Uncle Shakespeare had once quoted in his famous romantic work "Romeo and Juliet", the very name that every next person cites to their love-story:
Mr. B. Singh is one of the schoolmates of my dad. He was an extra-ordinary student with gentle behavior, loads of intelligence, phenomenal hand-writing, unobtainable grades, countless achievements and vast out-of-the-book knowledge. He was equally lucky too, to be born with silver spoon in his mouth. His ancestral property was so huge that it can feed his next eleven generations without letting anyone to work for a single day. His ancestral farmland added more dividends to it every season. There are legends about his family in the area that a troop of elephants used to serve them as their royal carriers. Despite of having all this modes of happiness, Mr. B. Singh was still not happy and do you know what was his reason of sorrow. It was his NAME.
He weighed four kilograms when he was born and because of his heavy weight his grandfather decided to felicitate him with a name that can make you feel the weight by mere listening to it. Many nominations were placed but all were rejected for some or the other reason. His uncle suggested "HANUMAN SINGH" but his grandfather readily declined that because it sounded like you are calling two animals at a time. 'Hanuman' was although a Hindu God but the term was used in Hindi for stating a monkey while 'SINGH' was although their family-name but in Hindi it meant lion. So after a prolonged debate between the family members and several Yes-No's, the Singh family finally named their prince as "BALRAM SINGH", naming him after a Hindu God Lord Balarama who is considered to be the elder brother of Lord Krishna and the teacher of the art of fighting with mace of some great muscular personalities like Bhima and Duryodhana, as per the Hindu Mythology.
Everything went quite happily but the twist came when Mr. B. Singh was studying in eighth standard. His class-teacher as well as his teacher in English was Mr. Bipin Sengupta who was a Bengali. His English had the perfect smell of Maccher-Jhol in it i.e. his well-furnished English had a strong Bengali accent. On the first day while taking attendance he spoke in fragmented speech "Bal... Ram... Singh". Well there was a huge population of Bengali knowing student in the class and from that day everyone started teasing him with that. "Bal" is a slang in Bengali. Mr. Sengupta considering the seriousness of the matter with his student decided to give a visit to Balram's home. He explained Balram's father the vulnerability of his name and the potential disaster he can face if anyhow he shifts to the neighbouring state West Bengal. He requested them to change the name with immediate effect otherwise once registered in the board exams it will be a mess. So, on Mr. Sengupta's request "BALRAM" became "BOLRAM".
His misfortune did left him with the previous name. Three months later Mr. Sengupta was transferred to an unpronounceable place of Andhra Pradesh and another teacher Mr. S. Bhalla replaced him, who was brought up in Punjab. While announcing the names of the students in a debate competition he spoke up "Bol.. Ram... Singh". Now the Hindi word "Bol" means 'to speak', thus after such an addressing of the name, poor B.Singh's name was further modified as "Boloram Singh" by his friends. The complain went to his father via the principal who received the complain from Mr. Bhalla. On the direction of the principal, Balram's name was re-registered as "BALLRAM". Now nobody made any mistake with the pronunciation.
But another time life exhibited him the deprivation with his name. The admit card of Matriculation Exam arrived and there was a minute mistake on the parameter of spell check but a disaster for him. The first 'L' was replaced by an 'I' and making it "BAILRAM". The class teacher while distributing the cards sounded "Baill-Ram". 'Baill' is a Hindi term for BULL. The announcement was enough to trigger wild guffaw in the class and re-modification of his name among friends. Life seemed to be full of surprises but for Balram it was full of shocks.
Balram Singh personally went to the head office for the correction but the explanation what he got was again a potential threat with the name. A person with gray hairs and a carrom board striker sized spectacles on his eyes explained, "Son, we usually don't do such mistakes. The only reason for the mistake would the base of the first 'L' of your name may be shorter in length compared to the second one. Thus it seemed to be an 'I'. Son, we usually don't give such suggestions but I am giving you a suggestion on virtuous basis that change the spelling of your name to BALRAM. It will be better".
Balram didn't follow his suggestion but rather became tense with the mistake that may have occurred in the form. If it occurs again then he will be in serious trouble.
The mistake happened again, he was the gold medalist in Physics Honors. On the convocation day, the university had arranged a world class presentation ceremony and lot of eminent personality were invited. The anchor announced his name as "BALL... RAM... Singh" sounding of some kind of cricket ball. After the announcement, the audience burst to laughter instead of applause and claps. He felt insulted and this time he decided to change his name to "BALARAMA", referring to the English version of Bhagwat Geeta. The best thing he did this time was that he did affidavit from the court.
So, this time it was a legal affair.
Things didn't changed after that too. After serving the Indian Government at different posts and marrying one of his boss's daughter, he felt severe home-sick. He returned to his native place and started his new business. He opened a mid-scale industry that made cutlery of China-clay and a glass. These cutlery have a great demand overseas and especially in countries like Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Once he went to Singapore to get his biggest business contract ever. But the people there with their Chinese accent called him with some weird combination of the letters in his name. They crumbled, twisted and modified his name in all possible ways. Life became hard for him, because he started hating the thing that people love the most, their own name.
After returning from his tour he was so perplexed that he went to Rishikesh to get some peace for his mind. He was walking uphill along the river Ganga with baffled mind, foiled in some uneasy thought. He had lost interest in living with his name and he wanted to start a fresh life in some unknown place with a new name. His legs were moving but they didn't knew the destination. The heavenly environment didn't made any difference in him.
An hour walk took him to a small ashram. He felt attracted to it. It had a divine environment with plenty of statues of Hindu god and goddess and a large meditation hall. He stepped in, but something prevented him to enter into that meditation hall. It was a large statue on the right side of that hall. It was the statue of Lord Balarama with a large plough and a mace in his hands while his name was written below it. On looking at the name plate, he jumped in rejoice as if he got his greatest wealth of life. He got so indulge in his jumping and pooping that he didn't noticed that people around him were disturbed. His laughter was like a nuclear bomb in the silent environment of the asram. Two guards came running and without even warning him, they dragged him and threw him out of the ashram. He didn't felt bad because he had got something more special to be happy.
Well, can you guess what he noticed that made him so happy. The name plate had something engraved like this:
So, my dear readers please keep one thing in mind that for the next time if you get a chance to name a newly born baby, then please do him or her a small favour by naming the baby with some spelling and pronunciation robust name and that doesn't pushes him or her into such trouble because some times THE NAME SHAKES the person very badly.
"What's in a name?that which we call a rose;By any other name would smell as sweet"- says Juliet to RomeoUncleji with due respect to your tedious works and the fantabulous comment that you made Madame Juliet to convey to piteous Monsieur Romeo, I just want to ask that you never referred what to do with the names that means something weird in some other language and the difference of slight change in the phoneme can change the whole meaning. Anyways Uncleji sometimes the name can shake your mind also.
Mr. B. Singh is one of the schoolmates of my dad. He was an extra-ordinary student with gentle behavior, loads of intelligence, phenomenal hand-writing, unobtainable grades, countless achievements and vast out-of-the-book knowledge. He was equally lucky too, to be born with silver spoon in his mouth. His ancestral property was so huge that it can feed his next eleven generations without letting anyone to work for a single day. His ancestral farmland added more dividends to it every season. There are legends about his family in the area that a troop of elephants used to serve them as their royal carriers. Despite of having all this modes of happiness, Mr. B. Singh was still not happy and do you know what was his reason of sorrow. It was his NAME.
He weighed four kilograms when he was born and because of his heavy weight his grandfather decided to felicitate him with a name that can make you feel the weight by mere listening to it. Many nominations were placed but all were rejected for some or the other reason. His uncle suggested "HANUMAN SINGH" but his grandfather readily declined that because it sounded like you are calling two animals at a time. 'Hanuman' was although a Hindu God but the term was used in Hindi for stating a monkey while 'SINGH' was although their family-name but in Hindi it meant lion. So after a prolonged debate between the family members and several Yes-No's, the Singh family finally named their prince as "BALRAM SINGH", naming him after a Hindu God Lord Balarama who is considered to be the elder brother of Lord Krishna and the teacher of the art of fighting with mace of some great muscular personalities like Bhima and Duryodhana, as per the Hindu Mythology.
Everything went quite happily but the twist came when Mr. B. Singh was studying in eighth standard. His class-teacher as well as his teacher in English was Mr. Bipin Sengupta who was a Bengali. His English had the perfect smell of Maccher-Jhol in it i.e. his well-furnished English had a strong Bengali accent. On the first day while taking attendance he spoke in fragmented speech "Bal... Ram... Singh". Well there was a huge population of Bengali knowing student in the class and from that day everyone started teasing him with that. "Bal" is a slang in Bengali. Mr. Sengupta considering the seriousness of the matter with his student decided to give a visit to Balram's home. He explained Balram's father the vulnerability of his name and the potential disaster he can face if anyhow he shifts to the neighbouring state West Bengal. He requested them to change the name with immediate effect otherwise once registered in the board exams it will be a mess. So, on Mr. Sengupta's request "BALRAM" became "BOLRAM".
His misfortune did left him with the previous name. Three months later Mr. Sengupta was transferred to an unpronounceable place of Andhra Pradesh and another teacher Mr. S. Bhalla replaced him, who was brought up in Punjab. While announcing the names of the students in a debate competition he spoke up "Bol.. Ram... Singh". Now the Hindi word "Bol" means 'to speak', thus after such an addressing of the name, poor B.Singh's name was further modified as "Boloram Singh" by his friends. The complain went to his father via the principal who received the complain from Mr. Bhalla. On the direction of the principal, Balram's name was re-registered as "BALLRAM". Now nobody made any mistake with the pronunciation.
But another time life exhibited him the deprivation with his name. The admit card of Matriculation Exam arrived and there was a minute mistake on the parameter of spell check but a disaster for him. The first 'L' was replaced by an 'I' and making it "BAILRAM". The class teacher while distributing the cards sounded "Baill-Ram". 'Baill' is a Hindi term for BULL. The announcement was enough to trigger wild guffaw in the class and re-modification of his name among friends. Life seemed to be full of surprises but for Balram it was full of shocks.
Balram Singh personally went to the head office for the correction but the explanation what he got was again a potential threat with the name. A person with gray hairs and a carrom board striker sized spectacles on his eyes explained, "Son, we usually don't do such mistakes. The only reason for the mistake would the base of the first 'L' of your name may be shorter in length compared to the second one. Thus it seemed to be an 'I'. Son, we usually don't give such suggestions but I am giving you a suggestion on virtuous basis that change the spelling of your name to BALRAM. It will be better".
Balram didn't follow his suggestion but rather became tense with the mistake that may have occurred in the form. If it occurs again then he will be in serious trouble.
The mistake happened again, he was the gold medalist in Physics Honors. On the convocation day, the university had arranged a world class presentation ceremony and lot of eminent personality were invited. The anchor announced his name as "BALL... RAM... Singh" sounding of some kind of cricket ball. After the announcement, the audience burst to laughter instead of applause and claps. He felt insulted and this time he decided to change his name to "BALARAMA", referring to the English version of Bhagwat Geeta. The best thing he did this time was that he did affidavit from the court.
So, this time it was a legal affair.
Things didn't changed after that too. After serving the Indian Government at different posts and marrying one of his boss's daughter, he felt severe home-sick. He returned to his native place and started his new business. He opened a mid-scale industry that made cutlery of China-clay and a glass. These cutlery have a great demand overseas and especially in countries like Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Once he went to Singapore to get his biggest business contract ever. But the people there with their Chinese accent called him with some weird combination of the letters in his name. They crumbled, twisted and modified his name in all possible ways. Life became hard for him, because he started hating the thing that people love the most, their own name.
After returning from his tour he was so perplexed that he went to Rishikesh to get some peace for his mind. He was walking uphill along the river Ganga with baffled mind, foiled in some uneasy thought. He had lost interest in living with his name and he wanted to start a fresh life in some unknown place with a new name. His legs were moving but they didn't knew the destination. The heavenly environment didn't made any difference in him.
An hour walk took him to a small ashram. He felt attracted to it. It had a divine environment with plenty of statues of Hindu god and goddess and a large meditation hall. He stepped in, but something prevented him to enter into that meditation hall. It was a large statue on the right side of that hall. It was the statue of Lord Balarama with a large plough and a mace in his hands while his name was written below it. On looking at the name plate, he jumped in rejoice as if he got his greatest wealth of life. He got so indulge in his jumping and pooping that he didn't noticed that people around him were disturbed. His laughter was like a nuclear bomb in the silent environment of the asram. Two guards came running and without even warning him, they dragged him and threw him out of the ashram. He didn't felt bad because he had got something more special to be happy.
Well, can you guess what he noticed that made him so happy. The name plate had something engraved like this:
"LORD BALRAM; also known as BALBHADRA and HALDHAR".Yes, exactly the thing you are thinking happened. Another court affidavit was made to change his name. Currently Mr. B. Singh is known as Mr. HALDHAR SINGH, keeping the meaning intact.
So, my dear readers please keep one thing in mind that for the next time if you get a chance to name a newly born baby, then please do him or her a small favour by naming the baby with some spelling and pronunciation robust name and that doesn't pushes him or her into such trouble because some times THE NAME SHAKES the person very badly.
One such fine example is " KADUA "
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