I too have one, but not with the intent of projecting any of the above activities. It happened spontaneously, one day in 1998.
I had purchased an assembled personal computer in october 1998 and the person selling me the computer created an email id for me which read rajanikanth.shenoy@usa.net.
Couldn't he find a longer user id than that? I sometimes wonder!
However, with much struggle I was managing emails with a mile long id, that too with two dots in between. I was not computer literate then, but I had some knowledge of working on DOS based computers in bank called as ALPMs or Automated Ledger Posting Machines. Windows 98 was easier to handle, and I picked up speed within a few days.
Then my brother Kamalakanth visited our home one day to see my new computer. He asked me if I have an email id. I told him all about it, he felt sad for me and said, he had a Yahoo mail account which is much easier to use and is one of the most popular email hosting site.
"Why not create one yahoo id? It is free and you can also feel good to be a yahoo user!"
I didn't hesitate. I started to fill in the form but my name was not acceptable in many ways. I didn't want it to be long, I wanted to avoid adding my surname Shenoy, we went on exploring possibilities.
After 5 minutes trying many ids and not getting acepted by yahoo, suddenly I had a brilliant idea!
"Kudpiraj"
Yes Kudpiraj contains my family name Kudpi and the first three letters of my name Rajanikanth. That should be OK.
Kamalakanth was amazed to hear that and he also felt fascinated about that catchy name.
Then I filled in that id in the form and it was accepted anon by yahoo!
Of course USA.net closed operations very soon and I was happy to get rid of the long email id rajanikanth.shenoy@usa.net.
Years went by, I took VRS from Syndicate Bank in January 2001 and I wanted to start my own business or profession. In March 2001 I decided to start computer job related service like audio recording, DTP and allied work. I need not scratch my brain to think about a catchy name. Kudpiraj was already there, "Dot Com" was the in thing those days, and I named my venture 'kudpiraj.com'
For about 10 months I worked from my home office and when I gained better knowledge, learned photo editing and video editing, had better customer response, I shifted to a rented premises in Bejai Mangalore and continued there as 'Kudpiraj.com - Multimedia and DTP Center'.
Having zero typing knowledge, adding DTP to my services was a big blunder, I had to pay a heavy price by accepting DTP work on a thesis for a Medical PG student which went on for 23 days, typing almost 5-6 hours a day, making hundreds of amendments sometimes losing sleep and scanning pages of books at home late in the night! In the deal I sacrificed other work that is multimedia and refused taking up new jobwork! My only hope was to gain something extra out of printing the finalised thesis. Otherwise the lump sum charged by the job typists, Xerox centers and cyber cafes in the market for such work was peanuts, just Rs.2000/-.
When the thesis was finalised and I quoted my price for printing three sets of the thesis for him adding up to just over 300 pages in total, he announced that his superiors accept xerox copies also, and he had already arranged for printouts at a xerox center in Balmatta Mangalore! He offered to pay Rs.200/- extra as 'Royalty' for the trouble taken by me!
I felt giddy and sank in my office chair, my total income for 23 days of work with an average 6 hours a day was just Rs.2200/-.
I immediately called my friend who was into designing, asked him to remove 'DTP Center' from the board and change to "Kudpiraj Multimedia Professionals"
So I dropped DTP from my professional activities.
The day I dropped DTP from my activities, I was feeling a new air of freedom and later part of my 15 years of profession was like a song, of course with ups and downs but the name Kudpiraj went places, making me a media person, giving me a recognition on social networking sites Orkut and facebook, in literary field as well as in cooking and blogging.
Some people call me Kuldip Raj, some call me Kudi Raj, some others call me Kudipu Raj. Some of the typical GSB Konkanis have grimaced, saying such names ending with 'Raj' are not suited to GSBs.
However, this 'Kudpiraj' never feels unhappy, as his job is to keep other people happy.
Today, more people in my family and friends and common public recognise me as Kudpiraj and not Kudpi Rajanikanth Shenoy. For me, it means projecting my family name and to feel proud to keep it alive the world over.
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