Sadly, my name too belongs to the long and rather complex south-Indian name and even I am not spared. My name, `Srivathsan', is often confused with the surname `Srivastav'. Many of my school-teachers and even some of my classmates used to call me so. I used to plead to them to stop straining their grey cells to guess the right pronunciation of my name and call me just `Sri'. But no. They were all the more motivated to get their lip-tongue coordination right.

Some people who find it too complex to pronounce my name, take the safer route and call me by my surname. Personally, I do dislike it, but it is much better than making a mess of my name. Some of my juniors in my school used to call me `Shiree bhaiyya'. That was horrible!

One thing I fail to understand is what is so difficult with my name.

`Sri + Vathsan = Srivathsan'. So simple and lucid. This has been happening to me since my childhood. I am very sympathetic to the people whose names have met the fate as that of mine and I assure all of you that this mockery is not going to stop, since neither will these people change, nor will our names.