BENGALURU : About fifteen years ago I found myself being interviewed by a very nice Englishman called Charles for a temp role at an agency in London. We introduced ourselves and before we got down to the tell-me-about-yourself and bestand- worst-qualities routine, Charlie asked me to break my name down into phonetic syllables so that he wouldn’t ‘butcher my name’ as his compatriots did.
‘May-nuh-kuh’ he jotted on his notepad and did an admirable job of calling me that for the rest of the interview. When I joined as a temp a week later, he clearly must have misplaced his notepad because he called me Monica, Moniqwa, Monique and even Mavis. Why am I bringing this up? Well, I fear that my children will need a phonetic guide to pronounce certain names too. Not Polish names like Zbigniew or the Vietnamese Nguy n or the Irish Saoirse.
Oh no. Last night, as my son watched his father scroll through his LinkedIn profile he read out — or shall I say attempted to read out — the names of his connections. ‘Raamaaaaachaaaandrin.’ ‘Dei. That’s Ramachandran da!’ ‘Deevaiyaapan.’ ‘Umm. Dwaipayan.’ ‘Try-try-m-bak.’ ‘Triambak.’ I cringe as I type this: My child cannot pronounce Indian names. I know what you’re all thinking. That this is my fault somehow, because hey everything is the fault of parents these days: landfills filled with diapers, raising children who have caused the downfall of the breakfast cereal industry by constantly eating avocado toast and giving perfectly lovely animals a bad rep thanks to rubbish parenting techniques. Watch out jellyfish! You are next.
I’m not going to rush in and defend anyone now because you know what? You’re right. It is the fault of parents. Other parents. I blame each and every one of you who have given your children names that are no more than two syllables long. It is the fault of the parents of Adi, Kia, Tia, Mia, Pia, Aarav and Aryan that my child cannot say Arulmozhi. That he rechristened our neighbour Alamelu (Hi Aunty!) Philomi because he found that easier. This is your fault kids.
Well, okay, it’s your parents’ fault. And who can blame them? After years of having their names butchered, shortened and just changed (hello Mavis!) by colleagues and friends during stints abroad, these people felt that their children should be spared such treatment. So, Akhilandeshwari and Kulothungan had a Dia. And Parvatha and Hardik (who no doubt had the worst time ever) had an Aarav. Friends who have bestowed these names upon their children, I love you and your kids, but this is your fault. In no way is my child’s inability to say Manjula (Man-jooo-la) a reflection on my poor parenting skills.
But it makes me wonder what the next wave of name trends will bring? Emoji names? Serial numbers? Scannable QR codes? I had to beg my son to stop reading the names out at some point. My ears just couldn’t take it anymore. Millennials and Gen X-ers, you have accomplished a magnificent feat — you have turned my eight-year-old son into a middle-aged white man from the Home Counties