"Hey nu-nu goodnight"
My name for sometime had been an intresting topic with my friends. They somehow got to memorise the tounge twister and everytime they needed a break, it would be calling out the name and walking away with a sense of accomplishment (yen peyru than kadhachidha .. neram)
anu alais anupriya parimana mudaliyar Krishnan
A name very typically south indian - long winded, never ending, acknowledging the entire family lineage
Thankfully they spared veerabhagu devar (whose decendants we are supposedly) a mythical hero created by Shiva who was the Lord kartikeya's lieutenant while killing the Narakasura
Amma appa probably never would have even gone thro the ordeal the present day parents go thro. Going thro any number of website searches and books that come up with all sorts of ridiculus names (competing to be different and sounding mordern) eg: olini
I hit baby names on google and it threw a whooping 68,200,000 results in 0.12 secs with more than two dozen categories, African, Arabic, Aztec, Chinese, English, Welsh etc. Are there so many people making a business out of this .... hmmn
Amma said, the minute I was born the nurses in the hospital knew i was born in Anusha nakshatram (star) and started calling me Anu ... no big deal. The krishnan family sure should have had some amount of acceptance, to nod an yes to the name - without much of their contribution going into it
So as years went by the name was used up in all different permutations and combinations finally till i came to uncle sam's land where even the simplest of names seems to be a little overwhelming to pronounce.
Anu is quite simple I thought till someone who spoke to me over the phone decided to write to me addressing me "Dear Aknew"
I have grown to me more accepting these days ... so be it I thought
More damage started when suddenly there was a trend to "shorten and cuten" everything.
Like Anu probably seemed not cute and short enough it was reduced to nu-nu - much better than a ko-ko, bho-bho, bu-bu, ku-ku names others got. I did not complain though
Anu - the name that was given to me after a ceremony inviting friends and family, invoking the gods and my mother writing it in a banana leaf spread with uncooked rice, a name which has its roots from 17th nakshatra of the zodiac, which characterizes balance and harmony in relationships, honor and achievement of fame was reduced to a mere nu-nu
My conversation with my mom was halted for a second with a voice which said "nu-nu shut the door when you leave". I said "sure". My mom over the phone was like "nu-nu na yenna di?" (what is this nu-nu?) I said "onnum illa ma, nee sollu vera yenna panna?" (Nothing significant, you tell me what else did you do?)
From profundity to profanity ... i thought
