I hate Starbucks & What's in a name?

I sometimes stammer. Before you go any further let me clarify this is not a self-pity post (and I will tell you why), in fact it is a funny one. 

As I said - I sometimes stammer. I first discovered this when in class 2nd my class teacher asked 7 or 8 of us to audition for the post of  house captain (imagine cute 7 yr old captains). Initial screening process was good grades and a bit of teacher's discretion and then finally this test. The first bits I comfortably scaled and in the last one we were to sound out commands. You know shouting stuff like "attention school, stand at ease, about turn". It was the "A" in attention that stumped me. I had no idea till then that I stammered and so I went straight for one of the toughest sounds as per phonetics and while opening the mouth was not tough it was producing that sound of A that proved merciless. I dont know for how long my mouth remained open but surely long enough for one teacher to remark, "what happenend do you want food?". It was embarassing but I learned two things that day - 1) I stammer and 2) I must stay away from "A". What worried me was that I didn't know what else to stay away from (as it would turn out later it was Killer K... sharp readers amongst you can make the connection and realise why it was killer).  Apart from that minor glitch the auditions went well and I became the captain (although years later I would indeed lose my captaincy and because of the same reason).

Another interesting incident was during the time Abhay Kuruvilla (a short lived next-big cricket star story in Indian cricket) who was famous for his dangerous bowling and hitting sixes standing at half pitch, joined the team. My dad walked in during one of the matches and asked me who is bowling. It was my nemesis AK bowling his last ball of the over. I conveniently ignored the question hoping nothing dramatic would happen in the last ball which would make my dad repeat his question. My tactic was for the bowler to change so I could tell another name. I dont remember how it went but probably not well enough which is why I remember the incident to this day. Anyways there were many funny incidents such as these and most of them related to my name. The K in Kunal has always troubled me. I can still recall the feeling of horror when a new teacher entered the class and asked us to introduce ourselves in sequence. My heartbeat would go up dramatically as my turn approached and  in those few minutes I would always wish something would intervene -  things like a peon would call the teacher out to meet the principle, or bell would ring or whatever. I was almost always absent on the first day of the new school session because teachers invariably asked you to stand-up and introduce yourself. 

In class Xth I remember I scored 92 marks in English (highest in the school) and when the new English teacher arrived in class XIth she started by asking who were the top performers in English and she would like them to be nominees for Vice-Captainship. I did not raise my hand for the fear of having to introduce myself (for god's sake what was I thinking - I was the top scorer and of course the classmates later blurted out my name). So she said - who is Kunal and sheepishly I stood up (but more confident in my mind because the name-telling was out of the way). She said why I did not raise my hand earlier and then went on to add it is ok if I want to focus on studies and didn't wish to be a vice-captain. "Of course I wanted to be captain", I wanted to say but before I could intervene she moved on with the names of those who had volunteered and this time stammering did cost me my vice-captaincy. (For those who are feeling bad - I did become the house captain in class XIIth. So it was alright) 

My stammer also explains why when I missed classes I called my friends whose names started with V and for sure avoided those with A (sorry folks - nothing personal only tactical). At one point saying a simple "Hello" to receive phone calls became a herculean task and I resorted to receiving calls with "Yes".  

There were extended periods when I wouldn't stammer at all and those were mostly preceded by successes and achievements and I realized confidence had a large role to play in my stammering or not stammering. For instance when I moved to Ahmedabad in 1994 and joined a School St.Anns, I did pretty well in studies and created some sort of impression on the teachers who would want me to participate more broadly than in just academics and I was nominated to compete in a Debate competition in the junior category (class 6th to 8th ). It was a bit unfair because apart from me and one another girl who were class 6th students all others were class 8th students (of course the houses wanted to maximise their winning chances). But lo and behold yours truly speaking in his first ever competitive debate competition floored the opponents and emerged victorious. So you see confidence was important. And while I knew this I could do very little to leverage that fact. 

Ok so for those who are wondering why you shouldn't pity me - during my college days I went on to become a regular (not a successful) debater and participated in many competitions in and outside college and never stammered for once on the stage. I managed to become the President of the debating club at IIT Delhi, hosted many functions/events at IIT Delhi (including one where I introduced Prof. Yashpal Sharma), was chosen as one of the three students to ask a question to Wen Jia Bao (Chinese Premiere) on his visit to the campus and was one of the youngest (ever? at 20) to speak at the Annual National Conference of CII being on the same panel as Omar Abdullah and Vikram Chandra. And over the last 6 years the only consistent positive feedback (unfortunately) during appraisals has been - strong communication skills. So you see I am doing alright. 

Anyways moving on. My eternal love-hate relationship with my name has continued to this day. I liked my name because for a very long time I never met another Kunal in schools which made me feel a bit exclusive and when suddenly at IIT I was bombarded with name-sakes  I found solace in the explanation that most Kunal's are intelligent and end up in a place like this. But the K in the beginning has remained my Achilles heel to this day particularly in external meetings and that too in international settings. At least in India if I manage to fumble out my name people pick it up in one go as it is a familiar name but internationally they dig your grave twice or thrice sometimes by using a single word -"pardon". i have to say in the last several years though stammering has been least of my concerns - I have grown up, am a bit more relaxed and mature etc. 

But this blissful existence has recently been rudely invaded by starbucks and thats the motivation behind the blog. I am a big coffee drinker and so when I discovered Starbucks during my current assignment in Netherlands I was extremely pleased-  in the beginning. So what's wrong with starbucks. The buggers take your order on a paper cup by ticking items on a checklist and then ask - Yes! "your name".  Every time they do that I want to respond with two words... I mean I can understand embarrassing myself in a third-party meeting for the sake of earning a bread but why the hell should I go through the ordeal for a over-priced, unhealthy cup of coffee. To make it worse they always miss it the first time. 

And you can tell Shakespeare did not stammer - otherwise he wouldn't have naively said "What's in a name?"