The name saga……..A

NAME … your name; have you ever thought about it? How it is; where it came from. I remember during childhood days “what is the meaning of your name” was an obvious question after “what is your name” by any senior citizen (I mean any person senior to me). Even during school interviews I was asked the same question. Principals with very thick specs would have asked it in the most unfriendly manner possible. But do they really care? Who knows…

BEING a Bengali and moreover being form a cultural Bengali family means your name will match some writer, poet or famous personality (famous in positive way; I mean). Mine was not different either. I was named after a famous Bengali poet Sukanto Bhattacharya. Though I could not do justice to my name poetically guess I did enough justice literally by having a good enough physic ( my friends and colleagues may want to comment on this ). But the catch is not here.

IF you are familiar with Bengali culture ( specially with the older generation ) you must be knowing that many of us have a strong affinity for “A”. They want to put “A” where ever possible. And that’s what this blog is all about.

Needless to say I was also a hapless victim of this. Let me clear this … my name is “sukantA”. Most of the non-Bengali will find a feminine touch in this name. Ah …. I can’t blame them. I was warned by few of friends about this. One of my childhood friend “sudiptO” ( not “sudiptA”; because that is a common Bengali female name; though grammatically wrong and has no real meaning ) once gave me this wise advice of changing the spelling of my name to “sukantO”. But then I was turned down by my so called senor citizen saying that …. Well there is no girl named sukantA ( oh … so you can take the advantage of it ….). And alas … I accepted.

GUESS what … I did not realized the dark side of it till I was in Kolkata. But drama started once I came out Kolkata. Problem started when I started my work life in Bangalore. Almost everywhere I need to explain “ …. though it spells sukantA it pronounces “sukantO ….”. And guess what .. in my new company many have this very doubt “is this a guy or a girl ……….” (Basic doubt …. eh? ). And to add to this recently I discovered a girl named “sukantA” in Orkut (though this name is grammatically wrong it has absolutely no meaning )……….

SO ……… here I am; pretty much stuck with quite a confusing (!!!!!!!!) name….. rather spelling….