Me, Myself and I

Asa mee. Asa mee. Kasa mee? Kasa mee? Tasa mee. Tasa mee. Asamee Asamee.

(This is how I am. This is how I am. How am I? How am I? That is how I am. That is how I am. An ordinary man, An ordinary man.) Those are the words written by the great Marathi writer P. L. Deshpande (affectionately called as PuLa) when introducing the story of an ordinary person you can find among many in the chaos that is Mumbai.

So if you might have figured out by now that this one is about me, please give yourself a pat on the back. Usually a person when born is given a name and then may have a couple of other names that he is called among friends but in my case, I go by a few more names on a constant basis. These names have been so ingrained that new people who I have been introduced to by these names have trouble placing the original name when I call them. So here are the names and how they came about.

1. Gautam Wagle - The name I was given as a jolly baby some 29 years ago by my parents. Gautam being the given name and Wagle being the family name. The name I grew up with, the name on my ids, the name I will take to my grave. While others may have some pet names at home, believe it or not I have been called Gautam at home through my life.


2. Gotya - That is the name I was given in my undergrad days. I think it happened only during the third year. I really don't remember how the name came about but it is the name of a marathi literary character called Gotya, a boy with all the antics when he was growing up. It is also the marathi word for marbles. So I don't know if that was the meaning that I was supposed to catch on but I will say it was the first one.



3. Waggle - This one goes to Janak "psycho" Shanghvi. Well when I came to the US for my masters, Waggle was the way the profs pronounced my name in class and Janak could not help but roll on the floor laughing and had to share it with our other batchmates. The name just caught on.


4. Bagel - This one is a slight variation of the previous one and it caught on as I caught on with the high carb, high cal diet of the American ways.


5. Wagla - Yet another Gujju was responsible for this one. This time Viren "Nannu" Patel. The jerk had gone to see XMen - 2 and the mutant Nightcrawler had the name "Kurt Wagner" and was supposed to be Ze German. Our gujju friend misheard it as Wagla and shared it among the cricket club. So the entire cricket club knows me as Wagla.


6. Batman - That one goes to Fatass and his labmates. Having trouble saying Gautam, I became Gotham and eventually Batman. So that is how the name of the blog originates in case you were wondering.

Whatever the name, the person is the same. Asa mee Asa mee.