THE NANJINGER | VOLUME 12 ISSUE 07 | MAY 2022
Adapted from a real-life experience
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A Story of Surnames, Identity & Formula 1 “Pilots” urnames stick to you. Like skin, you can’t actuallychange them.You get tanned orbitten by insects, but cells are always there to remind you that this is your shape for ever and ever.
Surnames just staywith you, even ifyou legally change them. Is it a burden? A sin? A blessing? I always keep in mind how huge the fights were in the past around surnames and caste. How huge a matter it was for a patriarch to ensure that his lineage was maintained as long as he could live and breathe. I understand that, both in the case that you are special and unique or that you are the most common one. I respect it.
So, I have always been a double “E” and a double “ T ”. I’ve always been somebody that since the very beginning of her talkative life, should have articulately repeated her last name letter by letter. It is actually not that big of a matter in Italian, you don’t really need spelling in Italian.You only need to pronounce it clearly because every letter has its own sounds, so there are no mistakes. But when you’re just a little girl who is a few years old trying to introduce herself to adults, and they consistently ask you to repeat your surname, well... then you just wish to delete it. Forget it. Just call me by my simple-four- letters-name, I’m fine.
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