VOTEs' in a NAME ?

They say that

"Behind every successful man is a woman"

;
and Shakesphere has also remarked that

"Whats in a name?"

Combine the above two sayings, and you have "Whats in the name of a successful man, behind whom is a woman??".

My name has appeared in the daily national newspapers on two occasions (which I consider an achievement in itself), and on both of these occasions, the above (clubbed) saying has held forte.

The first occasion my name ever appeared in the newspaper was in the Times of Oman, immediately after the declaration of the Class X board results; I had top scored in one of the subjects then.

The second time my name appeared in the newspaper was recently during the 2009 national elections. Inspired by the JaagoRe campaign, and desperately wanting to exercise one of my rights as a citizen of a democratic India, I had spent many a weekend visiting my constituency to enquire about my Voter ID card; but never did receive it.

Then, on the D day (make it E day for Election Day) I was one of the first persons to queue up for registering my vote. Here, I had to scan through hundreds of sheets of paper to figure out if my name was in the list.

I was aghast to see that my name did appear on the list, but was spelt as Manisha. Gajjaria, and registered as a female. The voting booth officer didnt allow me to vote, as he reasoned that the statistics of the country would be hugely affected if I voted as a female; After a lot of running around, and sharing my disappointment with the Chief Officer @ the Polling station, I was finally allowed to vote.

After a couple of days of voting, there was a news snippet titled "Gender Blues" published in the Times Of India, Pune edition dated 27th April, 2009; which carried my story (as if it were):

There are the State Vidhan Sabha Elections today @ Maharashtra - 13th October, 2009, I am stepping out to VOTE; hopefully, previous mistakes should have been corrected this time round;

Will update @ Blog whether the 13th will prove lucky for me...Stay tuned;