My name is Venkatadri

Oh Yeah! If you didn’t know my full name, it is Venkatadri. Now let us rewind to the past, say August 31st 1989 7.08 pm. The baby Venk was born nameless. The Baby Venk’s dad decided to name him “Venkatadri” because he had a friend by that name who was polite, God fearing and wore a “Thirmann” (for you guys it is simply Naamam) in his forehead. Years passed and The Baby Venk soon became The kid Venk. The Kid Venk passed LKG with flying colors and he had to write his name on a cardboard hat. Every other kid just had to say the name and the teacher would spell it.

But The Venk had trouble brewing, the teacher asked “Come here, What’s your name?”

He never knew the eternal mantra “It doesnt matter what the name is” so he said, “My name is Venkatadri”

The teacher was quiet befuddled “Venkatachalam?!!”

The Kid Venk got pissed off “No miss! Venkatadri”

The clueless teacher replied “Do one thing child, let your mom write your name on it!”

The Kid Venk returned home and asked his mom “Amma spell my name” After some discussion with dad she said “V E N K A T A D R I” A naive Kid Venk asked “So these bunch of letters are my name?! Shouldn’t it be ‘D H R I’” The kid Venk’s mom got annoyed “Deii! Stop asking questions and write these letters on the hat” And that was how The Venk got enlightened of his name’s spelling at tender age!

Wherever The Venk went, new names got added to the list. On one fine day, to be precise, sports day, The Venk enrolled himself for a  running race. Yeah I caught your mind voice, leave the poor kid alone! It was 1st standard and I ran fast enough. Lets not get into the controversial result part and get to the enrolling.

The person who was writing down the names asked “what is your name?”

“VENKATADRI”

“What?! VENKATAGIRI?”

*When did D sound like G!* “No, Venkatadri! Shall i spell?”

“I dont have time for this, Venkatagri it is!”

  Holy Jesus! VENKATAGRI is even worse! If only, i was friends with @Cheese_charmer at that time, he would come up with something like What would you call if The Venk did agriculture? VenkatAGRICULTURE! The guy is a pucca wordplay addict I tell you!

  Every new person gets the first part of my name right “Venkat….” and then their brain numbs! ‘VenkatWHAT?”  Seriously they must have never heard Suprabatham, Kali kaalam! kali kaalam! And the trend continued till I switched schools from Alpha matriculation to GRT Mahalakshmi Vidyalaya. Every new teacher who came to my class asked my name and got owned! If i get a substitute teacher, I would be like “Oh! damn here we go again” . Sometimes it would be “Venkatachalam” or “Venkatachalapathy”, sometimes “Venkatesh”, sometimes “Venkatagiri”, sometimes “Venkata3” (Actually, which is much better!) but mostly it was “Venkatachalam” And oh yeah one creep called me “Venkatachari”

The number of times my name got confused decreased drastically when I switched school! But then a new thing clung on! Every time I say “I study at GRT Mahalakshmi Vidyalaya” they would go like, “GRT Thanga Maaligai?” Chuck that! I thought there could be no more addition to my mispronounced name list but my PT teachers thought differently!

There you go, my PT teacher Mrs Bhuvana “What is your name?”

“My name is Venkatadri”

“VenkataBADHRI?!”

Onion chutney on a paasi paruppu pongal! VENKATABADHRI?!!!! The annoying thing is, she kept on calling me that even after, me telling her umpteen number of times!

There you go again, my PT teacher Mr Sarathi “Adeiii! Tell your name I have to note it down for the for the T-shirt size!”

“Oh okay, Red house, size: XL and the name is Venkatadri”

“Okay VenkatRAJ I noted it down, come and take your shirt tomorrow”

I’ve never heard Venkatraj before in my life! I just giggled and went off the room! I became so paranoid, that when people ask my name for noting it down i used to spell them “V E N K A T A D R I” I never talked in class because the class leader would butcher by writing my name on the board.

But to my surprise, i didn’t have to repeat my name over and over again since college! May be the world started waking up to Suprabatham once again! I thought, why shouldn’t i tweak my own name. I realised that my name was infinitely tweakable.

Oh! You name yourself The Rock! I am The Venk. Oh! you’re John Cena! I am Venk Cena! Move over Undertaker; I am Venktaker! You dont call me Thayir Sadam, I am vencurd! My Micros SD car aint a memory card, it is “vencard” What if my sister marries and bears a child and what would it call me? Uncle! NO “Vencle!” I just kept on tweaking every other thing that i possibly can!

Just when I thought it was all over, IT begun! I went to The Indian Bank a few days back to take a DD! And you know how these guys at the Bank work! The guy asked me to sit down and told that he would call my name when he prints the DD, that too I was the only one he had to serve! That imbecile called me! “VENGADAGIREE” I guess this never ends! Ah! IT DOESNT MATTER MY NAME IS!