Bharathi Ramana Joshi. That’s my name. Yes, it sounds quite feminine for a male name, but who cares? As long as it is the name of your favorite Hindu god, does it matter how it sounds? That’s it. That’s how I was named, after the mighty Hanuman. In pure Sanskrit, ‘Bharathi Ramana’ means husband of the goddess ‘Bharathi’. The name might sound cool to a Sanskrit genius who is aware of the Hindu mythology, but there aren’t many such people, are there? And that’s why my name became a joke.

As a kid, I didn’t really care what people called me. But people called me. People used to call me Ramana! Imagine if someone who is aware of what Ramana means in Sanskrit (it means husband) was around! Everyone called me Ramana!  So many people calling ‘husband’! Wouldn’t that be awkward? That was how it was for a while. Then, I changed schools. I had to introduce myself again and I made sure people didn’t call me by my middle name. So what did they call me? Bharathi! Now, that wasn’t too nice either! Calling a  guy by a girl’s name. And that was how things were until the 10th grade.

Then,  Intermediate. I had to introduce myself all over again. So this time, I made sure people called me neither Bharathi nor Ramana. And so, I introduced myself as Bharath. That worked out very well until I had to reveal my full name. So when I told people my name was Bharathi Ramana Joshi, they were very surprised! They flooded me with questions such as “Bharath isn’t your first, middle or your last name; why should I call you Bharath?”. And answering such questions was a big pain. But somehow, I convinced them to call me Bharath. And that was pretty good. Short and sweet. Just Bharath. I’m doing the same thing now, at college. Introducing myself as Bharath. I’ll have to wait until people find out my full name and then once again, take the pain of answering dumb questions.

Well, that is the story of my name. Pretty funny. Now, if I could choose my own name, I’d name myself Bharath. Just Bharath. No first name, no last name, just Bharath. Bharath, because I can avoid all the fuss.

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