When I meet new people, I already
have an interesting topic to talk about-thanks to my name! It serves as
a great icebreaker! It is not a name that you will come across every
day and sounds like it belongs in those classics of Tamil literature. I
have only come across one 'Karkuzhali' personally, and a handful on the
Internet. Whoever I meet asks me what it means and I delightedly launch
into the story of my name.
My father was a
writer of par both in his mother tongue, the classical language of
Tamil, and English. Little wonder that he wanted to name his firstborn
in chaste Tamil. According to my stars, my grandfather insisted that my
name should start with the letter 'ka' of the Tamil alphabet. When my
father chose the name 'Kannagi', the heroine from the great Tamil epic
'Silappathikaram', my grandfather was not impressed as her story had a
tragic ending, and the name search continued. Even as a newborn, they
say I had a thick mop of curly black hair, and my writer-poet father
came up with the poetic 'Karkuzhali'. It means the 'one with hair as
dark as the rain clouds'.
When I was in
middle and high school, my classmates used to tease me by calling me
'Kar' (car), 'Bus'-kuzhali and 'lorry'-kuzhali. No wonder, I was never
happy with the name and used to beg my parents to let me change it.
Then, I met a girl with a name almost like mine at college and was quite
relieved when she narrated her experiences, which were also similar to
mine. Not that my woes came to an end, people I meet at shops,
hospitals, post offices, banks, and other places still bungle up my name
so badly that it makes me squirm. It is pronounced 'carcurrelli' and I
understand it is quite a tongue-twister. But, when native Tamil speakers
don't even make an attempt to get it right, it makes me sad.
As I grew older, I realized that I had a unique name and brushed
aside any suggestions to change it. However, about 10 years ago, when I
entered the corporate workspace, one of my managers suggested that I let
him address me as 'KK' as it was the practice in the organization to
contract long names to two-syllabic ones. And, here I am, Karkuzhali to
the larger world, Kuzhali to family and close friends, and KK at my
workplace. We don't have the tradition of surnames or family names, and
Sreedhar is my husband's name.
Now, when people tell me that I have such a unique and awesome name, I feel happy and proud.