What's in a name? Crystal -I

What's in a name? That what we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

claimed Bernard Shaw.

Ha! I hear you clicking your tongue at my ignorance, muttering, "That was Shakespeare, you fool!" Don't worry, I know the quotation very well, and I always deliberately misattribute it because I want to make precisely this point: names are indeed (often) very important!

There are several examples that I can cite in different contexts-- in fact I had once contemplated writing a collection of short stories on this issue. But tonight I'll just tell you the story of my friend Crystal.

Crystal or Krystal or Chris (not to be confused with my Bavarian friend with the Swedish girlfriend) or Kris or Krish is one of the oldest friends I have whom am still in touch with. I met him when I was 11. We had moved to Delhi in 1985 and I joined the local Kendriya Vidyalaya (chain of schools all over India). Crystal was ill that week, but I heard about him from the others... a strange name. I asked the same question that everybody asked when they heard the name: is he christian? No, not at all. A few days later I met him too. I was a rather shy guy, and he approached me and made friends, I remember it was the games period.

We soon became good friends, close friends, and eventually "best friends" and our friendship became quite legendary in our class. We did have our fights, sulkings, quarrels but we both made up pretty soon. After two years, he moved to Madras where he stayed on until we both finished school in 1991 (I had moved to Calcutta by then), and then he moved to the US. After he moved to Madras, we met for a few hours in Delhi in the summer of 1989, in Bangalore for a couple of days in the summer of 1997, and a few months ago (end of May-beginning of June) we met again for a week here in Vienna (and Munich). I'll talk about that in a future post. But we have kept in touch... in the beginning it used to be an amazingly regular exchange of letters (Crystal attributes it to me), then an occasional letter, regular emails, occasional emails and finally an occasional email or a phone call. But we have kept in touch. He was one of the first six people I came out to (I forget the order, but he might have been the second or third).

Anyways, back to the name. Crystal comes from a Sindhi family and their extended family has this love for strange names. Apparently when he was born, an aunt of his was reading about crystallization, and so he was named Crystal. He has a cousin called Happy... they named him because he seemed very happy at the candles on the cake at a (his first?) birthday. I shudder to think of such relatives.

His name of course invariable caused a double-take . "Crystal?!" "That's an unusual name! Is he Christian?" "Why is your name Crystal?" Of course, fortunately for him, we were unaware at that time that in the West it is a girl's name, otherwise he'd have been teased a lot. He didn't really seem to mind his name though. I remember our Sanskrit teacher protesting about his name. He mentioned that his folks had been considering naming him "Kuldeep", and the teacher said she'd call him "Kuldeep". I don't think she ever remembered.
Even while in India, he sometimes used to write "Krystal" instead of sticking to "Crystal".

After he moved to the US, he started facing problems because of his name, because it is a girl's name. He began introducing himself as Chris. He mentioned he'd change his name to Kris or Krish. And he did change his name to Krish when he became a US citizen. Nevertheless he still continues to be confused about his name.

During their trip to this area in May, they were staying in a youth hostel (and I was staying with Chris and Stina) in Munich. When we went to look for him and his wife, Sheetal, at the youth hostel, we didn't know what his room number was. At the reception desk, I had no clue what he had given as his first name.
It was "Crystal".

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Partners of Friends (updated)

We are friends with our friends not merely because we are fond of them, but also because we get along with them, find them interesting, can have great conversations with them, can gel with them, can trust them, can open up to them, and so on. Most importantly, in most cases our wavelenghts match, even though we may have serious disagreements.

Now what happens when these friends have partners or get married. Do we get along with these partners or spouses too? I have had mixed experiences. Meeting with the partners of two good friends in December and having diametrically opposite experiences made me realize how different this can be.

Hari was going to India, and was to go via Germany, meeting his old colleagues and also showing his wife the country he had lived in for more than four years. I hadn't met him for years, and had never met his wife. I was to visit a place near Karlsruhe for work around that time, and so I decided to go earlier and meet them in Berlin.

Hari's marriage had been an arranged one. He had seen photographs and had been talking to her on telephone for quite a few months. He finished his PhD, went back to India, met her in person, went out with her, and then got married. When he'd told me about these plans on telephone, I was skeptical about his optimism. I wasn't saying that it wouldn't work, but what if he was disappointed when he met her, or worse, disliked her? The wedding arrangements had been made, and knowing him, it'd be unlikely that he'd make them call it off. What then? We had a bit of an argument. Later I emailed him to apologise for being so cynical and he said I had been articulating things had been on his mind, and that was the reason he got irritated as well.

He got married, and they both went to the US. I kinda lost touch with him.

But he was going to be Germany, and we decided to meet.

Madhuri is lovely. I mean particularly as a person, although I do find her pretty too, with the Mallu eyes that I find so attractive in women. She is extremely friendly (I felt I'd known her all my life), has good sense of humour, is intelligent, makes good conversation, is fun, caring, and seems to be "one of our crowd". There was no hesitation on her part, and we got along very well immediately. They obviously enjoy each other very much. And I hope this is one of greatest successes of the arranged marriage system. I must say I am both relieved and very happy for Hari. We hung out for two days, had dinner, visited the Pergamon museum, loitered around Berlin, christmas markets etc and had a thoroughly good time. Although Hari and I are very good friends, we do have issues and have one or more fights every time we meet. This was the first time we didn't, I think thanks to Madhuri.

*

About to weeks later (after Christmas), Chris and his Swedish girlfriend came to visit me. Chris is 4-5 years younger than me, and I am very fond of him. We had met in Tübingen where he worked as a summer student, and we got along extremely well. We exchanged visits after that and travelled around Germany as well. He have very wide interests and is extremely well-informed and we can have those endless conversations about almost everything under the sun. His girlfriend, Stina, on the other had was one of the most boring creatures I have ever met. She was grumpy and had a thoroughly bored expression most of the time. Offered no opinions. Try as I might, I couldn't involve her in conversation... all questions and leads were dealt with using the minimum possible words. After several trials I just left her alone and almost ignored her. The only thing she really wanted to do/see is the Natural History Museum, but unfortunately it was closed most of the time they were there. We went around the city centre on the New Year Eve, through the crowds, stopping at the concerts on the way. Again she had no enthusiasm, opinion or interest in anything. We watched the fireworks with small bottles of champagne from the forecourt of the Austrian Parliament... it is elevated and hence offers a good view of the fireworks, but is not crowded as there are no concerts, shops or stalls around. And soon afterwards walked back because she was tired.

I thoroughly enjoyed Chris' company like before, I trust he enjoyed himself too. But I absolutely couldn't figure her. De gustibus non est diputandum, goes a saying in Latin: there should be no argument about taste, and I agree with it completely. But to be honest (and nasty to a dear friend), I absolutely can't fathom what he sees in her.

*

These were two of the most recent experiences and they struck me because they were within a few weeks of each other and so opposite to each other. But now that I think of it, spouses/partners of friends have been a mixed bag.

I got along with Ana, Rajeeb's girlfriend very well indeed. On the other hand I knew HRJ's hubby, Jeetu, much before she knew him and in fact he had even been my roommate for a considerable period. But I never really gelled with him. Even now, on rare occasions when I talk to him on the phone, we don't have much to say to each other. I have a similar problem with Trupti's hubby too, although we are able to talk a bit more . Clovis was one of my first gay friends in Vienna, and I get along very well with his boyfriend Michael, in fact I haven't met Michael in the absence of Clovis, but it is possible that we get along even better. Ralf, is an old friend too, and although his girlfriend Helia isn't as interesting to talk to, we still get along quite well. I met Will's ex-girlfriend, Sonia, when she moved to Heidelberg long before he did. We became good friends, much better friends than I was with Will. I am still in touch with Sonia, but have lost contact with Will.

But I guess this is not surprising. People are all different, look for different things in people. Some click, others don't. I am really glad that I clicked with Madhuri... it would have been a real shame if I had not got along with Hari's wife.

Update: I had visited Chris and Stina in Munich in summer 07. And surprisingly enough, I enjoyed Stina's company quite a lot. She was more talkative and more participating in our discussions. She mentioned in passing in a completely different context, that Swedes become unfriendly in winter and change their characters completely in summer. Since they had visited me in Vienna in the middle of winter that might have been a reason for her unfriendliness. That and she was a bit unwell, and she was meeting me for the first time. I'm still not a big fan of her's but I get along better with her.

Another spouse of a friend I recently met for the first time is Sheetal, Crystal's wife (the same summer-- I had gone to Munich to get them to Vienna). Although we differ in many ways, I got along quite well with her... probably more than with Crystal himself.

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