The walk to the station from my place is barely five minutes,but I prefer taking an auto.Chennai heat kills you.It makes you perspire and,sweat makes you stink.I hate that.As I waited for the auto, in front of bhaiya's shop,I remembered his wife had delivered a baby gal two weeks back and the lil baby would have got a name by now.Bhaiya owns a shop exactly opposite to where we stay.He is an ultra cool guy who talks hindi and tamil with equal fluency which make us respect him,and he is quite lenient with our "bhaiya,paise baad me denge, pakkese" attitude,dat makes our respect for him incease by numerous folds.I walked up to his shop,ordered an amul thanda and asked him,"bhaiya,kya rakha naam,preeti,prateeksha ya pragati".The baby's name was a big bone of contention in bhaiya's family of six,comprising of his parents,his siblings and his wife.Every member of the family wantd to name the baby wt a name of his choice.Thankfully,the baby's rashi sed she needed a name with 'p' ,so the options narrowed down a lil. And they had finally zeroed in on the three names.Ah,he gave me da meswak smile(have been using dat to avoid eating paste,the taste really sucks!!!) and spoke with that "shethji" wala attitude,"ab kya rickshaw prateeksha,it's elections everywhere,election is money,election is fame and election is fun...n more than that look at the contenders and campaigners...have named her priyanka,surname badal nahi sakta but I am very fond of priyanka gandhi,kya face hai uska,kya charm hai,seems to be indira's avtaar all over again..meri baat yaad rakhna,next pm wohi banegi,rahul bhi nahi..."
Well,I convince myself.It happens everywhere.I know my friend Lydia is named after sum Lydia who won the maximum medals at the olympics da year she was born.I have had the privilege to be acquainted with and in fact friends with rekhas,zeenats,
madhuris,kirans,indiras,sachins and the list is endless....Poor ppl,may be the baggage and brunt of making their mark in the world cling onto them da moment they breathe into the world.One of my friend's sister was born when her grandpa was paying a visit to a museum in London which had a big life-size poster of The Buckhingham Palace,n poor old grandpa was so thrilled to get a glimpse of its splendour that wen he got the news of her birth,he immediately ordered that she be named "Elizabeth" and nothing else.She was given an indianized "hindu" version of the name lest grandpa got offended..She is called Alzu today.
And ya, I know of instances when people bring their newborns and very dramatically leave them at the feet of Godmen,babas and soothsayers,sum genuine,sum deceitful.I know of a couple who got their boy named as "Valmiki" by their guruji.The guruji by his foresight predicted that the child would be 'notorious' in his childhood just like Rishi Valmiki was(for the ones who don know history,Valmiki
was a dacoit turned sage cum poet..He s da man behind our age old epic "Ramayaana")and then with lot of introspection and training, he would overcum his notoriety and conquer all levels of unparalled success.Well,faith can move mountains they say,I hope it does move walls and waters too.Little valmiki migrated to London with his parents wen he was a kid.He studies in a posh school there now and the kids there call him "mickey on the wall".
My mom says my name comes in a particular line of Lakshmi Strotam and since I was the first gal in the long extended family of uncles,aunts,grandpas an grandmas n cousins,I was very proudly given the name..it was actually "vasudharini",but my rickshaw driver in kg class couldnt get it propely,atleast poor sensible fellow couldn't associate such a never ending name with a tiny lil gal and he used to shout my mom's name(gita,it was relatively simple) every morning at our doorstep,wen he came to pick me up.Dad didn't kinda like it.May be he realised that I would be facing the same problem trying to remember my own name and he shortened it.Thank god Sense and sanity prevailed....But yes,not every where...I have a lil three year old cousin who's called Srinivasa Raghunandan and since he cannot get it right,no matter how hard he tries,he prefers introducing himself as kemal,thats cos he finds it easy to say that out,it resembles sumwhat to the name of a humped,interesting,dumb looking creature his mom shows on the cd and asks him to repeat after her,and more so because it happens to be his next door ,best "chaddi buddy",yaar's name too...
Names have always fascinated me.I loved the muslim names,even the anglo indian kinds,da old Testament,hebrew ones...I like the charater Anna Karenina so much that I try to infuse her name in very fiction dat i write.I even thought of a hindu name,Anandita,if i ever have a daughter so that I would call her Anna.I know a foreigner called Priscila,who became an ardent ISKCON devotee and changed her name to poornima...She says she loves Krishna,and its only during the poornima's that He cumes down to play raas lila with his gopis..Ah,mythology again?Well,a look into her eyes and u knoe she cant be entirely wrong.
They say the beginning of wisdom lies in calling things by their proper names.I feel another kind of parallel wisdom lies in giving people and products the names you think they deserve...Ya..Nicknames,petnames,they are the names the devil society throws at you and you never know wen u accept them.The worst part is the most ridiculous of them are the most adhesive!!!I have had batteries ,bhopus,tubelights,gotis,chasmis,infact kismis too in schools(many are kinda censored}..These names stick on.Initially they would seem to be stupid similies of association,later they become symbolic sounds of affection.
Then there are names given randomly by your household too,especially the worn out family members,who were either not expecting you,or werent actually prepared for you,or werent genuinely interested to pay any sort of interest to you,or may be just were so ecstatic to have you that the importance of naming you propely didnt actually occur to them.I have many pintus,bhailus,bittus,lalus,bablus and baboos in my neighbourhood.The names look very cute on three four year old running with their half knickers on.But the problem here is -these names are so very sticky dat they cling on-Bhailu kaka(uncle) today has three sons and six grnadchildren,n still he is called bhailu.Infact his passport says he is 'Bhailubhai'.It gets embarrassing for him sometimes but he really can't do anything about it.My maternal grandma once had two huge labradors at her place ,guarding her farm houses.She believes in proper naming of individuals and animals for her are anytime above humans.She called them Rajkumar and Subramanium.All went perfectly okay until a tenant landed up with us.He,sadly had the name Subrahmanium.It was interesting and exciting for we kids to deliberately go to his doorstep,every noon ,and shout "subbu faster,faster,jump,jump,u lazy bones,get up,run,run for ur life,get up else i wil thrash u,ur time starts now.." n subbu the dog would help us,adding on the background by barking continuously and puffing hard.Mr Tenant Subrahmanium left the house in a month and we didn't hear from him anytime after that.Well those are unpleasant incidents that your fateful name brings about....
Well,I remember the riddle I used to ask others wen I was a kid,"sumthin dat's ours,'exclusively ours', but which is given to us by sumone else and used by everybody else".The saga of names seems never ending.The etymologies of our names can be derived by googling,their symbolic presence can be figured out too by sum research but the power they possess,the numbing blows they impart and poetic transgience they supposedly represent, there's always more to look forward to!!!Tigers leave their their skins wen they dies,birds their feathers,trees their trunk and men their names..................
Well,I convince myself.It happens everywhere.I know my friend Lydia is named after sum Lydia who won the maximum medals at the olympics da year she was born.I have had the privilege to be acquainted with and in fact friends with rekhas,zeenats,
madhuris,kirans,indiras,sachins and the list is endless....Poor ppl,may be the baggage and brunt of making their mark in the world cling onto them da moment they breathe into the world.One of my friend's sister was born when her grandpa was paying a visit to a museum in London which had a big life-size poster of The Buckhingham Palace,n poor old grandpa was so thrilled to get a glimpse of its splendour that wen he got the news of her birth,he immediately ordered that she be named "Elizabeth" and nothing else.She was given an indianized "hindu" version of the name lest grandpa got offended..She is called Alzu today.
And ya, I know of instances when people bring their newborns and very dramatically leave them at the feet of Godmen,babas and soothsayers,sum genuine,sum deceitful.I know of a couple who got their boy named as "Valmiki" by their guruji.The guruji by his foresight predicted that the child would be 'notorious' in his childhood just like Rishi Valmiki was(for the ones who don know history,Valmiki
was a dacoit turned sage cum poet..He s da man behind our age old epic "Ramayaana")and then with lot of introspection and training, he would overcum his notoriety and conquer all levels of unparalled success.Well,faith can move mountains they say,I hope it does move walls and waters too.Little valmiki migrated to London with his parents wen he was a kid.He studies in a posh school there now and the kids there call him "mickey on the wall".
My mom says my name comes in a particular line of Lakshmi Strotam and since I was the first gal in the long extended family of uncles,aunts,grandpas an grandmas n cousins,I was very proudly given the name..it was actually "vasudharini",but my rickshaw driver in kg class couldnt get it propely,atleast poor sensible fellow couldn't associate such a never ending name with a tiny lil gal and he used to shout my mom's name(gita,it was relatively simple) every morning at our doorstep,wen he came to pick me up.Dad didn't kinda like it.May be he realised that I would be facing the same problem trying to remember my own name and he shortened it.Thank god Sense and sanity prevailed....But yes,not every where...I have a lil three year old cousin who's called Srinivasa Raghunandan and since he cannot get it right,no matter how hard he tries,he prefers introducing himself as kemal,thats cos he finds it easy to say that out,it resembles sumwhat to the name of a humped,interesting,dumb looking creature his mom shows on the cd and asks him to repeat after her,and more so because it happens to be his next door ,best "chaddi buddy",yaar's name too...
Names have always fascinated me.I loved the muslim names,even the anglo indian kinds,da old Testament,hebrew ones...I like the charater Anna Karenina so much that I try to infuse her name in very fiction dat i write.I even thought of a hindu name,Anandita,if i ever have a daughter so that I would call her Anna.I know a foreigner called Priscila,who became an ardent ISKCON devotee and changed her name to poornima...She says she loves Krishna,and its only during the poornima's that He cumes down to play raas lila with his gopis..Ah,mythology again?Well,a look into her eyes and u knoe she cant be entirely wrong.
They say the beginning of wisdom lies in calling things by their proper names.I feel another kind of parallel wisdom lies in giving people and products the names you think they deserve...Ya..Nicknames,petnames,they are the names the devil society throws at you and you never know wen u accept them.The worst part is the most ridiculous of them are the most adhesive!!!I have had batteries ,bhopus,tubelights,gotis,chasmis,infact kismis too in schools(many are kinda censored}..These names stick on.Initially they would seem to be stupid similies of association,later they become symbolic sounds of affection.
Then there are names given randomly by your household too,especially the worn out family members,who were either not expecting you,or werent actually prepared for you,or werent genuinely interested to pay any sort of interest to you,or may be just were so ecstatic to have you that the importance of naming you propely didnt actually occur to them.I have many pintus,bhailus,bittus,lalus,bablus and baboos in my neighbourhood.The names look very cute on three four year old running with their half knickers on.But the problem here is -these names are so very sticky dat they cling on-Bhailu kaka(uncle) today has three sons and six grnadchildren,n still he is called bhailu.Infact his passport says he is 'Bhailubhai'.It gets embarrassing for him sometimes but he really can't do anything about it.My maternal grandma once had two huge labradors at her place ,guarding her farm houses.She believes in proper naming of individuals and animals for her are anytime above humans.She called them Rajkumar and Subramanium.All went perfectly okay until a tenant landed up with us.He,sadly had the name Subrahmanium.It was interesting and exciting for we kids to deliberately go to his doorstep,every noon ,and shout "subbu faster,faster,jump,jump,u lazy bones,get up,run,run for ur life,get up else i wil thrash u,ur time starts now.." n subbu the dog would help us,adding on the background by barking continuously and puffing hard.Mr Tenant Subrahmanium left the house in a month and we didn't hear from him anytime after that.Well those are unpleasant incidents that your fateful name brings about....
Well,I remember the riddle I used to ask others wen I was a kid,"sumthin dat's ours,'exclusively ours', but which is given to us by sumone else and used by everybody else".The saga of names seems never ending.The etymologies of our names can be derived by googling,their symbolic presence can be figured out too by sum research but the power they possess,the numbing blows they impart and poetic transgience they supposedly represent, there's always more to look forward to!!!Tigers leave their their skins wen they dies,birds their feathers,trees their trunk and men their names..................
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