What's up with people? I mean, some 20 -30 years ago, people gave much simpler names to their kids like Ramesh, Suresh, Kumar, Geetha, Sita, Rani...... and these days they somehow tend to come up with Akanksha, Ananya, Ajathashatru and other such tongue-twisters.

I was checking on the name of a kid with his parent (my ex-colleague), and pat came the reply, "Prajval". "Oh! sounds good!!!" (true lies - truth is, i haven't heard that name before). I dont have a circle of friends who have kids (I can tolerate kids, but not their parents who fuss over them no end - another pet peeve, that deserves another post), or else, I could have come up with much more examples of names that have little practical advantage. I wonder why people resort to this convention of naming their kids with an unheard of, unpronouncable name. All those who are guilty of this crime, come up with your excuse :)

The best naming story however would be this: I had a collegue by name 'Dukman'. It was not intended to be that, though. The originally intended name was 'Lukman' - a not so common Muslim name (I think). But while submitting his school application, his dad wrote his name with such an artistic handwriting that the 'L' appeared like 'D' to the school assistant accepting the application. So, he was entered as 'Dukman' in the school records and was condemned to life-long 'dukh'. He had a tough time answering the question, "May I know who's speaking?" at the other end of the phone, coz, well..... his dad had a beautiful handwriting :)