Name and Place

It is really funny how in each region a person is called in a different way.
As South Indians we don't have any last name just some one or two Alphabets of English which is called Initials which is written after or before our first names . It must be very unique to South India where people are addressed by there first names and the first letter of father's name and or the first letter of the name of the place to which they belong would be added to their name as Initials.
So a person would be known as Ramesh P.S. where P will stand for his village and S will stand for his father's name. Many times his name will be written as P.S. Ramesh and when his wife will be known as Mrs. Ramesh which is unthinkable in any other place as the Mrs. is always added to the last name of a person.
Now that people have started traveling every where this confusion of name is more pronounced. In the above example if the initials are put before his name where let us say P stands for some small obscure village in Tamil Nadu in South India say Pachampettai, in airports or hotels or other public places when they want to invite the attention of Ramesh he will be called Pachampettai thinking it is his first name. Poor fellow would not have seen this village even once in his life and will not even be knowing he is being called. When he realizes it is he who is wanted he will be flabbergasted. Of course in due course he will get used to it and life goes on. This has happened many times to my hubby dear and now we are used to his being called by his village name.

Now another problem is when this Ramesh is taken as a last name his wife will be Mrs. Ramesh. When he gets a son he will be named as say Arun and he will be Arun . R, but will be generally known as Arun Ramesh (as these days wisely most of the South Indians are dropping the initials which stands for their village or place and have only one initial) Arun's wife also will be known as Mrs. Ramesh where as actually she is Mrs. Arun. Hahaha very confusing right.

Well in some Kerala Christian families the first name of a person will be the last name of the son. So Thomos Joseph's son will be Jeffery Thomos. where as his brother Jacob Joseph's son will be John Jacob . More confusing right.
But many of the North Indian and Maharashtrian and North Karnataka people have this last name which they call as sur name . There will not be much confusion about their first names and last names.
They also do not understand the naming pattern of South Indians and they think all Ramesh's are related to each other thinking it is the family name. When I went to live in Maharashtra I was always asked 'thula nav kai' which means what is your name. What they meant was what was my sur name. I used to jokingly say that I don't have any name as I put my husband's first name as my last name.
In India lot of migration has been taking place in the last 100 years or so. My grand father who worked in Govt.(British) Service went to live in his village in Tamil Nadu after retirement. Where as my father who was educated in Benaras Hindu University ended up being in Bangalore where we were all grew up. But true to being a Tamilian we all carried two initials one the first letter of our Village the other first letter of our Father's name. My father never went back to live in that Village. I never had the opportunity to live in the village which was part of my name but had visited it only a few times. Later after marriage I had to live in many cities as my husband worked in an All India Service which took us to many places.
We happen to get a transfer to Palghat which is in Kerala.
Keralites are very attached to their native place or village and normally they go back to their native place to live after retiring from active service. So the first question they used to ask me is 'Nad Evide' which means Which is your place. I was and am still flabbergasted with that question. I feel I belong to Bangalore but since I had carried my Village name with me I always wonder whether to tell that Village name or Bangalore. So I used to say I don't have any 'nadu'
Thus by the time I reached my late thirties I had lost my place as well as my name from my journey from Kerala to Maharashtra. Now that I have traveled and lived in places outside India, May be I have really become a global personality without realizing it. As they say in tamil 'yaadhum oore yaavarum kelir' Let me add one more thing. What is in a name........