Technically i should get back to studies for my project but then again majors just got over. Yet Prof. Ravishankar is waiting, pointing his gun at me on some random instant on monday but thats still 24 hours away so you see, i technically do have some time to dodge the bullet! ;-)
So here i am, dropping by in my blog.. and like all the other times i get to have a 'go!' at any of my random ramblings (thats one of the reasons why i like this place!) but this time i guess i have decided to cut the randomization and say something a little bit more footed.. 'The story behind my name'
Hi, I am Chitrodeep, born and braught up in a small bengali family. And like most of my fellow bengalis i do have a 'very' bengali name... generally our names are slightly long, foreign creatures find our names quite girly (this is NOT true!-_-) and they think all of us are obsessed with the sound 'O'! Well, come to think of it i guess the last part is to some extend true but then there is always one default vowel that gets overused in any language and i guess the first bong dude did fell in love with 'O':D.
But there is one way that my name does stand apart, my name has 'no meaning' unlike all my other bengali friends. Generally bengali names always have deep analogical artistic meanings.... Take my school friends; Dhrishni ('the falling rays of sun') , Nilanjan ( one with 'deep blue eyes' ) , Meghabarna ( 'who bears the clouded texture' ), Srutarthi ( 'one with a crave for the symphony' ) , Shoubhik (an enchanter).... and i can just keep going on and on but i hope you guys get the point by now.... ;-)
On the other hand there's my name, 'Chitro' which means a painting and 'deep' which means a flame; together there's no such word like 'Chitrodeep' in the language. Now one can force it in though like my mom did, 'a painting of a lamp' or 'a painting beside a lamp' or 'a painting set on fire by a lamp!!:P' but yeah, none of it really makes any solid sense.... I as many might say is very 'meaningless'.. (if you define a person by his name!)
There ofcourse is a reason behind this accidental meaninglessness; I never was named in a usual bengali way 'after some exotic poetic imagination'; i was more named after someone else.. a lady.. whome neither I ever knew nor my family.. and that is where i guess the whole story had stayed burried all along.. well untill that day..
I was at my grandma's home that day and as usual we were having a great time. My grandma and my aunt (mother's elder brother's wife!) were discussing about my encounters with the opposite sex. My granny was like she wont allow the girl in her home if she comes with 'a mini skirt' on and my aunt was like 'how many bengali chicks are there in IITd anyway?'... and just to piss them off i was saying i had already met a muslim kashmiri in delhi! (man! i so wish.. :P)
its always fun, bengali families are generally very open minded with a modern outlook and we have loads of fun in useless discussions (we even have a name for it! ' adda ' :D ).. addas at home are always fun because everybody is very close and friendly. Eventually this topic led to something else pretty vaguely related to it and then to something else and going along finally it got to my name... my grandma said something and then she ignored it. Later when i discussed with mom, I kind of got a seventy-thirty assurance... and how it was vaguely related to my encounters.. well, here goes... :P
Generally in bengali families its the youngest maternal uncle who names the kid.. and the time when i was born my uncle was a young man in his late teens about to appear for his 12th standard exams.. During that time in our neighbourhood there was a girl named 'Chitrorupa' who they say was amazingly beautiful and her name really did blend in perfectly with who she used to be.. 'Chitrorupa' as in 'someone whose beauty is worth to be painted'..... they say my uncle kind of had a thing for her but eventually she got married to an engineer in US and left. Those days girls used to get married very soon.. (mom got married at 21 to dad who was 28.)
The turn of events really must have left my uncle pretty shattered. Guess the only expression of his loss he left was through my name.
You see, 'Chitrodeep' is basically nothing but a desperate attempt to somehow masculinate the name of Chitrorupa... :D
Its kind of weird though, to be named after a failed love but then again now my uncle is a successful businessman with a beautiful wife and they are newly married and very much in love. Guess life really does keep going and time really does keep flowing not caring about how the past treated you, irrespective of what the present has in store for you.... guess, future truly is always uncertain..
And as for my name, it still is 'Chitrodeep' but at the end of the day its just no more than a sound associated to a certain person.
Guess one thing that our old bengali ancestors never realized is that the 'meaning' of the name is nothing but the very 'person' it has been given to.
So as for what 'Chitrodeep' really means.. well, it means me.
I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something
-Richard P Feynman
