THE NAME ......THAT IS ..ABHAY .....

Me @ Grandpa's house.. was 9 yrs old then..

so after a while i thought about bloggin... What to write ?? That was what i was thinking about.. Then remembered about a conversation i had with Sindhya.. We were talking about our childhood days.. She had an interesting story abt her birth and i too had one or two about my childhood days.. One was about my name...I promised her that i will blog about it when i get time.. And also i told a friend whom i met in Orkut , Jayaprabha that i will blog about how i was named Abhay...

I wasn't named Abhay.. Actually was named Shyam initially... Dont know how someone can come up with a weird idea like this..

My father's name is Vijayamohan.M and my mother's name is Vijayalekshmi Pillai.. My mother had lot of bad experiences in her life coz her name started with 'V' ... Something like she was always among the last in class rolls .. Her name was the penultimate one in the call list for her job interview... Well dont ask me whats the big deal in it ... I have asked her a million times... I think its just that she didnt want to be the last one in anything.. She has got a nice attitude... May be thats why... And i am not blaming her in any way....

So my mother had this great idea that if my name started with 'A' i will be first in everything ... In class rolls,studies (yea rite.... God and me knos how i manage to pass in every exam .. :P), sports ( God were am i leadin to ??? ) and in every good stuff that one can think of and yea i almost forgot .. i would be among the first ones to be called in for the job interview...( :P)

So she told this to my achan.. Well my achan did not have any problems with my name being Shyam.. But at the same time he couldnt do much... Tried his best in arguing... NO USE... Atlast amma won... And she asked achan to find me an appropriate name.... And believe it or not it took him 2 days to find me a name that my amma also liked... My achan has an aunt who is a Bengali.. His father's brother married from Kolkata.. I think he must have got the idea about a north indian name after talkin to his uncle... And Abhay was perfect name for me according to amma.. Not many names can come before considering the alphabetical order.. And also the name is rare here in South India..

And the only time when i was not first in class rolls was when i joined my college.. Actually i came to GEC by higher option... So my name was added in the end... Roll Number 61.... Yess for the first time in my life i enjoyed being last in my class rolls.... Even the staff advisor did not bother to remove the names of people who left the college from the rolls... So there were 3 or 4 permanent absentees.... :P ... But the joy was quite short lived..... When the University hall ticket came i was again first in my rolls.. 03401001.. That was my roll number....

I still remember the day on which my 10th standard board exams started... I was already tensed like anything.. And i was just about to enter my exam hall when one of my english teachers called me .. Seetha Lekshmy teacher called me and said " Abhay the future of our students depends upon your paper. Yours is the first paper in the bundle coz u r the first person in the rolls.. And FIRST IMPRESSION is the BEST IMPRESSION .. You know that naa... So do well "... Imagine what would have been going through my mind ?? Thank god i didnt pass out right there... Well the results were excellent that year .. Out of 92 students appeared 86 got above 80 and the lowest marks i think was 76%.... Seetha Lekshmy teacher was one of the best teachers in my school and i had the privilege of being a student of her for 3 years... May be the conversation i had with her just before the exam might have unknowingly helped me to do well in the exams.... Sometimes pressure can make u do things even better.... Sometimes it may affect u too.... Well i think at that time it really helped me... It just made me think that i got to do well... And i did my exams pretty well.....

Coming back .... In the end i was named Abhay... Coming to think of it i dont think i can blame my mother at all ( clarification: I never did blame her though).. She just wanted me to be the very best... Even if it meant changing my name... Thank You Amma.. Thank You very much... For makin me unique atleast with respect to my name (:P) ....Well actually i dont know whether this name is a curse or actually a boon.... As Jayaprabha scrapped " its ur name.ABHAY.it has a definite meaning." Yea it does have a definite meaning ... And i hope i am a person just like my name...

Its me!!!! Both photos taken on 22/3/1986

The good old days..With my achan and sis...

My sister is actually showing us how my father

reads his newspaper (minus what she is doing with

her tongue)... Come to think of it.. she didnt know

how to read then !!!! (:P)

The 2 CANNIBALS..... (:P)