Apu’s World

Ardhanarishwara.

“How could they? How could they?” He would ask himself. “How could you?” He asked his parents. He didn’t long for a Rahul or a Rohit. A Sundar or a Murali or a Kartik would have been just fine. But Ardhanarishwara? He dismissed his parents’ tale of having been blessed with a child by the Shiva who went by that name. What, did they imagine themselves to be living in a mythical age?

When he was really young, all it had meant was an unpronounceable name. Everyone just called him Ardha, which wasn’t that bad, even if it did sound incomplete. When he crossed primary school though, and the kids figured out what it meant, he lost all hope of ever living a normal life. “Ey, you, half-and-half”, they would call him, or just Number 9. Even then, things were tolerable until he reached class 8, when an Akhilandeswari had to join their school and wriggle her way into roll-call. That really pushed him to roll number 9. There was no way he could possibly overcome that.

With a name like that, there would be no place for him at the IITs or even at a second-rung engineering college. He finished his boards with an astonishing 55 percent, a record low for the family. A B.A. That was all he could hope for. It was then that he started collecting words. Epiphany. Colloidal. Oppobrium. Catatonic. Prehensile. Three or four syllables - he was very specific about that. No more and no less. He would place each of them on the tip of his tongue, and roll it around. Gently. Words deserved careful handling. When he was finished with one, he would pause for a moment before lapping up the next one.

College ended and he landed at the calling of the new generation - BPO worker and shirker. He was twenty one now, and the sound of his own money was pleasant to the ear. He considered changing his name. If he could, he would have a name like Archangel Correlation or Mellifluous Persiflage, a four-syllabic beauty. It wasn’t possible, of course. One day, his boss called him and announced that they were making it easier for American customers to talk to the agents. And they christened him, Ar-ty.

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