My name is Madhurima. This is an Indian name which means 'sweetest'.

When we landed in San Francisco eight years back, I found that people had a hard time pronouncing my name. It IS hard to pronounce plus my Indian accent must have made it more difficult. So I was used to people saying, 'Can you spell it?' or 'I am sorry, can you repeat it?'

Once while looking for an apartment we visited a nice apartment community. We went there and my husband introduced himself. Then he said

' and she is Madhurima.'

The apartment manager was a very nice old guy. He looked very confused and said something to himself. So my husband asked him, what was the problem.

'But she looks so young. How can she be your mother-in- law?' he said.

Then we had to explain him about my name and everybody had a good laugh.