[The following is a letter for mom and dad. Never posted and never will be]
Dear Vappa and Umma,
Let's play a game. Take a look at the picture and identify the similarity among the 3 name tags.
10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..BUZZER.
Yes! My second name has been misspelled in all three tags. *wince*
What you see, my dearest Vappa and Umma, is the ripple effect of your creative experiment on my identity. I attended three courses and all of them, despite the big font sized, bold and underlined submission of my name have gotten the spelling wrong. This is what happens when you have an unnecessary long name that is hard for a common brain to comprehend.
I am curious… WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!
What is 'Seyed'? I have heard and read about Syed which means Mister in Arabic. I suppose a different spelling? Fine, but why do I have a mister in my name? It would have made more sense to have the feminine version that is Sayyeda.
Never mind about that. At least 'Seyed' appears in Wikipedia. What is 'Nazhath'? I am still searching for the meaning. The closest I got to was, Nazareth; a name of a place. Where in this world did you get this name from???
'Faheema' is the only sensible part of my name. It means Intelligent in Arabic. Although it gets tiring trying to live up to the name, it is easy to address and also well-received. Oh and I like it. :)
Anyway, where in my name is my father’s name???
Many times during classes, my professors take a look at my name, raise their eyebrows and go “Sey..yad.. Naazz..”. I will immediate raise my hand to avoid further destruction of my name’s pronunciation and say “Yes that would be me”. They will inquire on what my surname is. And I say with quite a bit of embarrassment, “I have no clue and I do not have a family name if that is the next question, so just call me by the third name i.e. Faheema.”
Here is what you should have done. You should have first looked up a name book, because it looks to me like you did not and you let your creativity flow. Secondly, you should have just named me Faheema Nazeer Khan or Faheema Binte Nazeer Khan. That would have been simple, easy and appropriate. Also it would have eased me the inconvenience of having to correct the errors on my spelling and tolerating the poor pronunciation of my name.
Since I respect the both of you and also changing name is such a documentation hassle, the name remains and will remain unchanged.
With Love,
Your always full of complains child,
Seyed Nazhath Faheema
P.S: The only positive thing about the name is it is so unique that when you google it, everything about me lists as top search results. Sometimes this too is a disadvantage. Phew!
