What's in a (last) name

I had to face yet another instance of What's-your-surname-ing over here. It's really exasperating to have to explain every time that I come from a place in India where having a surname is not really the practice.

The first time I came across this was when I had been to a police station to report the loss of my mobile phone. The constable who was on duty at that time wrote my first name (my only name!) down, and then waited for me to say my surname too. When I repeated the same name as my father's name too, he looked at me with more than a hint of irritation and said, "But I am asking you your father's name!" I patiently explained that I come from South India where the practice of last names is not generally followed. He gave me a It-takes-all-kinds-to-make-this-world look and went on with taking down the complaint! I cursed him in my mind for his attitude of superiority, and that too over a last name!

Since then, there have been other occasions when people have given me a puzzled look on being informed (politely) that I don't have a surname. What the heck, a guy has absolutely every right to NOT have a last name! It's your problem, not mine, if you refuse to believe that people can exist, and quite happily too, without a last name.

Maybe I should have been a married woman: that way, nobody would have bothered me with last names. Maybe!

What a mess

Whoa (or rather, phew)! I finally managed to find a roof over my head without having to spend a night under the wide, open sky. No, nothing bad happened really and my house didn't collapse, but things got as lousy as they could. I mean, how often do you come across a situation where you think you've finally got a house to stay in but find that events have overtaken you and the rug is firmly pulled from under you? I can't speak for you, but this was certainly not the first time for me.

What had happened this time was: I had seen a house which I felt was good and had confirmed that I'd take it. But thanks to some gap in understanding between the owner of the house and the broker who showed it to me, the deal had to be called off at the last possible minute.To be precise, just before I was about to sign the lease contract. Now, this left me with no house to move into and no time to pick another one either. In fact, I had gone on a two-week leave only because I was sure that I could move into this one on the same day as my return. Fate, ever the playful friend (or is it fiend, I wonder sometimes), it seems, decided to give me a wry smile!

I found myself in the very unenviable situation of not having anywhere to spend the night. I didn't feel comfortable asking people for a nightcap though I knew them rather well. Had it been good ol' Madras, I know at least a dozen people who would have been willing to put me up for as long as I wanted and with whom I felt absolutely free.

My good man, the broker, however, went into overdrive mode, showed me another house that very evening. Though it wasn't as good as the one that slipped through my hands, I didn't have much of a choice, and certainly not much time, so I decided to compromise. And thus it came to be that I found myself in a rather old, but definitely livable, house that's just a stone's throw from office. Yes, the distance too was something that helped me make up my mind.