Nickname!

Over the course of my lifetime , i had the privilege of gathering many names. Sometimes the names have come out of adulation from friends, sometimes by chance, sometimes by sheer frustration and disgust of my friends who have had to put up with me. Here is a list of my nick names.

Anu (अनु) - This is what i have been known by in my home. short and sweet. As a kid, i have been teased by my brothers & sisters that this is more of girl's name (remember anu agarwal?? ). But i like the name. And i love when people call me anu.

Jaali (जाली ) urf JJ
I dont know how this name came into being but one fine day, my college friend Venky started calling me by this name. Its his copyright , and i dont hear many people except him calling me Jaali. There was a twist to this name recently and he calls me JJ now. Thats Jaali Jaipurkar. The name JJ, he says, invokes an image of a six feet tall, hefty, muscular man. Quite opposite to what i am. But i must say the name is cool.

Ani (अनि)
The simplest way to form a nickname. Cut the original name and use the first half. Some college friends did use to call me ani. It felt nice.

Ajnabee
There was a phase when i used to sing the 'ajnabee shehar' song from the movie Janemaan. Constantly. There lies the birth of the name. Gone are those days. And i havent heard the song since ages.

Iceman
This name i borrowed for myself. From Steve Waugh. He was called iceman for the way he guided Australia to Cricket world cup win in 1999. Then i came to know that Kimi raikkonen, the Finnish Formula One race car driver is nicknamed iceman. Great people. I thought i could also use some borrowed greatness. Unfortunately, whats in a name ?

Don / Physco
My roomies in Hyderabad used to call me Don. Me being the (only) SRK fan in our apartment. We were a group of superstars. With Munnabhai, Krishh, Don all staying together in a rented place. My roomie Ashish, used to call me Phsyco. I used to wonder why. Maybe i behaved like one. Those where THE phsyco days.

AJ
This is what i got in my job in Bangalore. Animesh is a nice name [:)], but there was already another team member who had the same name. So AJ stuck to me. I didnt mind.

chotu/chotiya (छोटू / छोटिया)
My roomies in bangalore gave this name to me. For i am the youngest of all of us. There have been constant tweaking done to the name like Chotiya, lotiya and so on. And theres more to come.

Ninad
Nobody knows about this. And before it goes out of my memory also, i better put it down. My parents had thought about naming me this. I dont know what exactly transpired, but my name in school was going to be this. It never happened. Maybe i was born to be Animesh. On second thoughts, maybe Ninad is not such a bad option!