My name

My parents named me Samyuktha. People I meet, love my name and often ask me it's meaning. They also think my mom is very creative and has used a lot of her time in naming me with such beautiful and meaningful name. My name literally translates to togetherness, but my mom actually didn't think of it's meaning before naming me.

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My mom was not in good health mentally and physically when she delivered me. I was 4 weeks premature and looked horrible. I was just bones and skin. My mom had during that time lost her elder brother to a freak road accident. My dad decided to name me after a South Indian telivision star 'Deepika' who was famous during the 80's. My mom however disagreed with him for she felt there would be more Deepika's in the class when I would start going to school.

My dad left it on my mom to decide a name for this premature baby which they thought would not survive. My dad was busy and tiredrunning between hospitals as his parents (my grandparents) we're sick. My mom was a history student and thought that she would give me this beautiful name which nobody would have thought of since it had many alphabets. SAMYUKTHA was a beautiful princess who was kidnapped by king Prithviraj Chauhan. Prithviraj was smitten by her beauty and decided to kidnap her on his horse back to avoid getting rejected by her father.

I was happy with my name till I was in grade 8th. What happened then? A boy named Prithviraj took admission in same grade but different section. People started teasing us. Things got worse when my mom started teasing me whenever she saw someone ride a horse.

I hated when someone teased me, but I loved my name too. I got married and it is a custom in our community to change the bride's name after marriage. My co sister happened to change her old name to her new name in the official records too, but I just couldn't. My identity was with Samyuktha and I didn't want people to associate me with any other name. Though my husband calls me 'Keerthana' I am still samyuktha officially.