I can’t actually take credit for this – I was out to lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings in Clear Lake, where some co-workers eat and play Texas Hold-Em (the card game, not the “other” game). One of my coworkers (a Cisco god – really) game name is “Ramesh”. After about 20 minutes of keeping the wings sauce off these kewl little players, I asked him what was up and he was like “if the India-nites use American names, and we’re outsourcing to them, we need to adopt their names so when we get outsourced, we can just fit right in” – which, the more I think out it – is insanely hilarious.
So, off the iloveindia.com site, in the section titled something like “Common Boys Names” (yes, it was in English – it’s apparently widely spoken in India although most Dell owners would disagree), I have picked Manish as my Indian name. It’s somewhat close to Michael and its has a deep meaning (maker of phallic salad bowls or something like that).
Oh, and I have the accent down. I’ve got about 4-5 accents I can do, and the disgrunted outsourced Indian is one of them (and it’s obscure to avoid the obvious legal pitfalls). Plus, I do tech support, so it’s a progression that the user community has come to expect.
“Heelo, my neem is Maneesh. Ah am hapee to be talking too yuu toe-day. Wood yuu like sum spicee shicken?”
I have it, man. I’m multee-cull-chur-d.
Oh, and on a fictional and extremely entertaining additions note, Jack has given up, killed Curtis to protect a known terrorist, and watched a nuclear device detonate in the LA area. 24 is back and it’s flooping-riffic.