For our purposes, let us begin at the end. Banerjee, descendant of poetry and magical phrases strung together to create the pride of an entire nation. Among some of the most prestigious family names in India, it has more than its fair share of revolutionaries, artists, leaders and the lot. In fact, my great grandfathers were instrumental in removing British rule from India; I believe that one of them had their own printing press for nationalist literature, Saraswaty Press. Until recently, everyone I’ve encountered had the courage to attempt to pronounce it but now food names have become a popular trend. There is not a hidden banana in my last name, nor does it rhyme with energy, but I’ve learned to overdraw the boundaries as long as they remember that it is the person behind it that is making a difference and not the name itself.
As for a middle name, I’m never sure whether to leave a space here or write “NA” in fear of becoming Rupkatha “NA” Banerjee. However, it doesn’t feel empty as sixteen letters seems to cover the entire span of a full name.
Rupkatha. My closest companion and the enemy of the common eye. A name that I myself was not familiar with until the age of five when I was asked to write it on a standardized test and only knew enough to write a nickname (I’ll come back to this in a second.)“Rup,” means beauty, “katha,” means words but “Rupkatha” directly translates as fairytale. As the story goes, my parents thought that I was their little fairytale at the time, and the name would only be fitting. It glides smoothly off the tongue like a knife through butter, with subtle accents on the p and k and a short o sound in place of the a. Pronounced exactly as it’s spelled, no subliminal messages, no silent consonants, just velvety and soft to the touch. But it seems that only I am using a butter knife while everyone else saws away at it with a serrated, plastic substitute. The variations of my name are innumerable and all I can do is sit back and watch as they butcher and fashion it into some form of a serial killer’s letter. The moments of anticipation on the first day of school before I am introduced to yet another configuration of my name have become routine. The most common response I seem to be getting lately is “R.rr.rr.r.r..” to which I respond “Rupkatha, here” so I no longer have to bear the agony of hearing my name being destroyed yet again. On the off chance that someone gets even remotely close, I can’t help but congratulate them for even trying and apparently, neither can they.
Nobody wants to be the first to take the path least traveled, so I was gifted my first nick name at a very young age. With one tug, the intricate patterns of movement and syllables were torn off to expose a horrid, four letter abbreviation, Rupu. And I hated it; I hated it with all of my three year old being. “Like those two characters from Winnie the Pooh,” they’d say. “Roo and Pooh. How adorable!” I didn’t want adorable. I wanted magnificence and power, neither of which I knew of at the time, but my tiny fists of rage meant nothing. It stuck to me like a band aid and stood the tests of time, as if trying to mend the jumble of letters that were meant to define me. It left me with a scar of a missing identity but has now been reduced to somewhat of a laughing matter.
I suppose that you’ve read this far in search of a conclusion. I truly wish I could tell you that I had one. But for now, the only possessions I carry on my back are these six syllables. Six syllables that support hundreds of years of history and mark the start to many more. Rupkatha Banerjee still has a story to tell and it begins here, with beauty and a few short words.
