helped the junta to practice the pronunciation.
@arun - i am pretty sure that junta would have faced no problems in pronouncing a-run ;-).
yes, arun is another cliched name. back at our college arun also would have made it to the podium.
Nice write up Cartik!!
i wish i see another Inigo Fernando in some class, train, church, restaurant...what are the odds?
ha ha ha ha ha ha
I had 3 karthiks in my Post grad classroom
u knw wat i jus love this name
heard shalini call madhavan in alaipayudhe after that thaali on mirror scene "kaarthik, enga irukke, en en uyire edukkare, maanatha vaangaraan"
loved that scene n hence dat name
kartik in unnale unnale movie - it really sounds gr8 when fairer sex call it
nw u wil love ur name when ur better half keeps cajolin u, unless f course she decides to thrw ur parents' kept name to call u sme crazy stuff :P
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