Sudipta's Life

A lot of people have asked me over the years why I was given a girl's name: Sudipta. Actually, in Bengali you pronounce it as Sudipto, but the correct translation from Sanskrit is Sudipta. Sort of like you call Ram as Rama, सुदीप्त gets written as Sudipta. In the US, almost everyone struggles to pronounce my name. So I ease it for them, by saying "Call me Su". I am told there is also a song that goes by that name, but we're digressing here. The fun with having a name that spells like that of a girl is that a lot of people also assume that you're a girl when they haven't met you. This includes email groups, mailing lists, potential employers, pen-pals... the list goes on. Some people are heartbroken when they come to know about this: one dude from Bangalore even added me on his IM, called me via Google Talk, and then upon hearing my voice decided to commit suicide (well, almost). :D On the other hand, when girls interact with me, they assume that I'm a girl...

I was just able to finalize the settings of my Bengali blog, called Ek Kothai (এক কথায়). For those unfamiliar with the language, it means, "in short" or "in one word". Please visit or bookmark it -- I wish to make that my own Twitter, to record the snippets from my life. Also, you might need to hit Control-Plus a few times to get it to a readable font size.

I know, Kolkata ain't Vegas. A lot of wonderful comments came in when I declared that I will be visiting USEFI for a guest lecture. Which was all fine, until Shreya suggested that I reveal the details, and I thought about the incident again. So, here's the story: It was I who had initiated the process in the first place. I had emailed the coordinator at USEFI Kolkata asking if he could arrange a short gathering where two of us at www.edulix.com could come and spread the word about the website. As soon as he said yes, I did not waste a single moment in publicizing this. Family knew first: my mom was of course thrilled to know this. I started dropping hints 'subtly' to my friends: - "Hey, I'm going home this December. You need anything from Kolkata?" - "Umm... not really... but wait! You don't live there, do you?" - "Naah, but you know, I have been invited to give a guest lecture at USEFI, Kolkata" - "Oh really? Cool!" ...