My Name as you might have known is Aswin Antony. My Son's name is Joachim Antony. Ha Ha Ha !!!. No, this is not a click bait title, just hear me out š. This story is not about my son, but it's about me and why my Surname is not 'Antony' even though my Father and my Grandfather both are Antony's.
I was a kid born to wonderful parents who gave me the first name Aswin. The name in itself is not a bad one, but it was just given to me to match my elder brother's name (like most families) which sounded almost similar. When it came to choosing my last name, they wanted to have My Dad's and my Mom's name together. I'm not sure if this was chosen to promote gender equality or it's just a fashion during the late 80's š¤·š¼āāļø. But the only funny thing is, this happened not only to me, but to my brother and also to few of my cousins as well š¤.
During school days it was not a must to have your full surname in the records, just having initials were enough. Hence, I used to run around with an A J as my surname. Oh, I didn't mention something else as well, these initials were not kept at the end of my name like other common names in India, but it was kept in the middle with another last name inspired by Bollywood called 'Raj'. Okay, don't scratch your heads yet, the story has just started.
My name used to stand out from the crowd because of this weirdness and I used to even boast about having a different and uniquely structured name. But slowly things started to go south and then little to the west š. People from government who came for voters ID, ration card, PAN Card, census etc, started to write my name in the order they liked. My Grandfather even wrote a will with the name in the structure that he preferred (cool š ).
But then came the coolest of all, Passport. The officer who was in charge informed me that I need to have the full expansion of initials, that is the full name of both my dad and mom (including their first, middle, last and whatever name they had). And once he made my name a full sentence, he was very happy to issue the passport š. He even issued my passport without a Surname (my entire name was printed as first name in my passport, which had to be corrected later)
Although, I was pissed it didn't affect me much because I was still in India and within the country Passport is not a document which is must for any government purposes. But years passed and I got married to a girl who had a proper first and last name. Now an opportunity came knocking down the road to travel abroad for work. Little did I know, that I would end up in an European country where I would be addressed only by my Surname for all official purposes. To add salt to the wound, the landlords in the apartments we lived refused to hang my name in the letterbox because it's too long.
Me and my wife then started to find legal ways to change my name with a single Surname, but soon we found that it would be near impossible due to bureaucracy. We were literally scared, if our kids also need to carry the same Sentence as their Surname. Oh, those were sleepless nights š But our prayers were answered šš corona came and we returned back to India. And soon we made use of the quarantine productively by making a baby š. I had two options in hand, 1. choose a proper surname or 2. choose my wife's Surname as my Son's Surname. But my male ego wouldn't allow that. How is that even possible ? after all I'm the one who is carrying the baby for 9 months right ? Umm, what an idiot I was and still am.
Fast forward 9 months, just coming out of the labor ward all knocked out (Which is another story for another day) I took the application form and wrote the word 'Antony' which is my family name as my Son's surname. I had decided to give up my ego and think practically while naming my son. Since it was a middle ground, that poor soul (my wife) also agreed to it. So If you know me, Could you call me just by my First name ? Pleaseee !!
A Day in 2021
Kochi, India
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