'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,' Mr. Shakespeare gushed through his romantic hero, Romeo, and I must admit, his intentions were the noblest when he penned these oft-quoted lines. But, did he reckon there were sharks that would bite the bait of a name?

One shark bit just such a bait and quickly let go when it realized the meal was not going to be as delicious as he had thought. Intrigued? Let me tell you an interesting tale.

Once, a man who was 'christened' Rajesh Kanoi by his parents posted an ad on a website, asking for employment as an English teacher. Instead of using the name his parents had given him, he chose to sign as 'Jack', a name his first batch of students had given him in China.

One day he received an email from a Larry Roman Shark (name altered - please note, Mr. Shakespeare!) who runs a teacher recruitment agency called, Canadian Bear (Mr. Shakespeare, please note again!) offering him a teaching position at a university in Zhengzhou, China. Larry Shark thought he had gotten hold of a juicy piece of teacher meat between the rows of his sharp teeth and was waiting for the meat to pass through his teeth into his cavernous mouth.

Jack wondered if the offer was for real and wrote gratefully to Larry thanking him for the offer. He did not seem to mind the prospects of being shred to pieces and then swallowed by the hungry shark. But, poor Jack was not careful when he signed his name Rajesh Kanoi, confining 'Jack' within brackets as he did so.

Meanwhile Larry Shark waited hungrily for the meat to stop thrashing but when he got Jack's email he was shocked and wrote angrily back, 'I'm sorry to tell you that this University has contracted us to recruit only native English speakers, primarily from Canada and the US. I wasn't aware that 'Jack' was not your real name,' letting go off the meat that now seemed dry and unsavoury.

If the honourable Mr. Shakespeare were still alive, I wonder if he would have considered changing his own name to 'Sharksfear'. I wonder, too, if he would have written 'What's not in a name is not'?

There's a lot in name - possible employment, for example or unemployment, if the name's not right!

Thank you, Larry Roman Shark, for teaching a lesson contrary to Mr. Shakespeare's romantic rants!

Author's note: China is hungry for foreign teachers and though some employers 'prefer' teachers from US/UK/Canada/Australia etc. they are not absolutely fixated on them. Many universities, in particular, and state-run schools are known to employ teachers from countries other than the ones mentioned here. However, recruiters, many from US/UK/Canada/Australia as also local ones openly discriminate against teachers from other countries because of nationality, colour, race and so on, regardless of a teacher's skills, experience and ability. Though senior Chinese officials are known to have asked for English teachers from India, yet, the ground situation is quite different.