My passport photo from high school

Whenever I pick up the phone and the person asks for Sharada Chandrasekaran with flawless accuracy, I immediately know that this has got to be from an Indian call center making me some sort of offer. It gives me particular amusement when they follow up the perfect pronunciation with carefully practiced American English. I’m like, “Yeah, homey. It’s cool. I know where you from.” 

A number of Indians have asked me if I am aware that I mispronounce my own name. To be fair, I was taught to say my name by my American mom. Second, if I went around insisting on the original spelling on my birth certificate, Sharada, I’d have to teach English speakers how to navigate that subtle third syllable (after mastering it myself) and the ‘r’ roll. For god’s sake, my version already gets butchered enough as is. And who can blame my mom for not wanting to saddle me with a 14 letter last name, opting instead to break it up. Thus, I have Sharda Chandra Sekaran and, under most circumstances, simply Sharda Sekaran.

The Indians who correct me on my name sometimes do it will a tinge of judgment, as in, “Ugh. You are so Americanized.” Give me a break, okay. I didn’t exactly ask to be Americanized. I was never given a choice. But it is nice to be in India, where people say Sharada so damn pretty and never have to ask me to spell it. They are very interested when I say I am from the U.S. and then tell them my name. “Oh, that is a very Indian name.” Yes, my father was from India. “Ah. That’s why you look like this.” Yes, that’s why I look like this. 

Sharada is a fairly well known Indian name. It was my father’s mother’s name. It’s a bit old school actually. Most of the time I meet another Sharda (usually spelled my Westernized way), the woman is Indo-Guyanese. For whatever reason, the name still goes strong in Guyana. An Indian friend laughed and said, “Yeah, I guess it might be an old lady name, maybe like Gertrude.” Chandrasekaran, as per the Tamil tradition, was my father’s first name. It means something like “he who wears the moon on his head” and is a shoutout to Lord Shiva. 

There was a time when I used to hide from my name. I was self-conscious and anxious about having to explain my origins and my absent dad to other Indian kids when they asked me about it. At one point in my adolescence, I would lie and tell them that I wasn’t Indian, but my parents were hippies, you know like the white kids randomly running around with Sanskrit names. I wasn’t fooling anybody. 

In the sixth grade, I went through a phase where I wanted to legally change my name to Jocelyn, which I thought sounded cool, and take on my mom’s last name, Williams. Imagine me, will you, as Jocelyn Williams. In my defense, it’s tough when your emotional baggage is quickly on display whenever you have to introduce yourself. 

Anyway here’s my name being pronounced properly (by someone who does a better job than me). Do with this information what you will.