Boomerang

February 9, 2014 by Usha Pisharody 18 Comments

Ishsh.

Her mother loved that name, that sound, that sigh, literally, ever since she’d seen Aishwarya Rai (sheesh, she’s not that beautiful, especially now!), and that song, in Devdas. And  so the obvious happened, when she was born.

She despaired, however, of being called that – that was her name. Ishsh. On her birth certificate, in school, and God-help-her, it made her the butt of all jokes, in school and college. Really. It was made all the worse, as she was ‘cute’.

Finally, she was in a position to do something about it. She had the wherewithal, so to speak. She’d graduated, despite all odds, with that name, and secured a ‘Government Job”. At, happily enough, The Department of the Registrar of Births and Deaths. And that, even more happily, was close to the Department that published the Gazette Notifications.

At 24, newly-employed, determined to change her fate, that lay entrenched in her name, she marched into a notary’s office to prepare the necessary documents. She saw him, seated at the far table, young, unusually kindly-looking, serene, welcoming, and well, easy on the eye. She presented her problem, with the necessary indignation; he listened patiently; waited for her to finish.

“Mishh Ishsh…” the way he said it, for the first time, before hastily correcting himself, was most appealing. Strange.

“Yeshhh… errm… Yes?”

“Why would you want to change such a beautiful name?” Earnestly.

That floored her. For the first time, her deep-seated animosity towards her name wavered.

Ishsh. Hmmmm …. maybe she’d keep it after all.

Moony-eyed, she walked out.

8 February, 2014

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The How of the write above: 🙂

The Hindu In School, dated 10 Dec. 2013

The Team “Zing’in”, from my school, my kids,  comprising of students from Class 9, five of them, won a chance to attend a story writing workshop, yesterday, in Coimbatore (info in pdf file above). It was great fun, and educative with it. One of the activities was to write out a 25o word story, or part thereof, fleshing out a character, with the Hook, Hold in it… 🙂

I’m not sure if any of the teachers present tried to write, but I sure did. This is the result of that experiment 😛