Simply Me

Friday, August 3, 2007

What's in a name

If I could go back in time... well way back in time to before I was born, I'd suggest my parents to name me by a shorter name. While personally I love my name, Tejaswini, perfectly perfect for me, the length of the name just means I have a zillion nicknames...

As a kid, I could say my name very early. I had clear speech since I started speaking and however much people wondered I could say my entire name clearly. I never liked nicknames nor did my family. So no one in my family has called me anything but Tejaswini in my family.

But once I started going to school, matters got difficult... For my friends that is. Not many 3-4 year old children can say the name TEJASWINI. So they started calling me Teju. The rickshaw kaka called me Tezaab... It was a film that had recently released then... But soon the name Teju stuck... It took me ages and a million times of saying 'Teju mat kaho na' to get everyone calling me Tejaswini. By the time I passed my 10th, all my friends had learnt to call me by my entire name.

In 10th, however, I acquired another nickname. At my tution classes, there was this guy Abhin. He used the last part of my name i.e. Wini and started calling me Wini the Pooh after a famous animated character. A friend in my engineering college, Minal, also has occasionally called me that. She is like a huuuuuuuuge cartoons fan.

Somewhere along my engineering, I got hooked on to the net... yahoo messenger, orkut... that sort of stuff... Now people started complaining about the length of my name, because it was too long to write... A shorter name please... I finally relented when Pranay started calling me T... No problem in that I thought. When chatting with my college friends, we just write the first three letters of each others' names. So I was Tej, Anagha became Ana, Supriya was called Sup, Priyanka became Pri, Sujata was referred to as Suj, Varsha called Versa coz she couldn't abide by being called Var(shee Var kay?) and Suchitra was called Such. Varsha likes my surname a lot it seems, she calls me Shenoy a lot of times.. definitely no issues there.

On Orkut and among my konkani friends, a lot of nicknames popped up. One of the names as expected was Teju... again followed by me saying Teju mat kaho naaa... Nishanth has finally agreed not to call me that.. Well I hope he will stick to his promise. One of my chat friends, Sooraj calls me Steni.. Shenoy TEjaswiNI.. so Steni.. Very creative nickname.. the only reason why I never complained regarding this nickname... On Konkanis in Pune, I was called everything from Teja to Teja bhai... apparently I come across as a bhai.. sure.. no probs.. but stick to calling me Tejaswini guys...

Purnima and Shraddha decided my name was tooooo long to write and so were theirs.. Fine another set of nicknames was born... I am called TJ, Shraddha became Shrads and Purnima is called Purni... Of course there is a condition... I am never to be actually called TJ... likhne ke liye theekh hai ye naam but I won't reply if you call me TJ... I told them.. Fine accepted.

During training at KPIT, I got two nicknames... 'Tejas...wini' .. 'Your name is soooo long.. Madhe break gheun shwaas ghyava lagto'.. That has been coined by Parag... Naveen has come up with a unique name to tease me... Guruni(As in guru..teacher... hmmm.. no idea why.. :P)

The most recent nickname that I have acquired... Well hopefully it won't stick is Tez. A guy at work, Shailesh, called me that... Ye Tez kya hai, I asked him... the shortcut of your name.. came the prompt reply :( ... Apparently like Tez channel... Aaj tak sabse Tez.. 8-| ..(Hey doesn't that mean that name has a copyright? ;))That was just once and hopefully he won't remember that nickname in the future and there sure is no need for anyone else at work to actually know of this name :P...

So there we go... One name... 4 syllables and so many variations... So to end this blog, let me just say, people.. accha sa naam hai mera.. Tejaswini bulao na... itna kyon sochte ho tum log... Less effort on both sides.. You call me anything else, I say '...' mat kaho na.. You ask why not... I say, coz I don't like it.. You ask why.. I say just... simply... Call me TEJASWINI.. Thats simple and sweet

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posted by Tejaswini Shenoy at 1:03 AM

7 Comments:

Sad rey! I mean, see you've got a (pause to count)9 letter name... And its ok to have many pet names and Nick names..Where as mine is a 4 letter name.."AJAN"..and you know what, my mom calls me "Ajju", and so..it took off from there...all those "oooooo..i luuurv teddy bear" or "cuttttiiiieee" kinda gals cal me like that. Now,b'lore is kinda "YO" place, so pplz like to catch up the western names..try to copy the Western Culture more than necessary..wanna be "keeewwwl maaan" types call me.."A.J"..One of my best friends in Y-Zag(beware of the seeping western culture in Vizag too..hehehe)calls me "Jan Boy"..hmm..guess you'll say.."dude,3 isnt bad rey".. But thare have been nick names about moi personality whcih are creatively combined with my already present nick names..hehehehe! A couple of guys call me "Spikey"..like the character in X-Men cartoon. Coz i'm kinda thin and I like skateboards..Mad Eh?
personally I feel that TJ and teju are good..(don't start screaming now)

August 3, 2007 at 1:52 PM  

Hey, "TEZ" got me thinking, why not "TAZ" rey.., like the "TAZ" in looney tunes..(Tasmanian Devil)???

August 3, 2007 at 1:54 PM  

Man! Sorry for the 3 continous comments rey... This mesage is for "AJ" the guy on ur blog..

@ AJ
dude, rem, u asked me about some guy in Indian Idol..if he's from BMS college or not... No da, he's not from BMS..he's from Sir.M.V.I.T.. His name is Abhishek Raj or Abhishek Kumar..Guess he changed it to Abhishek Kumar after goin there.. I clearly rem him telling his name as Abhishek Raj when me and my friends ragged him some 3 years back. He's the guy with the topi..pagal fellow...

Thanx Tejaswini :D

August 3, 2007 at 2:02 PM  

hehehehe..This was too cool. I know ur obsession with "Teju mat kaho naa" well I never called u that..I remember for sure. been calling u TEJASWINI..n nads TJ. Teja bhai, however reminds me of the movie 'hungama' hehe...

Even mez got the disease of shortforming anybody's name... so sowie :P As u know i called Amit - Am hehehe...

Aur waise bhi mere kuch kam naam nahi rakhe gaye by family n friends....Rite from Purni/u to Poo to Pips(because the name is Purnima Prabhu...taking p n p from name n surname)to Punnav to Purnim... but here's a difference....I lhauu my pet names more than my real name..cept amma, nobody calls me by my full name...n I don't complain coz I think my name is toooooooo lenghty :P
(Thankfully my name isn't Mahalakshmi or Vidyalakshmi or Bhagyashree :OOO ... I wud def go mad filling out my college forms with such huge names)

Kuch bhi kaho..our respective names are nice n pet names are cuter... so don't complain even if ppl call u TEJU :P

Cheerz,
Purni

August 3, 2007 at 10:52 PM  

@Ajan: Hmmm.. kuch bhi ho.. nahi re pasand mujhe... spikey is that guy who use to skateboard and in one episode suddenly started throwing spikes involuntarily rite? Taz???? :((( Maybe gotta add that too now...

BTW msg conveyed to 'AJ'. HE seems to remember having seen that guy somewer it seems.

@Purni... Sorry babez... apun ko nahi pasand kya karen?

August 4, 2007 at 12:52 AM  

:(( Shailesh has decided to stick to the name Tez... And wats more he has got everyone else calling me some sort of nickname.. Tej.. Tez.. Teja.. Teju... Kathin distay maaza... :((

August 4, 2007 at 1:00 AM  

:) So, I don't know you but my name is Tejaswini too, and I could sooooo identify with your blog about your name, and what everyone called you. Believe it or not, I have been called every single one of those nicknames!! :) Anyhow, its good to know another Tejaswini who has been through a shared experience!

April 15, 2008 at 5:14 AM  

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