Monday, August 25, 2008

To Nee or Not

Almost ten years into married life I thought I had long ago sorted out issues pertaining to Nee name (henceforth identified as NN) and Married name (lets call it MN). Not that many players were involved in the decision. The only people who had shown any interest in it or offered opinions on it were 1. Myself and 2. My FIL. The owner of my married surname was merely a bemused spectator as I sought answers to these plaguing issues.

Passport: If I adopted my MN, they indicated that I would have to apply for a fresh passport, which, ten years ago, used to be a longish wait. On the other hand, Madam, if you 'include' your spouse's name into your existing passport, it will be a one-day service. Thanks, I'll stick to NN.

PAN card: The dreadful, but handy thing to have around to flout your tax status. In my absence from the country my FIL had gone ahead and applied in the MN. And he got it too. Please can I change it now to NN? No dear, that would involve issuing a public notice (afffidavit?) that you are changing your name, legal processes involved...Then we would have to intimate the three insurance policies...Now, who dare go about altering such a thing as a PAN? So, there I was known as MN.

Employment: Since my passport is NN, but PAN is MN, i decided to maintain my duplicity...my email ID is my NN but my name in the records is MN ! I took great advantage of the IT-Business alignment gap in my company, which i incidentally tout as my core competence. Ha!

Forms: The surname of the NN is 14 letters long and that of MN is 15 letters long. So, i couldnt figure which had a clear advantage when it came to filling out sundry forms fast... So, in such instances i inkied and ponkied between the names.

Gmail: This week, I was finally frustrated with my hotmail and yahoo accounts due to the spam and so decided to get a gmail account (apart from the nonsensical sounding blogger account). As luck would have it, the NN id was taken, so I had to again adopt the MN@gmail.com id!