The post with a lame name...

Names are important, considering how everything isn’t just ‘something’ and ‘this’ and ‘that’. You use these words when you don’t know what they’re called. Every ‘thing’ has a name, and when the ancient humans saw how ‘aye!’ can’t be used to call everyone, they started naming each other as well. I’m bad with names. Like with registering who is called what, which leads to weird situations sometimes, like the one time a familiar face said ‘Hi’ to me in the Metro and I knew she’s someone from my college but with no idea how she knew me. I managed to make a ten minute conversation, overusing ‘you’ and ‘aap’ with my mind whirring in the background trying to recall. Unsuccessfully. Now this is still pardonable because she was someone I might have acquainted with through some ECA society. But what about that one time in first year, just a few months into college, the teacher asked for ‘Sunny’ and I turned to my bestie:

“Who’s Sunny?”

*Weird look* “Err.. you do know he’s our classmate?”

Me: *squiggly eyebrows* “He is? Who?”

Bestie: *points a thin guy out, wondering if she made a blunder making me a close friend*

Me: "Oh. I umm.. forgot his name. Sorry.” *going back to daydreaming*

The fact of the matter was that I never even bothered to learn names, because if I could just see and know they’re my classmates, why bother? It’s anyway a taxing thing for my brain. But you see how it can lead up to awkward situations, in future, when I might be working? Because I’m totally a hypocrite when it comes to names. I absolutely love the feeling when someone calls me by my name, and that someone is someone I didn’t expect would know or remember my name. I suppose everyone does love it, because on a rare occasion or two, I have felt awesome when I did remember someone from the past and called them by name and saw the gleam in their eyes. Y’know, the shiny thingy that’s there for a moment? But anyway, this post is dedicated to my inability surrounding the genius entity called ‘name’.

I’ve sometimes frequently wondered how names were even invented. While I know how some names are so creative, derived from mythological kinda words and from other languages and everything, but how did it start anyway? Someone saw the sun and said ‘sun’? I mean yeah, it might have been called something weird in the ancient civilization days, but still. Look around, how is the shirt a shirt, a book a book, a laptop a laptop, a tripod a tripod, a mug a mug? (Yeah alright! I’m just naming stuff I’m seeing right now :P ) And these are just what you say ‘generic’ names, think about specific ones. How genius do they sound! Please know I’m not referring to ‘language’ over here, just names of things and people and countries and everything that has a name.

Let’s start with people. Without wanting to sound bashful, I have to say I love my own name. I love the fact that it is a word from a language I’m actually not familiar with, that it has a meaning that I feel like living up to, so that it makes just the perfect kind of sense. I love knowing people’s names, though that is a different matter I usually forget them very soon. But it’s cool when you listen to a name and you match it up with the person’s face and character, if you happen to know it, and then you tend to think of them as more meaningful people. Try it sometime! Some names absolutely strike me as unique and I remember them for longer, no matter forgetting whom it belonged to. I think Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake is related to names too, though I guess it’s more about how people were running into problems because of their names. “I think” because I haven’t read the book, just the blurb once upon a time and I’m too lazy to check right now (lazy? Check, too busy with the meanie college that’s making my life so not how I wanted it to be. More of that later).

Anyway, yes there’s a huge probability that I wouldn’t remember your name if you’re in my college but not in my class (leaving aside a couple of exceptions :P), but maybe yes if your name’s weird (sorry. Some just are. Why are people these days naming their kids ‘Rhythm’? That’s just too weird, with a very weird connotation) or unique! That explains the new-ness in kids’ names these days. Tongue-twisty names I tell you. Makes it even harder for people like me to remember.  -_-

The next kind of ‘name’ that makes me squirm is a nickname. I know people who keep awesome nicknames! I may find them even more awesome because I know I can’t think like that myself, but they’re either really funny, or abbreviations of funny words that actually suit the nicknamed person. Such people, I really admire your skills. (Hint hint: Miss Ruya, I like the MDB :P And even though it’s tiny, I’m proud of making you make it into EMDB!) Nicknames are fun, mysterious to those who don’t know, which make them even more fun, and totally cool! If you still don’t know how lame a nickname I can make, consider how I call my Scooty, ‘Scoot’. Yeah. That’s the most creative name I could come up with. The parrot we once had? Parry :P I won’t oblige you guys with more such examples because that would be a threat to the readership for this blog!! The last example is how you call your sibling weird, disgusting names in various kinds of moods? My brother has always been creative when it came to calling me with absurd names. When I had to retort, I just replaced the initial alphabet with ‘S’, the initial for his name. How creative, right? -_-

I’m no good at naming anything. Events, titles for posters, titles of blog posts -_- I feel amazed sometimes with the creative names I’ve come across! Book-titles! I have no idea how I’m going to think of titles for my not-yet-conceptualized-book(s).

Why can’t I name anything? Maybe because I don’t really like ‘memorizing’ stuff? I have an okay vocabulary and even though I drool over words that sound awesome (and people who use awesome words in conversations), I can’t seem to use them myself because of the simple fact that I listen, register, drool and store it safely somewhere, padlocked. It doesn’t bother me a lot, though. And I don’t think it should, anyway. Even though keeping names is important. And while I do have this very solid, open fear that I’m eventually going to name my own kids Ashna-Junior and err.... Ashna-Junior2 (or maybe Harry and Hermione. Or maybe Little Lord Fauntleroy. Or Hedwig! No wait, I can’t name a kid after a white snowy owl. Or is it allowed?), I also am hopeful that I would have someone creative enough to think of a meaningful, nice name and make me see beyond Fauntleroy-type names, and then maybe one day those kids would write some random, weird post talking about how they love their name. Well, what else do you expect? I think they’ll write weirder posts and make me proud :P

See you in the next post!
Uhh.. alligators :P

PS- 

Hectic college, hectic college

When will you end?

I’m striking off days, hoping

What’s awesome is just ‘round the bend

No, I don’t hate you as much as it seems

But don’t be so cruel that it makes me scream

And write lame posts when at all I do

It’s what I love, please don’t spoil it too.

PPS- Whoa! I’m awesome at lameness. :P