Neal N Nikki
Me : Hello! Can I speak to XYZ?
The other end(ToE) : XYZ is not at home. Who is this?
Me : Neel
ToE : Who?
Me : Neel
ToE : Anil?
Me : Neel
ToE : Sunil?
Me : Neel... November Echo Echo Lima
ToE : Is it just Neel? Or something like Neelkant?
Me : ( bang the phone..f*** you)
This has been the typical conversation I have been involved in n number of times. Neel is quite an uncommon name in India. There are two types of people in India. Those who can understand my name and those who cannot. After more than 20 years(exact number of years not written to hide my age), I can arrive at a conclusion just by looking at the person whether he or she belongs to the first or the second category. For those who belong to the second category, the not so secular people wonder if I am a Hindu or a Christian. Some are direct. Are you a Christian? Others are not so direct. Like the mother of this pretty girl I happened to meet on Ranade Road.
Pretty Girl(PG) : Hi Neel! Mom, this is Neel.
Me : Hi! Hello Aunty.
PG's Mom : What is your surname? (Surname can provide leads about one's faith)
Then there is this league of people who tell me that I have a sweet name. It is. That is precisely the reason my parents named me Neel. On second thoughts, all four letter words are sweet.
There is one more way in which I classify people - People who spell my name as Neel, Neil , Nil and Neal. The ones who spell my name as Neel, do so because they know me. Those who spell it as Neil know Neil Armstrong. And the ones who spell it as Nil are illiterate SoBs. The fourth type of people who spell it as Neal is non-existent till now. But I am sure that the movie Neal N Nikki has been released, this tribe of people is going to outnumber the rest. Though people will spell me as Neal, this movie is doing me a great service in the sense that lesser number of people are going to indulge in the conversation like the telephonic conversation that was posted above. As a token of appreciation, I have decided to watch this movie.
Trivia :
1. As part of my research I do before blogging, I have learnt that Neal in Neal N Nikki is the truncated version of Gurneal.
2. I have never met my namesake.
3. If you happen to be my namesake or almost namesake(Neal,Neil or Nil), I would like to meet you.
4. If you happen to be Nikki or Nikita(Nikki in the movie is truncated version of Nikita), I would still like to meet you ;-)
The other end(ToE) : XYZ is not at home. Who is this?
Me : Neel
ToE : Who?
Me : Neel
ToE : Anil?
Me : Neel
ToE : Sunil?
Me : Neel... November Echo Echo Lima
ToE : Is it just Neel? Or something like Neelkant?
Me : ( bang the phone..f*** you)
This has been the typical conversation I have been involved in n number of times. Neel is quite an uncommon name in India. There are two types of people in India. Those who can understand my name and those who cannot. After more than 20 years(exact number of years not written to hide my age), I can arrive at a conclusion just by looking at the person whether he or she belongs to the first or the second category. For those who belong to the second category, the not so secular people wonder if I am a Hindu or a Christian. Some are direct. Are you a Christian? Others are not so direct. Like the mother of this pretty girl I happened to meet on Ranade Road.
Pretty Girl(PG) : Hi Neel! Mom, this is Neel.
Me : Hi! Hello Aunty.
PG's Mom : What is your surname? (Surname can provide leads about one's faith)
Then there is this league of people who tell me that I have a sweet name. It is. That is precisely the reason my parents named me Neel. On second thoughts, all four letter words are sweet.
There is one more way in which I classify people - People who spell my name as Neel, Neil , Nil and Neal. The ones who spell my name as Neel, do so because they know me. Those who spell it as Neil know Neil Armstrong. And the ones who spell it as Nil are illiterate SoBs. The fourth type of people who spell it as Neal is non-existent till now. But I am sure that the movie Neal N Nikki has been released, this tribe of people is going to outnumber the rest. Though people will spell me as Neal, this movie is doing me a great service in the sense that lesser number of people are going to indulge in the conversation like the telephonic conversation that was posted above. As a token of appreciation, I have decided to watch this movie.
Trivia :
1. As part of my research I do before blogging, I have learnt that Neal in Neal N Nikki is the truncated version of Gurneal.
2. I have never met my namesake.
3. If you happen to be my namesake or almost namesake(Neal,Neil or Nil), I would like to meet you.
4. If you happen to be Nikki or Nikita(Nikki in the movie is truncated version of Nikita), I would still like to meet you ;-)
posted by Neel Arurkar | 4:39 AM
27 Comments:
surely Neel, now the people might not be very questioning... but they might ask u if ur name is whatever is the full name of the hero...
So all the best for that :)
Art : Gurneal is surely a yucky name :-) I will sue Yashraj films if that happens ;-)
Het : And you even guessed it that I was going to post one about it! See if u can fix a coffee with Nikki ;-)
Now I am wondering what your name is. Nee would still be confused with Mee, Pee, Dee, Tee, Lee..etc
Imagine this
Neel : It's Nee...
And the other person thinks I said, it's me
Of all things you had to get Neal-n-Nikki to support your name huh? It seems the movie's pretty bad :-|.
Well, I have never known a Neel, Neal or a Neil, but I do know an Oneil :). Hey btw I thought you answered my sevens tag, but I can't find your post. Did you or did you not?
Hard to imagine that people could have problem with names as simple as yours.
lol Kneel :):) haha just teasing!
I can u'stand ur frustration...some ppl r damn annoying...just cos a name is not so common, they act like they r having some encounter with a martian...lol!
Keshi.
So Neel is like different even in India??? The real questions and answers I like to find in names is meanings and where it came from. Such as my red-neck name is Dustin. Dustin-valiant, brave (or so called in the baby names book) and comes from a Norman/German I think. And I hate the dang name too! There are probably 20 people at my school with the exact same name.It sucks!
But Neel just HAS to be short for something. I think you're hiding your real name :P
I'm sure you've also suffered through a lot of 'blue' puns, haven't you?
armstrong was me frnd.. wanna meet um?
btw does neel mean sumtn
'aaya naya ujaala, chaar bundo walaa ...
aapke neel se zyada asardaar'
Deeps : Yeah. Heard it's pretty bad. But I have to watch it. Kinda payback
I did drop a comment on your 7 tags post, but am too lazy write one about it. I have been thinking for long to post the links of the blogs that I regularly read. Will do that soon
FMOE : Exactly. What more do they want? Monosyllables?
Keshi : You should read http://coolschooldays.blogspot.com/2005/06/neel-down.html.
That will talk about Kneel
FWL : Dustin is a nice name. Never heard about redneck names and dang names. Will google that.
Ms V : Yeah. A chick even used to point out when I wore blue shirts :-)
ZE/Chapaat: Ujala guys spell it as Nil when they compare. Nevertheless, many a friends were almost going to ditch me after they heard their advt : 'Nil bhool jao'
Hey Neel we hear your spiel
I know how you feel
With these morons to deal :P
And btw, I don't happen to be your namesake or almost your namesake. I don't happen to be Nikki or Nikita either. But I am female. And that usually suffices most of the time. What say? ;)
Dewdy : That was cool. Continuation to your poem : Most of the times I take a chill pill, and sometimes I swear to kill ( well..just to make it rhyme)
Ms V : It does. It does. Coffee anytime you say;-)
My nephew is called Neil. He wanted to change the spelling to Niel. I told him, why not Kneel? He got the message - and will stick to Neil.
:-) Btw, you may like to read : http://coolschooldays.blogspot.com/2005/06/neel-down.html
Well, at the moment, India is half the world away. But if the offer stands, I'll take it up coming summer @ Barista - the Juhu beach wala!!! Deal? ;)
Deal. Had some sort of idea by reading your posts that you were half world away, but the current location did confuse me a bit :-)
any one else you want to meet?
hey you forgot Nile(river in egypt)
good one Neil....he heeh
Dont mind meeting you too buddy. May be you come down to Bangalore DC sometime. And yes, the river is named after me ;-)
Well neel don't look up dang as a name. Dang is part of the american slang to be put in place of swear words for kids, such as "dang you all!" lol sorry for the misunderstanding.
Oh and red-neck is another type of slang used to profile people that live in the southern states of the U.S.Red-necks are mostly viewed as dirty, weird talking drunks, though some are, which is also why lots of American comedians use red-necks as the headline of jokes. Larry the Cable guy is from the south of the U.S and talks it and acts like everything you'd expect from red-necks, oh and Jeff Foxworthy. So if you ever watch those comedians, you are looking at a red-neck.
Ooohk! Thanks for the explanation
hey Neel .........
I can empathise with u, as people mispronouce my name and they play with the spelling too .......
maybe i should too categorise them into ppl who decide which faith i was brought up in and who all are careless about spelling and pronoucing others names in the wrong way ........
between Neal n Niki sucks .........good the theatre had couches otherwise i would have ran away long back......
Cya around
nice piece of writing ....
Ash
i forgot .....merry christmas .......
Pinash is not a difficult name too, if that is your name. Not seen the movie yet and all the reviews that I have received echo your reviews :-)
Haha! Neel's a nice name! Are you serious about someone spelling your name as 'Nil'?? HAHA! :D
Neel is a nice name and so is Sayesha :). Yeah, I met many people who spell it as Nil. And recently, I wanted to alter my pants and the guy wrote down my name as Nile. Hul, I remembered your comment then!
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