How do I spell my name ?

One more from my emails!

-----------------May 12, 2005
Hi All,

Yesterday (May 11, 2005), a very funny incident happened to me. Actually, it was rather a very tragicomic situation at my work place. In my on-campus job, I answer many phone calls and make many calls everyday - its like customer-service center. And as all of us here in America must have experienced this once in a while: its always difficult to tell/explain/spell our Indian names to Americans - courtesy our "accent".

So, in one such phone call yesterday, there was an American lady on the other end:

She: Hi!!! How youd doing ?
Me: I,m fine, thanks!!! How about you ?
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She: May I know your name ?
Me: Kaushal (Do you want me to spell it for you ? I always ask them before they ask me)
She: Sure...
Me: Kay, Kay as in kite..
She: I ?
Me: Kay as in kite... (with a bit louder voice)
She: Jay ?
Me: Kay as in kite... (screaming)
She: Dee ?
Me: ????? (Oh my God, does K sound like D ?, cursing myself)
She: Could you please use some other words with "kHay" ?
Me: Kay as in Kentucky...
She: Sorry I don't get it, another word please...
Me: Kay as in Knox...
She: Sorry I din't get that one either..
Me:????? (Oh man, I ran out of k-words now, can't even think of a word starting with k)
Me: Sorry, I can't say it, its K as in Kite, K as in kite...
She: Okay hold on...
Me: ??? (what now ???)
She: A ? B ? C ? D ?..........J? K ?
Me: Stop...
She: is it J ???
Me: (I won't say Kay again) No, No the next one...
She: Oh you mean "kHay" ?
Me: Yes, Yes... "kHay"... (Thank God, I was almost going to kill myself, what a relief!!!, couldn't stop laughing)
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.(we were talking about the real business then)

I laughed a lot after she hang up, this was the worst ever but laughing experience I had encountered after coming to US. Such things happen very often, but not upto this extent. Its true, that my name "Kaushal" is very hard for them to speak, and its even harder for me to explain it to them. So far, I have been named like "Casual"(very popular at my first work place called "Red Jacket Dining Hall"), "Kushal" and "Kaaooshal". And whenever I speak "Kaushal" they hear it as "Gaaushal" and "Kay" becomes "Gay". Sometimes I think of changing it to somthing like "Chris" and become Chris Patel (Patel everyone knows, no need to spell. The UPS delivery guy, in his all-season brown shorts, at my home is very familiar with "Patel").

I guess, I would never be able to convince myself to be Chris or Martin or Joe or something American.

3 Cheers,
Kaushal