Wake Up To "Arun"

No I'm not hosting a morning radio show. I've actually thought that I'd make for a good radio or TV personality, but alas that won't be happening until after I am famous.

I'm actually talking about the origin of my name. For those of you who don't know, Arun is an Indian name (think Kwik-e-Mart, not hats with feathers). My parents were both born in India, so I guess that makes me American-Indian right?

I'm actually never sure about this. If I say I'm American-Indian, people think my name means something like "Runs with Buffalo." If I say I'm Indian, I get the same goddamn question every time..."So do you like, worship cows???" If I say I'm American, people look at me all confused as if I didn't answer the question properly.

When someone asks me where I'm from, I usually have to go into an explanation that my ancestry is from India and I'm from America. And speaking of ethnicity, you know when you fill out those various forms for whatever, how there's usually a question asking you to put a check mark next to your ethnicity? I'm never really sure what to checkmark here. "Indian" is never an option. Do I check Asian? I'm mean India is on the continent of Asia, but so is Russia and I don't think anybody would classify Russians as "Asians." Most people take "Asian" to refer to people of Mongoloid decent (in politically incorrect terms, people with slanted eyes).

Scientifically, people from India are actually Caucasian, but if I put a checkmark in the Caucasian box, then its automatically assumed I'm white, which is pretty plain to see that I'm not. Occasionally, there's an "other" box which I'll select and do the old write-in, but you'd be surprised how often there is no "other" option, and I'm left all confused as to which box to check, but I digress.

As I was saying four paragraphs ago, "Arun" is an Indian name which means, "The Morning Sun." I've always thought this was pretty cool. Originally, my Mom wanted to name me "Murali" but my Dad's brother ended up using that name for his son.

Thank God.

People have a hard enough time hearing and saying my name as it is, and a name like Murali would make things incredibly difficult. I usually have to say my name twice when introducing myself, then I have to follow it up with a rhyme of some sort to make it easy for people to remember. "Arun, like macaroon, except without the Mac!"

As much as like my name, there are some disadvantages to having a tricky name. In school, it always took teachers at LEAST a week to get my name right. Sometimes, after a while, they'd slowly start mispronouncing it, but by this point we'd already sort of know eachother so it'd be kind of weird saying "Actually you're pronouncing it wrong." Whenever we'd have a sub, I'd have to listen extra careful during roll to hear an attempt at my name.

At restaurants, when I leave the hostess my name for a table, I have to listen for about four different possible pronunciations of my name for fear of missing my table.

There are however far better benefits to having a unique name. I'm generally the only "Arun" people know, so confusion is never an issue. Once my name is learned, its usually never forgotten because of its uniqueness.

I'm also able to go with the "one name solution." What am I talking about? Think along the lines of "Usher," "Beyonce," and "Aaliyah." All people identifiable by only there first name. I'm going for the same thing. I usually avoid putting my last name on things when I don't have to in order to have the "one name solution." When I become a celebrity, I'll be referred to simply as, "Arun."

In fact, about ten or twelve years ago, I was at a book fair in a Library in Alaska, and found an old book for sale titled, "The Arun." Apparently there's is a valley at the base of the Himalayas, nestled between China and India, named "The Arun Valley." I now own the book which details the lush plantation and wildlife that live in The Arun.

I still wish there were less Arun's. I've only really ever known and been friends with one other Arun (he was a college friend of my Dad's). Right now, my webpage is 51st in google's index when you search the name "Arun." It's steadily moving up, but surprisingly, a lot of Arun's have websites.

My goal is to surpass all of these people and become King of the Arun's!!! Basically, I want to be number 1 on Google's search index for my name. Anyways, if you ever meet an Arun, tell him you enjoy The Morning Sun, and I'm sure he'll like you right away. After all, with a cool name like that, I'd want to be friends with him too!