NEBU

What’s there in a name?
You don’t choose your parents so also your name. Usually mother’s have an upper hand in choosing the name of the new born. It was not after the Babylonian king Nebuchadnasser that I was named.
The Wikipedia says, “Nebu is the Egyptian symbol of gold. It depicts a golden collar with the ends hanging off of the sides and seven spines dangling from the middle”. I am sure my mother never knew it then as well as now. The fact is that I grew up disliking my own name and even considered officially changing it.
When VSNL queried me for a user name I opted for nebu@vsnl.com. But to my dismay it was already taken. On the spur of the moment I send a mail to nebu@vsnl.com saying that I too am a Nebu. Prompt was the reply from a dermatologist.
That it was a doctor of medicine aroused my curiosity. I knew from my mother that the original Nebu, her friend’s brother was a Doctor. It was his turn to be baffled reading my next mail asking him whether he was so and so. He thought it was one of his friends pulling his leg.
He was astonished when I narrated the story that I was named after him. After a few mails to and fro, it had to happen sooner or later, we arranged to meet. I took my mom for the first time to meet the person after whom she named her first born; it had been 45 years.
Her old friend had passed away a couple of years ago. The tragedy was compounded when her daughter too passed away embracing the mother’s dead body.