What's in a name!

As an Indian student in the United States, it's been a huge surprise for me to know that there are Americans who actually go to study in India. When I first came across Jennifer Polan's website, I really couldn't believe that someone would make the effort to go to such a faraway land and study there. Bigger surprise for me when Jennifer actually wrote to me after I put up a link to her website in one of my earlier blabs. Guess what she thought Anil meant in hindi? A squirrel !!! Now that's a first for me.. I've been likened to a frog (makri, as my friends back home know me).. and Gireesh's friend Holly calls me Bouncy, but this one is way better.

I always thought that Anil was a simple name to pronounce and write, but that was before I came here. Everytime someone speaks my name with an American accent, they come perilously close to converting my name to something I can't write here (ahem!ahem!) So much so that when I was introduced to a colleague and she asked me how to pronounce my name, I told her that she could say it any way she wanted as long as she didn't call me An*l. So much for my short name!