Sunday, May 15, 2011

Some confusion regarding nomenclature

I was named after a swimming pool called Piscine des tourelles.It was one of the greatest Olympic pools, inaugurated during the second Paris games of 1924.It was the crowning aquatic glory of Paris,indeed ,of the entire world.My family was very fascinated by the pool and they decided to name me after it.That is how i got my name when I entered this world,a last welcome addition to my family as Piscine molitor patel.
It was very hard for people to pronounce my name and it used to give me fits every now and then.I still remember my first day at St. Joseph secondary school in Pondicherry.When the teacher was taking attendance of the students by calling out their name,I was terribly nervous.No sooner was my name about to be called,than I got up from my desk and hurried to the blackboard.Before the teacher could say a word, I picked up a piece of chalk and wrote down the following,"My name is Piscine Molitor Patel known to all as Pi Patel."In order to make it easy for their good measure of understanding i added,"π=3.14."
Then I drew a large circle,which I sliced in two with a diameter to evoke that basic lesson of geometry.I repeated the stunt with every teacher.After a while,everyone became used  to my name and i couldn't ask anything more than that.My name has always been a constant cause of despair in my life.It was always a source of teasing by the other children and more than a few odd looks by the teachers and parents.So eventually,in an attempt to fit in, I used those maneuvers to get rid of the trauma.I wish my parents had named me after an animal like wolf or tiger instead of a swimming pool.It could have metamorphosed the dismal picture of my life.

No comments:

Post a Comment