The Elephant Explanation


Theme: Home Affairs of Elephant Warriors

Day 1 A: The Animal Acquisition 

Far far away, nestled in the virgin hills of Assam, lived
the three infamous siblings – the Elephant warriors, busy raging wars against
each other in the frontyard of their home. While the family dog Tiger would be
jumping along, mutilating fallen opponents by its dripping saliva- laden licks.
(Image Google)
Clang khachak Dhisoommm … after a black a eye and some
hair loss, the mother would often intervene. A wriggle of ear and warning that
they won’t be allowed to even get a whiff of delicious Hakka Noodles, was
enough to make them put down their weapons, which in this case was a bamboo
stick, a broken ladle and rolled newspaper
. Often the warriors were involved in
hand to hand combat, usually sparked by incidents like the youngest secretly
wearing the t-shirt of the eldest to a birthday party
.
When Shakespeare said “What’s in a name”… he couldn’t have
been more wrong. Imagine living your whole life with Hati (“Elephant”) as your
surname. My ancestors belonging to Ahom dynasty were overly enthusiastic to
display one’s occupation in the name. Centuries later, their relentless love
for Elephant as the surname, landed yours truly in the middle of every school’s
ridicule program. 😛 I have seen my teachers stutter and stammer whenever they
read my name aloud, wondering if HATI could really be someone’s name. 
And then, years later, I met a wonderful “Peacock” and spectacled “Moonjely” in Sydney. Well, Hati sounds pretty cool now. 
Do you have such a name??

Don’t forget to hop on to my Poetry Wagon for Essence
Explore Elephant Waterterfall  at my photo/Travel blog

55 thoughts on “The Elephant Explanation

  1. Hahahahaa!! That is a great post! Forget surname, I had a name all through school and college that even today I cringe when I think about. It's actually my granny's name (we have a tradition to carry on our ancestor's names) so maybe its sacrilege to hate the name, but whatever. I hated it. When I got married, one of the first things I did was run to the Gazette office and not only change my surname, but also my name. Phew! My school friends, still ensure that I can be blackmailed with it even today!

  2. I really enjoyed reading your post. We have some lovely neighbours called Hathi. 🙂

    Through my childhood, I have been at the receiving end of badly pronounced names, thanks to a Goan /Portuguese surname. I often had to write it out in Devnagri script so that people knew how to say it. Didn't help much, sadly.
    It would be a cool theme for an FB group – "sufferers of mal-pronounced names, Unite! " 😉

  3. haha..well we all have issues with our names , don't we? Mine is Nabanita and while I was studying in UP they found it excessively long and thought I was from a place where people lived in trees and hence such unheard names…And I'm not joking!

    Random Thoughts Naba

  4. Hati is an excellent name. Easy to pronounce in Australia. What if your last name is Amravaneswaran. They would kill that name while pronouncing that.

  5. Hehe now thats a happy post- I am pretty sure everyone who had read it must have smiled 🙂 and after a time one gets used to things that seem unusual. Amazing history behind, it sounds cool! 🙂

  6. Now that's a funny take on elephants. My maiden name was a tiny town in South India, which sounds hilarious. And when in Africa, people struggled to say it. Not that my first name was easy to pronounce either, for them 😉

  7. Hahaha! Names can be difficult, for sure. My birth surname was Kimmerly and people were CONSTANTLY putting a "B" in there (Kimberly). Drove me nuts! I changed to my husband's surname when we married and I like that much better. 🙂

  8. Ouch! Had to smile though at your take on it all. Here's one for you in terms of names: Woodcock-Johnson. They developed an IQ test which we learnt about and couldn't stop giggling through the lesson…

  9. LOL, You got me with you sister!
    Just imagine is your surname in Hindi meant "UGLY"
    My surname means "UGLY" in Hindi. 🙁
    well if anything, I used it in my blog url 😛

  10. oh lol you narrated that very well. I had a friend whose cousins were called Bundle and Potla. I hope for their sake they were only nicknames.

  11. Another one of your great-fun-to-read writeups, Rajlakshmi! And yes, I too have had eyebrows raised about my name – my first name, that is! What does it mean? Never heard of it.. isn't it really Bela…etc etc…? 🙂

  12. My last name was Cleage (pronounced like Clegg) People usually mispronounced it but there was no fun attached. My middle name was Graham and although I didn't suffer, my granddaughter who is also a Graham and my cousin who had the middle name of Graham were tortured by being called "Graham cracker".

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