A History of Length

"Morvillil Valsakumar Unnikrishnan."

To say it was a mouthful, like a foot long subway sandwich, was an understatement. Just like the sandwich, you had to chew through the sparsely filled outer crust, in this case my family and my father, before you got to me, little boy Krishnan, the literal translation of the name. It was my grandmother's idea, the little boy, and my parents always swore off any involvement in its creation, a crafty move considering the creator no longer existed to give me an explanation.

Not that it mattered then. In India, I was the 2nd Unnikrishnan in the class and the 3rd Unnikrishnan in the neighbourhood, living in a society devoid of imagination and filled with grandmothers who could not bear to see their grandsons grow up. The first signs of trouble arose when all packed up and ready to move to a new country that I had earlier great difficulty finding on the map, I ran out of boxes to write my full name on the immigration card. 

Here on the tiny island where 94% of the names never exceed 7 alphabets, the system neither had the space nor patience to accommodate this length. Without my consultation, my family name was knocked off and I was left with my father, which even in actuality was not the most fun of propositions. Classmates and teachers preferred Unni, which they chanted, without thankfully knowing what it meant. Though every now and then, the occasional relief teacher would while taking attendance call out hesitantly and afraid,

"VA-LAH-SA_.."

"Here", I would blurt out to ease her and my suffering to the sniggers of my classmate.

The problems did not end there. While the school officially decided not to acknowledge the existence of my family name, not everyone stuck to this practise. Like the french invigilator who insisted everyone wrote their full names on every piece of paper in the exam. Without even bothering to take a look, she would stare at me while I scrambled to write my name on every page at the end of the paper and ask.

"Tu prends longtemps! Peut-être, écrit ton nom avant le papier"

Oh I did do that. Just that if I did carry on doing that, my name would be pretty much the only thing for you to read in this paper.

It was under these circumstances that I heard that an official name change was possible, an effort I immediately dedicated myself to. After contacting a purported lawyer who specialised in changing names, I set up a meeting with him. Waiting at McDonald's, my saviour would make his appearance in a football jersey and slippers (guess this specialisation did not pay that much) with a thin brown piece of paper that he would ask me to sign in return for $90. 

"Thats it?", I enquired on signing it, with an eye on the new name, almost half French; Krishnan Morvil.

"Yes. That's it", he answered with the least interested of tones.

It should have ended there, but the truth of matter is that we live in a world where the sales of oranges are decreasing because people are just too lazy to peel of the skin (no joke!). Krishnan should have been simple enough, but no, it had to be pronounced wrongly. "Krish-naan", was what took the place of Unni, a name that was pronounced as if friends were offering me some Indian flat bread. 

"Its Krish-nun."

"Krish-nu-ahn?"

"Just call me Krish"

And even that was not enough. 'Sh' takes more effort and more breath that 'ss', plus when it ends with a s, it sounds more familiar, more comforting, something my colleagues have switched to without any consent of mine. As such, here I am today, a long way from home, sounding like yet another white man wannabe.

"Hi. My name is Krishnan. You can call me Chris"