Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Dr. Meenal Agarwal 0:00
That’s when it hit me: that’s my name. Dr. Meenal. Meenal is my name, not Mee-NAL. This is Dr. Meenal and welcome to Uncover Your Eyes, where we uncover reality. As a mom and IEye Doctor, I want to know it all. What’s in a name? For me, my name was my identity. My name is what my friends call me. My colleagues call me. My teachers called me. What I was known by. It’s that thing that I write down on every single form that I fill out, it’s what was on my school trip forms that we used to fill out whether it was my job application forms, my university application forms, my medical history forms, it is on everything. It’s what I identify with. It’s how people know who I am. When I started school, when I was very young, my name got changed very quickly, to me now. Keep in mind, my name is Meenal. But it got changed to Mee-NAL. I was introduced to friends as Mee-NAL, as teachers as Mee-NAL. And I’m not sure how that happened. I’m not sure if it was the first teacher who couldn’t pronounce my name right. Or the first child who couldn’t pronounce my name right. But I accepted it, I was okay with it. I didn’t know differently. I was a minority in my school. And there was a not a lot of Indian children at that time. And so for me, it was more they just can’t see my name. And that’s okay. And my parents agreed it was okay. I didn’t realize that name would be carried forward through all my years of schooling. And I reached a point, you know, in grade seven, or eight, where I almost wanted to change my name back to Meenal. But I didn’t know how everyone in my community, everybody at school, all my teachers, everybody already knew me as Mee-NAL. So how can I do that? So it was easier to continue as is. And you know what, I liked the validation I got as Mee-NAL, because I felt part of that community felt part of the group, the group of normal names. And as time went on, you know, obviously, I entered university and met new friends as Mee-NAL. And as I graduated optometry school and became a healthcare professional, I was confused. Do I go by Meenal? Or do I go by Mee-NAL? Now let’s even talk about my last name. It was always known as EH-garwal, not Agarwal. So was I going to be known as Dr. Agarwal? Or Dr. Meenal? Or was it going to be Mee-NAL? Or EH-garwal? I didn’t know. But the first job I worked at as an optometrist, I was quick to be called EH-garwal. And so I stuck with it. I didn’t say no, or I didn’t correct anyone. I almost was okay with it. I thought that by correcting it, I might lose that validation. I might lose that sense of belonging that they were able to pronounce my name. So many years later, I’m not going to tell you how many because then you’ll know how old I am. But so many years later, as I started my social media journey recently, and my podcasting journey recently, the person who helped me with social media for the first time called me Dr. Meenal, and asked me to introduce myself on social media platforms as Dr. Meenal. I was like, what No, I can’t say that. Let’s say Dr. Mee-NAL, let’s say Dr. EH-garwal. Well, we can say Dr. Meenal. And he was almost confused. I don’t understand why. And when he saw his confusion, that’s when it hit me that that’s my name. Dr. Meenal. Meenal is my name, not Mee-NAL. And I almost felt this sense of comfort that it cannot believe that a stranger who had just met to help me knew my name more than me, and was more proud than me to identify with my real name. As I started my podcasting journey, I got more comfortable with my name, and being able to do introduce myself with my real name Meenal. The crew that helps me with my podcasting was calling me Dr. Meenal. I almost started to sense that oh my god, I still belong with the right name. So all these years, I could have gone with my real name. But I chose to ignore that for that false sense of validation. Recently, after launching my podcast, I had a classmate who reached out and said to me, that oh my god, I cannot believe I have been calling you the wrong name for all these years. And that’s when it hit me. I let this happen. I let myself identify with a name. That was not me. And so many years later, I’m now trying to change it. I guess better late than never. But I finally feel that sense of belonging with my real name. I don’t know what’s in the name. But what I do know that it’s on every form out there. It is the word that people address you by whether it’s your friends, your colleagues, your teachers, it’s the thing that people know you buy. It’s the thing that people talk about you buy. It is the only thing that we have to call our own our name. We don’t realize that it holds so much weight within us that we pass it off. And we’re okay being identified by a wrong name. Just because people can’t pronounce it. I even let people who were Indian call me Mee-NAL, even though they probably could have pronounced it correctly. I now do not let my children identify themselves with a pronounciation error in their names, I ensure that they go to school or they address themselves in front of classmates with their actual name and the actual pronounciation. I don’t want them to live their lives thinking they can have one name at home, that they’re called by their family and one name outside. And they need to have those two separate worlds. I want them to know that they are one person who has a beautiful name that they can identify with the rest of their lives. And it does not need to be changed in any way. Or by pronounciation. So if you have been called the wrong name your entire life, now is the time. Go out there. Re-teach your friends, re-teach your colleagues. Go out there and be strong and say your name like it is. Thank you, listeners and viewers, for tuning in. If you want to catch more episodes of Uncover Your Eeyes, make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube. To learn more about me, follow me on Instagram @Dr.MeenalAgarwal. Until next time, keep those eyes uncovered!