karthik is my name!

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?