Wht's there in a name ?????

I think I heard this a long time ago in some old Malayalam movie
‘ Wht’s there in a name ?’
But believe me, there is a lot to do with a name, I am not talking about numerology which suggests a names starting with V is for Victory and each word and the sounds it makes is evil ‘Evil or Good’. What I am talking about is the names which have to go with the personality of each being.
In an average Indian family the naming comes with following factors
Grand parents name will be cut into pieces and jumbled around to find a word which looks like a name and ppl will start calling the poor baby with that.
The family name attached with one or the other god / saint’s name forms another name
Apart from this, it will be film star’s name, the local popular figure name.
It can be a popular Hero’s name in a movie followed by the Family name, Village name, Gothra and the list goes on. ( In 1980’s it was Vijay, 1990’s name Rahul was the favorite, then it turned to Raj in 1990 to 200 and the latest is names or sound what ever that starts with the Alpabet ‘A’)
Now a day, it is mostly the Dad names her daughter with their long lost love or Wife names her boy with her long last love! (This is a trend which I have noticed lately, it was only passwords earlier but now loved once are honored by naming their kids!)

Taking all of this into consideration, I was named after my Grandpa. Yes, his name was butchered around and fitted in to give me my name. But the name was not good enough for me or I was not fit enough for the name. That’s what I could make out from the list of nick names I had in these years.

Each of the nick names I got until now comes with a story attached to it. Small stories but stories! First and foremost was – ‘Viruthan Shanku’, later got cut shot to ‘Shanku’ which came as I was very small in size when compared to my cousin but ‘smart’, taking into consideration that I didn’t talk until 3, but always did what I was asked to do ( I am good at Dumb C ;)). Now adopted myself as ‘Shanks’ as I couldn’t get shanku!

The next name I got was a ‘Bhaiya’ attached to my original name and later my ,name faded off and ppl started calling me only ‘Bhaiya…’ That sounded good but it was only at home circle. By the time I reached my high school, my nick name was re assigned to ‘Kakka’. This refers to ‘crow’ in Malayalam. Thanks to my skin complexion and slim frame. I am invisible in dark nights until and unless I ‘smile-in-cheese-click’ mode. Also there was one more boy with my name, so I was called with a prefix of ‘Kakka’. It was like Kakka-XXXXX. This name went on until I completed my 10th. Going on with my Diploma, I had to move to middle Kerala from the south side. The south side (Thekkan) nativity which was more closer to Tamil Nadu, gave me a name ‘ Paandi’ which is the colloquial word for a tamilian in Kerala. My ‘Tamilian-looks’ was one of the factor other than the fact that I knew to speak in Tamil which encouraged ppl to call me Paandi. For the engineering college stint, I was spared and ppl called me with my original name. The same went in my office until I reached the current office location.

In last three months, I got almost 4 names, each with its own stories. First one was ‘Vista- man’ as I was the only person associated with the new windows operating system in the new work location. As I was all new in this crowd of strangers, I had introduced myself several times at several different places on different occasions. In each introduction, people were interested to hear about my Japan stint (or I had only one thing to talk everywhere, which was ‘Japan’). Anyways there were some unfortunate common audience to all of my introduction speeches who got bored of the Japan stuff (I can’t blame them; even I got bored telling the same things). They thought out and pre fixed my first two letters of my original name to form a new nick name for me, which forms ‘RA- JAPAN’. This was further faded to form Rajjappan and to Rayyappan in proper Trivandrum slang! This name got a sir name attached to it which was linked with my DMV incident where I forgot to put my seat belt for my driving test! So the name was further elongated to ‘Belt Rajjappan’. Some thing like ‘Sir CP’. Now after each introduction, as soon as I finish, there will be at least two ppl saying,
“He says his name is ‘XXXXX’ that but we dearly call him Rayyappan, Belt Rayyappan!’ Obviously ppl will be interested to know why and the story goes around !!!

Hey, got to go now, some one yelling at the door
“ Rayappooo, Vannu vathil thurakkada!!!”
Translation --

Drive to DMV V

So if any one has doubt about my long standing stint with DMV’s in US, please check it out here As my job demanded a location shift, it also made me go to a DMV to give a driving test. I have to say, it is destiny. But I have to wait until next month to see if it is actually destiny.
As per the US law (GA state law), driving license expires together with I -95. So my precious US-Driving license which I got after all the memorable events was expired on April 15th. I moved to a new state by May 21! My visa extension paper took a big route and reached me on June 28. I don’t know if its my luck or just fate that June 25 means 60 days mark for my expired driving license, which mean I have to get a new driving license, going to DMV, stand in queue, Write the test, get a slot for driving test, gave a ride to another fellow DMV officer and not to mention the number of documents to be submitted.

So after an initial search I found MR ‘B’ who was also planning to go to DMV for driving test. I got with him and other two friends to the DMV. The first trip was un eventful. We where four folks appearing for test that day and all cleared the written test. Mr B had a tough time answering the last question of 16 in which we were allowed to have 4 wrong. He had already 4 wrong by the time he reached 16th question. The question being the % of speed reduction on a snowy day on road with provided answers where like
1) 50%
2) 25%
3) 75%
4) No need to reduce
Was a little tricky, But he cleared it and we got driving slot for two days, two guys on a Tuesday and other two on Wednesday. The other two folks cleared it on Tuesday, B & I had on Wednesday. As the other two folks cleared it on Tuesday, we (Me, B) where under real pressure. Mr B has been driving in US for last one year with his Indian Driving license. I had been driving in Georgia (I drove exactly three times)
So on the charming day, we left our office by 12:35. B’s wife also accompanied us as the owner of the car is required. I had a very bad feeling about the test. On that day I got to know that even B had the same feeling. We reached exactly at 1:00 pm for our test appointment at 1:00 pm. We had to wait until 1:45 to get our driving inspector to get to the car and start testing. B went first with the car as I waited for my chance. He came back after 20 minutes. He came directly to me and said,
B: It’s your chance, best of luck
Me: How was the test?
B: I flunked
Me : How come !

I was thinking if B, who is driving for last one year was made to fail, which means I don’t stand much chance. Anyway I had to give the test. I went in, sat in the driving seat. I am driving this car for the first time. The seat was too close and I tried pulling all the cables out from underneath the seat, but of no use, the seat didn’t move back. Finally I thought, I will give the test like this only. I started acting as required by adjusting each of the mirrors, and driving seat. Then the Driving inspector asked me to back me up.
Even when there was not a living thing around, I looked 360 before backing up and backed up the vehicle. Then went around the ritual of stopping at each stop, giving signals, changing lines until he took me to a big junction with an protected green for a left turn. I had a straight green but I waited for my protected green to take a left.
Driving Inspector (DI): Why are you not taking an yield left?
Me ; I am waiting for my protected green
DI : Ohh, you are pretty safe guy.
Me : Thanks
DI : By the way, please put you seat belt.

My mind went blank for a moment. I had drove almost three miles from the DMV office crossed a rail road, covered two blocks to the main street without wearing my seat belt on my driving test with my inspector sitting next to me!

Me : I think this was the most stupidous thing I have done lately.
DI : hmmm may be, I don’t know what else you have done!

I kept on driving, pretty cool now as I already know the test result. The DI took me to a free way, I reached around 60 MPH and got a lane change also and got took an exit from there to the DMV. In between I had a signal where I had a steady yellow in which I could have stopped but I accelerated. I think by the time we reached back, DMV, my DI forgot what all mistakes I had done as there were too many. So the stint with the DMV continues as I have next driving test on Sep 2nd! God knows whts in store for me there!