Sanketh, Sanketh

I remember, as a kid, writing Sanketh.K on the labels of neatly wrapped note books. I’m pretty sure most of my email ids have my full name registered as Sanketh Murthy. And yet, somehow, I ended up with a legal name of Sanketh. No surnames, no initials. Just, Sanketh.

Not that I’m complaining about it. I did have a choice in my 10th to add something to my first name, but I chose not to. I think it all has something to do with my upbringing. My parents always stressed on individuality. And that, I guess, translated into my name. My name’s Sanketh. And while I’m proud of my family and ancestors, I feel I don’t need my family’s name to make my place in this world.

And so, in all documents – 10th/12th marks cards, Driving License, Voter Card, Bank Accounts and even in Passport, I’m known as Sanketh. Everyone used to tell me, that a second name is mandatory in Passport, but that wasn’t the case! Everyone told me that it would be very difficult to survive without a second name. I didn’t face any problem what-so-ever.

Until I got my first award at work.

For all documentation purposes, I’m known as just Sanketh. But Honeywell has this way of allotting official email ids as firstname.lastname@Honeywell.com. And I was allotted Sanketh.K! It was quite disturbing, because my salary bank too began addressing me as Sanketh.K, and I realized that it might become a problem during tax calculation or something. And so, we arrived at the only other solution – Sanketh.Sanketh@Honeywell.com.

Now, that didn’t bother me too, until the day I got the certificate for my first performance award. “This is awarded to Sanketh, Sanketh for….”. Turns out that they print the name from the email records!

Well, I still don’t think I need a surname.
“Hey you know Sanketh?”
“Sanketh who? Murthy? Krishnan? Patil?”
“No no…THE Sanketh.”
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I'm sure this is the only post in the world with so many ‘Sanketh’s in it!