తిరుపతి మహేష్

For many years, I have not liked the surname–initial culture followed in Andhra Pradesh. Why? Because all my 12 years of schooling happened in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. There, there is no strong surname culture. Instead, the father’s name’s first letter becomes the child’s initial. Recently, I have even seen people slowly adding the mother’s name’s first letter along with it. It is nice to see — it gives equal importance to both initials. But in Andhra Pradesh, it is totally different. Here, the surname is followed, and often that surname itself is the name of a place. That place name becomes the child’s initial. For example, my surname is Nagari. Nagari is a border town in Andhra Pradesh, very close to Tiruttani in Tamil Nadu. In my entire family, the initial must be “N,” which stands for Nagari. Beyond that, I don’t even know why my family started using Nagari as the surname or why it has been passed down generation after generation. In my case, I was lucky because my father’s name also s...