12. The Handle Story of @silv3rglee
You would agree with me if you have a 't' in your name and if you've ever lived in South India. There seems to be an unwritten rule, a pledge almost, that the alphabet 't' in every and absolutely any name shall be followed by an 'h'. Gurudut becomes Guruduth, Rohit turns into Rohith and Thomas...err, never mind that one. And of course, I was a victim of this utterly incomprehensible (what’s the word I’m looking for here? Norm? No…policy? Decree? Let’s just go with that for now) decree wherein my name was modified every time it was written. Every single time.
In college, in administrative offices, on debit cards, hell, even on my receipt in Barista! Yeah, sure, when you yell my name out for me to come get my order, Swathi dun sound much different from Swati, but what about the receipt? Isn’t that evidence of this absolutely annoying ritual of theirs? I have proof, for fuck’s sake! I tried the best thing I could, the most sensible thing to do: every time I had to state my name, I would spell it. Yep, I would say “S-W-A-T-I, Swati”. To my utter disgust, that didn’t have an ounce of difference. People hear only what they want to hear. And they wanted to hear the ‘h’. Oh, so they so did. And so came into being what was later coined ‘Swati’s phrase’. I would say my name followed by a very emphatic “without an ‘h’”.
This had them baffled initially but it worked like a charm. At least it worked 67.89% of the time. Hey, it’s better than never. The phrase caught on so well that our Barista fellas started calling out for “Swati without an ‘h’”! And thus, I kicked the ‘h’ out of my name. Sorta. But getting a handle on twitter with your actual name is, well, pretty much impossible now. With or without the ‘h’. Alas, I had to resort to other means.
I did have a previous handle of sorts when I was in high school. Should I then use it? Yeah, that could work. I mean, who else could’ve thought of ‘silverglee’, eh? Apparently one other person had. Damnit – now what?
No Swati, no silverglee. Hell, no Swathi either! Improvise a bit, maybe?
s1lverglee? No…seems like two ‘i’s instead of one.
silver6lee? Could do, but not quite convinced.
silv3rgl33? Way too many 3’s in that one.
It was still silverglee, but a bit cooler. I think so. =)
And so began another round of introductory sessions – this time at Tweetups.
Them: So, what’s your handle?
Me: silverglee (that’s how it sounds!)
Them: *pulls out smartphone* Lemme follow you now!
Me: Sure! I'll follow you right back! So, that’s silverglee with a ‘3’.
There it was: Swati’s new phrase.
Got kinda complicated after that cuz this is how the conversations typically proceeded:
Them: *confused look* Umm…3?
Me: Yeah, so in silverglee, the first ‘e’ is replaced by ‘3’. Just the first one though.
Them: Errrrm…ok. *struggles to type*
Me: Oh goddamnit, just gimme your damn phone – I’ll find it for you. *rolling eyes*
I don’t typically end up losing followers in this manner, in case you’re wondering. Actually, to be honest, I wouldn’t quite know – I don’t really keep count. *bwaaaaaaaaahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahaahaha*
Anyway, yeah… *wiping tears*
That’s the story of my name. And my handle.
Go Follow @silv3rglee on Twitter. She also writes this kick-ass blog!
