My Maiden Surname Poem by Shakuntala Sharma

Long long back when
Kolkotta was still Calcutta
I shifted myself there to join
As a researcher in a premier institute

The registration clerk asked me
My surname, when I answered him
I had none, he was aghast

He said to me, ' Not having
A surname in Calcutta
Would be a social stigma '

I explained, ' I carry
My village name 'Velpuri' '
The imaginative clerk suffixed it with 'a'

His thought-line was like this:

'Velpuri' would become 'Bhelpuri'
On Bengali tongues
Even otherwise 'puri' is
Familiar to all Indians

A food-item-name would not gel
With my academic aura

So he 'surnamed' me 'Velpuria'
Which at least would remind
One of ' Bulgaria '
A formidable sounding foreign land!

[ Surnames in India are a cause for confusion when people move between South and North or even from State to State ]