Wednesday, September 06, 2006

My Pre-Tennis game ritual

This one's an oldie - couldn't think of anything funny of late and figured this blog needed some humor after a long line of serious senti stuff. If you have read this pls skip down and read the fabulous article Rams wrote about the Siddivinayak temple.

John: "Hey Guys. This is Bart. He will be playing #2 singles tonight"
Craig: "Hey Bart, I'm Craig"
Bob: "Bob"
Me (being stupid): "Hey guys. Pleased to meet you. I'm Bharath"
Jack: "Baaraaat?"
Me: "No Bharath"
Craig: "Burut?"
Me: "No Bharath"
Bob: "Please don't take offence Bart. I'm just trying to pronounce your name properly."
Me: "No really! It's fine. I understand. You can call me anything that sounds like my name. No offence taken!"
John: "We just call him Bart"
Me: "Yeah. It's fine. I know who you mean. I always call myself Bharath.... but I don't expect you guys to pronounce it properly. So no worries. Shall we start then?"
Craig: "Braaath?"
Me (sighing): "No well... it's more like ba as in barter, ra as in rabies, ith the way kith ends"
Bob (with lighted eyes): "Baraaaaaat?"
Me: "Yeah that's fine"
Craig (suspicious): "That's not the way you pronounce it though is it?"
Me: "No really! That was great!"
Bob: "Oh cmon Bart. How do you pronounce it?"
Me: "It really doesn't matter. As long as it sounds like my name, I don't really care!"
John: "Yea! We tried too. We just call him Bart."
Bart: "Did someone call me?"
John (giggling): "No we were just trying to pronounce Bart's name"
Me (giggling): "Yea. Go away Bart!"
Jim: "You guys haven't started your game yet?"
Craig: "We're just trying to learn how to pronounce Bart's name. But he won't tell us. We don't want to offend him y'know"
John: "Yea we just call him Bart"
Me: "I really don't get offended! I understand!"
Bob: "Barut?"
Me: "I got a new can of balls. Wanna do the toss now or later?"
Craig: "No Bob... It's more like Barith right Bart?"
Me (Beaming): "Right on the money bud. So W or M?"
Bob (Beaming): "Burith? I knew I would get it right!"
Me (Beaming): "Yeah. You guys are so good at pronouncing it!"
John: "Hey guys! Lee just told me that Tim is playing Bart tonight."
Me: "Oh ok."

Tim: "Hey Bart! I'm Tim"
Me: "Hey Tim! I'm Bharath. Do you want to practice a bit first or toss?"
Tim (interested): "Barat?"
John: "We just call him Bart."
Me: "D'oh!"

14 comments:

The Comic Project said...

cute :):):)

agi said...

its a nice and interesting post.... :-)

Anonymous said...

haahha!!!!! ppl do have a funny bone!!!! wht a revelation!!! well i wonder what is so difficult in pronouncing your name :-)

Viky said...

ROTFLing...I'm sure it must be a common phenomenon with the Indiaspora?

Cloudy said...

Hahaha :) Good fun!

(Claiming first, btw)

Anonymous said...

Hehehe. My empathies. You cant imagine what they do with mine. He he. (claiming second btw)

Cloudy said...

But ra as in rabies???? :-?

Bharath Hemachandran said...

@viky - I'm sure it is :)

@revealed - so what is yours btw? i saw that there was a hari in email u typed on TCP.

@cloudy - couldn't think of anything else :(

Sumithra said...

@Bharath: I've read this before :D But it was nice to read it again..

@Revealed: Tell us what they do to your name. Please, please :D (Are you considering our request? If you are too lazy to start your own blog, I'd welcome you to write in mine - be a guest writer or something. :-))

Anonymous said...

@Sunshine: Lol. Hehe. I've been called everything from Swathi to Sruthi n you wont believe the number of different variations there are using just three syllablesor less :p. N as Bharath said the worst part is trying to explain to them that it doesnt matter that they cant pronounce your name. You'd rather live with their mispronounciations than their desperate attempts to get it right. N i'd love to guest-blog (is that even a word?) but wouldnt know what to say:p. Thinking about blogging though. You'll be the first invitee to it:D.
@Bharath: Its Svasti (n is it totally nuts of me to give out all this info on a blog?? :p).

Cloudy said...

@Bharath: Yes, I know what you mean... when I have to spell out my name and think of "V for...", I can't for the life of me think of anything other than ... nevermind.

@Revealed: Yay! We know your name now, and it's a beautiful one, too :) I used to be internet paranoid too, but declaring that I have a kid has seemed to dirve away stalkers...hehehe

Bharath Hemachandran said...

@mona .. Welcome to the blog. Hope u visit more often. Waise being Indian u should have no problem pronouncing my name :)

@shruti... i mean swathi... i mean svasti ... yes it's not safe to give ur name out randomly, but not to worry being indian it's not too easy to narrow u down to one person. But being a guy it's not so much of a prob for me. I suppose being a girl u need to worry about such things. Although don't worry about the name it's not so bad. It's ur other personal details that u need to worry about.

Anonymous said...

@Bharath: What other personal details??? OK now you're scaring me! Was half kidding when I said that.
@Cloudy: Mebbe I should just make up 10 kids then, huh? :) Guys, help me choose names for them:p.

Anonymous said...

hey bart..:)
the blog on ur "name" was damn cool..u know wat baruut..it reminds me of the way these guys try to get my name right and dont give up till they mispronunce it in all possible ways.. they never stop even if u say they made it 80% efficiently..haha.. i usually say WoW.. u pronounced it just like an indian the 1st time they go and they find it hard to believe they can do that and reconfirm it by asking if its no "Kairuan" or "Keyraan" or "Kyrin"... man and the moment i tell them my last name is "ba..la..su..br..am..an..iam".. most ppl just faint..hahhaha...
cheers..
Kiran