I was reading an article in one of the newspapers regarding the spelling and pronunciation of a name and this is a subject that I can relate very closely. I too was not sure what I had done to my name until I became involved in what is called the "public life". My name is one of Almighty Allah’s 99 sacred names. It means "The Glorious". My late father spelled it MAJID instead of MAJEED and this name continued all thru my first 22 years. In school and in college, I was Abdul Majid Balagamwala. That was how I signed my forms to get admission into Tri-State College and Ball State University in Indiana, USA. Over there, I became Abdul M. Balagamwala, and they started calling me Abdul. I tried my level best to get them to call me Majid but that was something they could not get into their vocabulary. It seemed that I would lose my given name and become just Abdul with a last name, like my friend the attorney par excellence at Sattar & Sattar. When I returned home, I dropped the prefix Abdul and now most of the times, I do not even write my surname. However, in my Bantva Memon community, I am referred more as Majyd Balagamwala and some even drop the last four letters of my family name.

It was around Winter 1972, when I decided to change the spelling of my name to MAJYD. Why? I ain’t sure, but it probably had to do with reading some English Literature where the letter ‘y’ was more prominent. For nearly three decades, I have been writing my name as Majyd. I seldom had any difficulty in USA but in late 1973, when I returned home, fresh with a Master’s degree, I found out that I had made a giant mistake. "Don’t you know how to spell your name correctly?", "Sir, are you sure you got your name right?", "Who gave you the idea to spell your name this way?" "I’ve never heard anyone spell like this" were some of the responses I got whenever I wrote or mentioned my name. The Company Secretary would not write my name correctly on tax returns and other official papers, and it was only when I put my foot down and reminded him that its my name and its my life that he got an advertisement published in a daily’s classifieds that the name of so-and-so has been changed.

It was in 1974 that I got involved in social and trade activities and my name started appearing in newspapers and magazines. Begum Masudah Ahmad, the Chief Editor of "Teenager" magazine, once informed me that the proofreader red-circled my spelling three times before he was told to ‘stet’ the matter. My factory personnel gradually came around to writing my name correctly and so did my family members. Nevertheless, that was just the beginning. Gradually, the reporters and columnists who would write about me managed to accept the spelling and favored me with doing it correctly.

However, there was another difficulty with my name. Many would call me "MA-jid" instead of "Maj-eed". Lt. Gen. (rtd) Moin-uddin Haider, an old and dear friend, would always call me as "MA-jid" and during his tenure as the Sindh Governor, it became routine for most of the government officials and others, especially my friends in the Army, to make it "MA-jid" and even some of the press reporters started writing in that manner. In fact, my first NIC card also proclaimed me in that manner too. Even today, inspite of my protestations I get called by that name. Just a few weeks ago, Khurshid Hyder, the President of the Media Women’s Organization, related a discussion that went on at the Karachi Press Club where they were figuring out the correct pronunciation of my name. There are some that pronounce my name as "Maj-ja-eed" too. In today’s world, where everything is sent thru computers, I sometimes get two of everything cause the computer has both "Majyd" and "Majid" written in the mailing list. That is not my fault, is it?

I am now happy that the true spelling has been registered in the minds of many and now I get a lot of correspondence in the correct spelling, I still have to say "Maj-eed" when I get a "Is it MA-jid Sahib speaking?" on my cell phone. The Indonesian Consul General informed me that if I were in Jakarta, I would get salutes from the Army, cause "Maj yd" is short for Major General there in Indonesia.

I am not sure whether there are any other persons who spell it "Majyd" but if there are any, I have not heard of them. Oh yes! I have "y-ed" my children’s names too. It’s Humyra, Muhammad Aly, and Mysbah. They face and will continue to encounter the same hassles, frustrations, and mistakes that I had. Maybe more intensely. The two girls do not like the spelling at all but they are stuck with it for the rest of their lives. After all, they are "Daddy’s girls" and that’s my privilege.

I have to say one thing. When I meet someone for the first time and I hand over my visiting card (Salahuddin Haider of VIP Business Club makes us bring 35 cards every time he has a get-together), the receiver notes the spelling and invariably makes a remark. I believe this is a good marketing strategy for me that they would surely remember this "Majyd" even after they may have forgotten where we met. You win some, you lose some.

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