Radhesh celebrated his 14 birthday on 29 August. We purchased a nice cake from a rural bakery and they even wrote his name on the cake. But they didn't get his name right. So he was a bit annoyed that nowhere people get his name right. But we had a great time and the cake was very nice to taste.So what is in a name? With the recent terrorism boogey, spelling names in English has become important. Because most governments have strict border controls, and they do not know whom they can let in, they are quite happy to rely on English spellings. But as you know English is not very suitable for Indian names and most definitely other country names.
However, in India there is a phenomenon called numeralogy which is a system based on the belief that numbers govern our lives. In order to get the right numbers, some alphabets are added to names even if it is not the conventional spelling. The name Raman can be written as Raaman. Although I just do not believe this and believe that this is a waste of time and money, we suggested Radhesh that his name may have been modified for the sake of numeralogy. Radhesh has now become curious about numeralogy.
3 comments:
I've been dealing with this spelling issue with a colleague's missus who has recently given birth and deserves a card. We spent more than a few minutes using Google trying to decide whether (on balance of probability) she was Jyoti, Jyoty, or Jyothi. But it looks like her bloke used one spelling in an e-mail while she uses another, and so anything close seems to be good enough.
You have left out Jyothy which is also frequently used in South India. The same confusion with Mythily or is it Mythili. Kannoorpatti is even more bizarre. My dad and brother have got the spellings Kannurpatti. I got my passport before they did. However, Indian languages are generally phonetic and, except for Tamil, most 'international' names can spelt and read correctly.
Radhesh is still grappling with this bizarre concept called numeralogy.
coming back to rad's name though... isn't it a bit odd that we DO call him radhesh? I mean his name is supposed to be radheshyam- shyam and his consort amalgamated... maybe thats why we dont find many people named radesh because it doesn't hold much weight in the meaning dept. without the '-yam'
-mmk
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