What is there in a name?
That which we call as rose,
By any other name it would smell as sweet.

It has been very difficult for me to relate myself with this quote. Sometimes, I felt I have a name, therefore I am. And there were also times when I felt- I am, therefore I have a name. Descartes would have said the same if he had been at my place.

From kindergarten to Post-graduation, the first question was- what, can you spell it for me? Everyone found it so very difficult that they doubted if I could at least pronounce it. Some have also told me that I am very lucky to have no lisping or spoonerism effects even after having lived with this name for almost twenty four years! So much so, that when I got acquainted with people, they would ask me, do you have a nick name? Or can we shorten it? I generally didn't liked the idea. Whenever they tried to do that, I felt as if my height has been shortened or as if I had been robbed. So, I refused to come up with any ideas regarding my name. Witty people tried to put it this way- "How about a pen name?", I said,"Well, Parker or Pierre Cardin suits me!" A really good friend came up with the idea of naming me  Niche. I liked it a lot, but a little fearful that people might not think it is transliterated from Hindi and think I am downstairs. Anyways, it gives me a Nietzsche kind of a feeling.

Then there were days, when I literally hated the fact that people mis-spelt my name. People are so very conventional and stereotypical, even with names. aaaah! May be the sound "ya" at the end of a girl's name is common so they would usually say "Nishpriya". In my tenth grade, I did think of changing my name to this, at least I wouldn't be miss-pronounced, oops I meant mis-pronounced (Even the pun doesn't work in my case). Then, I moved forward with my relationship but it got tougher and tougher. College days were much tougher,more papers you see. I asked one of the registrars to find my identification card and she said, "What's your name?"
(Oh no, there she goes!) "hmmm, Nishpriha."
"Okay, give me two minutes, I will find it for you."
(Wow! she's amazing, got my name at one go.)
"sorry Miss Neha, we don't have it."
(too quick to judge)

Then, I had variants, or to say Apbhramsha in Hindi. People never got fed up of naming me. If anywhere I heard Priya, Nisha, Nishu, my ears tended to raise and be a little alert. It could be me. The best are by my folks. They love my name as much as I do so they never thought of changing it. But you know, not pronouncing correctly comes with the package. They would call me Nis-piriha, nisapriha. or something like that. But thankfully, it was never changed to those crazy nicknames which have their lasting presence, especially when you don't want to get embarrassed. Nicknames like Gudiya, buchi, baua, all these sort of remained away from me. Yes, some people called me Nishi and that was pretty good for me, because they said that this is their password. Now, if they had set my name as their password, they would have never been able to access their accounts or any such things. My name has those mischievous traits, you know~ to take to a wrong letter.

Then, the curious sorts. In all my interviews, meetings, conferences, the first thing they asked was- "What does it mean?" I had this so much on my tips that I could say it anytime. It definitely became ornamental at one point of time and so whenever I met people, I would say, do you know what my name means? and then they had to bear with it out of courtesy!

I still live with the same name, some letters here, some letters there.

Your name
just your name exists;
could there be
a better poem?
~ Gulzar