Ajai Karthikeyan is Invictus

People often ask my how the right way to say my name is. My usual response is that there is actually no right way. This goes into some thing deeper that pronunciation but into what exactly a name. A name is often an identifier given to a person. Anyone who has met me might remember that I always introduce myself with the lines “My name is Ajai” or “I go by Ajai” or “My friends call me Ajai” (With whatever convoluted pronunciation of Ajai I happen to be using at that time) or something along those lines. I never use the line “I am Ajai”.

The reason for this is simple. My name is not who I am! When asked who I am, I can not answer that question in 2 syllables. My being is much more complex in nature and the best way to answer the question, “Who are you?” is to get to know me. Shakespeare got the point pretty well a couple hundred years back.

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

- Juliet from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Now, to answer the question of how to pronounce my name, there is NO RIGHT WAY! There is not right way because I say there is no right way. I use a lot of different pronunciations of my name cause I am a very different person and am comfortable with having people call me different things. Most of my friends call me AJ (as in the letters A and J). I have gone by Ahai (the spanish pronunciation of the j) for a couple days too. Honestly, I don’t care. I’m ok with being called “Oii there” if you have a proper Aussie accent and can do a goo job with the Oii. Go ahead and call me Invictus (the name of this blog) for all I care, it actually means the same thing as Ajai though in a different ancient language (Latin and Sanskrit respectively).

But for those of you who still want to know what the right way to say my name is, I have a consolation prize: The original way to say my name. I was named by my parents who speak Tamil and my name is a Tamil name. I have spent the last couple hours figuring out how to write my name in Tamil and then transliterating that to IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). In Tamil, my name is written as,

That when translated to the IPA comes to be [ʌd͡ʒaɪ], which consists of 3 distinct parts:

• ʌ – The starting sound which is the sound made by the ‘u’ in the word plus.
• d͡ʒ – The sound for the j in my name which is the sound made by the ‘j’ in the word jump.
• aɪ – The ending of my name which is the sound made by ‘gh’ in the word high.

There you go. I’ve thoroughly analyzed it and have laid it bare for all of you to see (well, more like say ). If you still are not sure how to say the name, start with the uhhh sound you make when you uhmmm in the middle of a conversation and end with the jai from the song jai ho from Slumdog Millionaire.