Laksher’s Weblog

so i’ve created a new blog….no particularly interesting reason as to why i created it. i would love to say i missed expressing myself online, missed my blog pals and the baseless, absolutely mind numbing commenting sprees on inane things, missed getting taunted and spammed by random idiots who picked on everything i said(or tried to sell me the strangest things)…but that’s not the reason. you see, i was forced. no, nobody put a gun to my head and said ‘create a blog NOW…OR ELSE’ but it’s part of a workshop and he felt that it was necessary to create a blog. and since my other blog(beforetheplunge.blogspot.com) was too dead to revive…i decided to create a new one. laksher.wordpress.com

it wasn’t my first choice. when it comes to creating emails, blogs or any kind of internet account i never get to use my first choice unless i give something as wacky and obscure as ‘beforetheplunge’(whatever that meant)..anyway, the only reason for the ‘curse of not being able to use your first choice of name’ is exactly that. my name. because invariably i end up using my name as my first choice. and that’s lakshmi. i don’t know why i was called lakshmi. my mother just says she liked the name. i think it’s okay…except it’s a bit too common..especially in my family.

i can count at least 10 lakshmi’s in my family…and i’m sure there are more in the extended family(aiyo my mami is your kolu paati)….but at any family function,especially a wedding…someone says ‘lakshmi!!’ and at least five people respond. it can get pretty annoying, especially when you’re doing something more constructive(like eating sugary treats…or annoying a little kid, or having a quiet drink with your cousins at the side). but that’s how it is. i’m lakshmi. and i’m going to remain lakshmi for the rest of my life…which is why when (if) i have a daughter i’m going to name her something weird…like ahalya..or ok i honestly haven’t thought this through.

the good AND VERY BAD thing about having a name that every other person on the street is named(could also be variations like ananthalakshmi,dhanalakshmi,santhanalakshmi,lakshminarayan!) is that you get tagged with numerous nicknames…like laksher was one of them. before that it was lakster the waster…lakki…letchmi///letchmitnot(!)..kummi…kumster…loki(i was christened by a charming oriyan!)…but the worst one i got had nothing to do with my nickname…BUFFY. why i got this, i still don’t know..and my best friend sara started randomly calling me this when we were 12….it caught on. quickly. so far and wide that my teachers called me buffy(without having a clue that it was related to a slightly deranged,spunky idiot who killed vampires) and girls would giggle when we sang hymns with the word ‘angel’ in it, cos angel was buffy’s love interest(no she WASN’T a progressive,lesbian vampire slayer..angel was short for angelus) on the damned show. it stopped after she left school. nobody called me that again. but she still does.