For Tvisha - My Life As It Started

Tvisha, we all know that you were born in Manhattan New York, and mommy and appa (daddy) ‘picked you up’ from the ‘hostipal’ :-).

Today appa is going to tell you all I know about how and where I was born, and how my parents arrived at my name.

I was born in the town of Sion in Bombay (now called Mumbai), India on January 13, 1966 sometime early in the morning at the Rohini Merchant Hospital, a small and popular hospital at that time.

The hospital was only a block away from the apartment we lived in. You have stayed at that apartment during your first visit ever to India in 2007 as a one year old baby.

My mother (your paati) was admitted to the hospital the previous night, as instructed by the doctor. The doctor had indicated to my father (Sion Thaatha) that they might need to do a cesarean operation to get me out. So thaatha signed on the consent form and came back home.

During those days, no one, including the daddy was allowed into the delivery room. When thaatha reached the hospital the next morning, the doctor confirmed that they would have to indeed do the cesarean procedure since I was a big baby. Thaatha said all right.

After I was delivered, the doctor informed thaatha that everything went well, I was fine and being taken care of, and that paati was resting but still hadn’t come around. Being a very practical person, thaatha thought he wasn’t adding value being in the hospital, and took off to work!

When he returned in the evening, paati gave him a dress down and fired him left, right and and center! I found this totally hilarious, although I very much realize her reasoning. Thaatha does feel today it was indeed very foolish on his part to have made that decision.

Oh yes, by the way Tvisha, I was a celebrity at the hospital for a few days since I weighed 9.5 lbs, which was an all time record at the hospital at that time. Well, 9.5 lbs may not be all that big, but remember I was being compared to the average Indian baby :-).

By tradition, in our culture back then, the first son takes his grandfather’s name from his daddy’s side, and the second son takes the name of the grandfather from his mommy’s side.

Being that I was the second son, they gave me the name of paati’s father, Rama. My grandfather’s name was T. Rama Iyer.

Paati felt that it would be very insulting to her daddy if she called me out by my name casually in his presence. So I went through a name change and ended up being called Sriram. Not a bad choice for a name, huh? :-)

- Appa