this isn’t that hard.

It’s raining in Cincinnati, and after spending all day in a spreadsheet, I’m kind of cranky. So this is a quick entry.

For the past 2 weeks, a very interesting phenomenon has occurred. And by “interesting,” I actually mean “terribly annoying.” Strangers constantly come up to me and call me “Sanjaya.” You know, that kid from American Idol. If you’ve seen the show you’d know that I look absolutely nothing like him. Then there’s the fact that he’s…16 years old (and I’m not). If they don’t call me “Sanjaya”, the second most common is a “Surya”-”Sanjaya” mix. Sanurya. Surjaya. Whatever. And yes, I’m being totally serious.

So the progression in my life has been like this:

11/81–12/06: I meet someone and it takes them 15 minutes to figure out how to say my name 15 different ways, before giving up.

1/07–3/07: People come up to me and say, “are you Surya?” or “are you Surya from the Apprentice?” Pretty surreal.

4/07-now: People come up to me and call me either “Sanjaya” or some horrid combination of both of our names. I proceed to just blankly stare at them.

So what’s going on here? Can people really not handle any more than one Indian name at a time? Can people not tell two very different looking / aged Indian-Americans apart?

If there’s any justice in the world, somewhere, wherever that Sanjaya kid is, people are coming up to him and asking him about his fascination with whiteboards and the word “absurd.”

3/28/13 — Ha — I totally remember this. The part that sticks out to me in retrospect, was how upset people got when I would just stare at them and say “No. I’m not.” I just saw last month that someone photographed Sanjaya in NYC playing his guitar and singing for coins. I wonder if anyone looked at him and said “Surya?”