What's in a name??

“Mr. Tha-naag-arjjen?” he asked and threw a quizzical stare at me.

I wore a weak smile as I hopelessly tried to defend my name (my father’s actually!). “It’s Thi-na-ga-ra-jan”, I said, “Arvind Thinagarajan”, trying my best to make it look effortless. “But you can call me Arvind! I’m sure that’s easy, right?”, I egged him to concede. I took a quick look at his name badge and nudged him to acknowledge “…right, Tony?”

But I figured he wasn’t going to give in that easily. He took another long look at my credit card and prepared to murder my name again. I wondered why he wouldn’t just scan the stuff I gave him, swipe my card and get it over with. What was this uncalled effort for? Trying to put my point across with a little subtlety I spoke, “You know what…just call me Mr T. That’ll do!” and remembered to smile. That was a discount he should gladly take I thought, but I thought wrong. That there was no one behind me waiting in the queue meant he could experiment with my name longer.

My name had become Tony’s exciting new challenge and I had to do something fast to steer him off topic. “So what’s your last name, Tony?” I asked. “Banks”, he said and continued “See how simple that is man? Tony Banks? Easy as pie!”. I smiled, and nodded vigorously in agreement hoping he’d return my credit card and begin bagging the grocery.

But he continued with a sheepish smile, “Why do you have such a complicated name Mr. T? Why do you make it so hard for people like me?”

“Try pronouncing Vangiparapu Venkata Sai Laxman!”, I thought to myself, “or how about Venkatanarasimha Rajuvaripetan??”. But surely it needed more than that to convince my man Tony! So I tried something else, “What does your name mean?”, I asked.

“I dunno man!”, was the puzzled reply, “My mama didn’t give my name no meaning! Why do you ask?”

I told him that my name had a meaning to it – ‘Arvind’ meant ‘a lotus that housed knowledge’ and ‘Thinagarajan’ meant ‘the sun or the eternal light’. I told him about how I couldn’t think of an Indian name or an Asian name, for that matter, that did not mean something purposeful.

“Maybe that’s why my name is long, because it is supposed to mean something”, I said and realized something else as I blurted out, more to myself than to Tony, “May be my name has a meaning to remind me something important, that I got to add some meaning to life as well. What do I mean to the people around me? What do I want to be remembered for when I’m done adding meaning to my life, when I am no more?”

I looked into Tony’s eyes and knew that for a second he wanted his name to mean something as well. He smiled and said something I would never forget ever, “Well I dunno if I can do anything about what my name means but I sure as hell can do a lot about what I mean to the world around man!”

“Well said, Tony!” I said raising my hand for a high-five, over-joyed, and realized that the conversation we just had meant something to each other. Just the way it is supposed to. Everything around has some meaning or the other, in my opinion.

Tony is now my friend. I still haven't tried to find out if his name means something. I'm sure it does but I don't care because I know that he does. Like I said, he is a friend! And I know that I mean something to him as well. He now calls me by my name.