Self Pity : Part I

Four years of studying Shakespeare ("The Merchant of Venice" and "Hamlet") hasn't quite convinced me to agree with him - not too much. The reasons are two-fold:

• I never really understood what he wanted us to understand, and
• I still don't

(e.g. "The Merchant of Venice" is supposed to be a comedy - but you still can't find anything to laugh reading it. Whereas, "Hamlet" is a tragedy but still the hero might make you laugh with his - don't nuke me please - Bushesque blabbering. But then, haven't I already accepted that I never really understood what Shakespeare wrote ?)

Why the post is titled "Self Pity" and why my gibbering away about Shakespeare is - actually inter-related.

One of his plays has actually spawned, at least inspired, a successful industry here and here. And it is a line from this play that I oppugn. It goes thus,

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."

I agree much has been written on the subject here and there. But much of it has been a bit generalized to represent my predicament. Yes, this one's personal. And I am the protagonist of this tragedy.

I don't know who named me, and I have never quite cared for it to ask my parents - actually I quite liked my name - names don't get any shorter, not the complete one's at least. It saved me a lot of writing while filling up a myriad of forms (especially between the time I left school and started college).

I knew that in the northern (and I supposed the western too) part of India - though I might be known as a "North Indian" in "South India" (sometimes this sounds - and often feels - like two different countries), I am - technically - a "East Indian" (check here for confirmation) - girls are named "Suman" (though I did not find it here, I succeeded here). And, as expected, I did not find any reference of boys named "Suman" here or here, but I did find it here, as expected.

And this isn't surprising, because "Suman" is a standard name for boys in bangla. But who's listening? So when I ask for an address proof letter from my HR department, they promptly make it out to "Ms. Suman De" !!???

People (read "non-Bongs" and here for a disambiguation) don't know how to pronounce my name bangla-shtyle, and that compounds my problem. In the hindi-speaking belt of India, "Suman" is pronounced "Sue-ma(a)n" (the stress on the second 'a' is lesser). Whereas, my name is supposed to be pronounced - "Shoe-moan" !!?? So, everytime I have to introduce myself - not many people actually want to get introduced to me, so that's a savior (!!) - I have to pronounce it the way non-bongs will undertsand - "Sue-ma(a)n" (I sometimes fear that I will, someday, forget the correct pronunciation myself). And this applies to German's as well (this statement has no other purpose than to tell you that I have been to Germany - and this was to clarify if you didn't quite make out yourself).

Ergo, whoever is on the other side of the phone offering me credit-cards and personal loans and holiday packages (for which, surprisingly, I have to pay for) and, even, school-admissions (surprisingly again, not for me, but my kids !!!??), I am liable to be addressed "Ma'am" :(

(I just hanged-up on one such call.) I think, I am (not without reason, if you ask me) getting a tad too self-indulgent and self-piteous...I need a smoke...ciao...

"Is there anybody out there, who feels the way I do ?"

And, yes, it doesn't end here...there's more to it...Part II coming soon...

ps: pardon those here's and there's...but, believe me, they are worth checking out