Is your birth name the name that's "yours"?

Oh, oh, oh. I love this question. It reminds me of me when I was a baby gorl. Mmm, mmm, mmm. A teeny-tiny little me.


God, god, god, why am I answering this question again? Yike, it makes me wished I could pick me up, hold me, change my own diapers. lol.


Oh, well, back to the question of why I am in total love with my own self..er.. I mean my own name.


You see, a few days after I was born, my mom contacted the family priest who chanted a few Hindu words, looked up to the heavens and solemnly predicted that a gorl-buddha had arrived on our planet...lol...oh-kay, alright, alright, back to  seriousness ...only kidding, ppl, ppl...  

So!!!  The family priest asked for the time and date of my birth, then he looked into this thoroughly worn out book and told my mom to call me "a, m and a"

Yike. 

I was basically given a vowel and a consonant. Good thing I wasn't fully conscious or I'd think I had landed on some "wheel of fortune" TV show and not planet earth.

Umm, so yes, if we arranged that in any kind of disorder, my name should have been "A-M-A". And I would have been fine with that, everyone calling me "Ama" as if I was some universal mother. Yike.

However, in those days, in my retarded village, everyone was like monkey see, monkey do. So my mom and the priest tagged "TIE" to my name as if I was going to run away with my own damn name.

Sadly, I became "AMA TIE" Yike. If u think that sucks, think about my poor gorl friends. They were Parba-tie, Madhuma-tie, phulma-tie, Sucky-tie, Retarded-tie and so on and so on...and the whole school of bloody boys never tire of teasing the ‘tie' gorls.

Anyway, I was tired of being a ‘tie' but tagged along with it until one day, during my college days, seventeen whole bloody years later, my gorlfriend re-labelled me. U see, I was new to college and had joined the wrong line on my second day. And along came my loud friend who reached out with one long arm and pulled me out of the line with an "Amy! This is not your line."

Oh yeah, right. That was not my name too...but my friend kept on calling me, "Amy" And before I knew it, everyone, even the teachers and all the other students were treating me like an Amy gorl and to me that meant I was not only eastern but western as well. And now even my own mother calls me "Amy". (Poor dead priest, it's a fortunate thing he can't hear her.)

My middle name however was loved by me instantly. My dad gave that one to me. You see, even though he was never born in India, he kept on dreaming about India....and after I was born, he had to slip something extra Indian-like into my name...and if Indira Ghandhi wasn't the ruling female prime minister at the time, I swear, my dad would have called me "India" or "Hindi" or yike, even "River Ganges". My brothers and sisters still call me Indy, short for Indira and that in Sanskrit means "splendid"

Even though it may sound as if I don't like my ama-tie name, I do. It's all me, unique me...

I have many endearing nicknames as well but my doctor is the only one who still calls me "ama-tie" She absolutely loves it and thinks its unique....and of course that's becuz she never met all the other ‘Tie gorls of my village.

Anyway, today I meant to blog about how Ama-tie, met a bunch of sweet Gaians who had no clue she is a "tie' in Amy's clothes but then I bumped into this question so I will have to tell u about our Gaian meet up another day.

Until then, a warm hug and sweet smiles for all of you, my delicious readers.