If tomorrow comes........

'That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'

Is that what everyone thinks? Well, I think not.

My name, as simple as it is (once you know it), has been changed and renamed beyond recognition to me.What may this name be, you might say. My name is Shiji. I have been wondering about why my parents would name me that way but havent got a clue in these more than 20 odd years (age has been protected out of respect for the privacy of the author). Nobody gets my name in the first go. Well that is allright, I do not expect everyone to be a Malayali. Having been brought up in Mumbai, I have been surrounded by Gujuratis and Maharashtrians. For Gujuratis, I am Shriji. For Maharasthrians, I am Shivaji. Can you believe that? How can people turn Shiji into Shriji and Shivaji? (If you think that is bad enough, wait till you hear the different versions of my surname) And no matter how hard I try to tell them that it is not so, only makes them say it with all the more vigor. But then the point to be noted here is that both versions of my name are names of great people and I can take the compliment, however indirect it is.

Well to top that, all Indian names have a meaning to it. What do I make of Shiji?

People come to me and ask me, "Well allright, your name is Shiji but what does it mean?"

Me - "It does not mean anything."

People (with shocked disbelief) - "What do you mean by that? How can it not mean anything?"

It was allright back in India. But I have had people other than Indians coming and asking me that. It became so bad that I could stand it no longer. I had to go and try to find the meaning of my name. I mean after all this, how can I not have a significance to my name? I ask my family members what it means and they all laugh at me. They tell me that I am lucky they named me Shiji and not Kochumol or Soshammakutty or something.

After the support that I got from them, I tried googling my name and found that it meant something in Chinese. I had to go ask some Chinese friends at work to know it. It has a couple of meanings it seems. It could be 'fact' or also 'ancient'. So there, I am an ancient fact. Now how could I have overlooked that?