Whats in a name?

The other day i was chatting with one of my class mates. From our current work status, the topic changed to her family. She has a baby girl. I asked her name and "Krishna Tulasi" it was. Such a lovely name. I praised her for selecting a very good name. Like every other parent, her husband's and her thoughts would have circled around grandma's grandpa's name or god's name or a name which has syllables from both the parents' name (this is becoming a fashion now a days). Is it that simple to keep a name? Few may say it is and few may say it is not.
For those who say it is not, probably they have the issues that they face in satisfying all the close one's expectations. Mother-in-law might come up with her father's name or some mentor might come up with a god's name or a crazy relative might come up with a freedom fighter's name. Too bad the child can have only one official name. It is no wonder parents avoid this dilemma by keeping a house hold name and an official name. Poor child it has to respond to two different words everytime.

My point of view is completely different from this. I see it from a child's angle. Just like child cannot choose its parents it cannot choose its name. Yes, they can change it but how many people do that. Even the ones who do it will have superstitious reasons but not a egoistic reason. For example, in my friend's case, her daughter has a lovely name Krishna tulasi. Since she is a girl, it is highly likely that they will call her tulasi shortly. But there would be always peers, friends, neighbours and relatives who will cut short the name further to save words as if it is an endangered species. Some would call her tuls and some crazy people will call her lasi. For those who think this is unlikely, consider this. There was a girl in a college by the name Saraswathi but called sasi. Saraswathi and sasi are like two ends of the galaxy still the short form for saraswathi is sasi.

Every household in tamil nadu would have forgotten the original name of thols in kolangal serial is tholkapian, a beautiful tamil name. We really don't have control over what short form would people around us would come up. It's better if we move on just accepting it as a part of life. A guy like Ambalavanan might end up with Amba even worse Ramba. If you expect padma raj to be called as raj. Sorry people might prefer Padma. The name shortening is parodied in almost all the stage dramas. Crazy mohan when running out of jokes would return to his age old joke.
"You call Venkat venki, then will you call Mahesh Monkey"

When we were in college we didn't do this much injustice to the name Mahesh. We gave it a superb short form "Maxi" something like Maximus from gladiator. We called Pradeep Prad giving it a US touch. Though it might sound like fraud, it was a name in vogue. Not everytime we were this kind. There was a guy called Krishnan. He preferred Krish as short name so that he can get even with Hrithik roshan but we called him with the household name Kicha. When in a very good mood, i would call him "Ucha" which means urine.

Name doesn't always reflect what people are. I knew a ramasamy who looked like hot model, a Karupasamy who was fair, a Vidya who didn't study well, a lakshmi who was poor. So parents please be careful while giving a name to your child.

Avoid names like
Arokia raj
Dhandapani
Rathi
Ajith
Aravind samy
Pichamuthu

Moreover, when i was a student i preferred to be the last student in a batch so that we would get time to prepare ourselves. We won't be first up in the line of fire. Typically a class would be divided into two batches. A to P names would fall in first batch and R to Z would fall in second batch. So keep a name starting with I, K, S, T, your child would be indebted to you forever.

Time to answer these questions.
What is your name and its short form? How would you like your name to be shortened?

aduvari matalaku arthalae vaerulae

A *ding* sound from gtalk and then came the query.
XYZ: Hi Ram
Me: Hi

She was my colleague in office. It was diwali time.

XYZ: Advance Diwali wishes.
Me: Thanks. Still working?
XYZ: No waiting for my husband to pick me up.
hey distributed Haldirams sweets worth 500bucks
Me: Mine?
XYZ: there in CUP for X-Mas they might distribute.
Me: But i will be there in india by that time.
XYZ: Oh you are coming? when?

Every chat with my colleagues ends up with "when are you coming?" that too almost daily. They managed to forget the date. This is the problem with every person who left their shore. They think back home everybody is eagerly awaiting for your return or atleast know when you are returning. But in reality, people move on in their lives without them. I am not talking about the family but about friends and acquaintances. Not that i am blaming. It is just a reality. For just two months, i am already being forgotten.

Me: Nov 17

I could have stopped here. but i turned apologetic.

Me: I forgot there was diwali at this time or else i would be there by now.

This is very true. I had the oppurtunity to tell when i can return to india. I totally forgot the festive of lights. The problem is Diwali doesn't come every year in the same date and i am for one know the date only after the TV starts banging your head with the Diwali special programmes. As i forgot that, i gave a date which would allow me to be there at the time of my bro's birthday.

XYZ: How could you forget that? You are not responsible always.
XYZ: What if you are married?
Me: Say that to my family. A man needs marriage to get responsibility.
XYZ: and still manage to forget say your "thalai diwali"?

This is what we call in our college "reverse bias". You say "India should lose" but inside you want india to win. By this way you always win. Same applies to a marriage talk. By the way, i have been infamous as a guy without responsibility in my office. Scant respect for deadline, forgetting everything from my bike key to Visa documents and Mr.ABC's fervent propaganda about this has made me look really irresponsible. Me forgetting about important festival like diwali only contributes to the image.

Me: She would have reminded me and hence i wouldn't have forgotten.
XYZ: the girl wud be in a pathetic condition celebrating thala diwali alone.

"Thalai diwali" or first diwali is the first one that you face after marriage where the bridegroom goes to his father-in-law's house, stays there and tries to reduce the old father's bank balance as much as possible. At this point of time, i have to tell you something. Wherever i go i talk like feminist giving ultimate support to women's cause, supporting like i am woman myself. Still no one believes me. All women i meet end up saying, what you say is good but you don't like a guy who believes in it. This is so beyond comprehension for me. May be this conversation would explain something for me.

Me: Come on..you are underestimating the nagging capabilities of a woman.

Oops i already pressed enter. Now, I myself teared off my feminist camouflage here with my sexist statement.

XYZ: What if your wife is an exception and she celebrates happily without you.

Yeah!! she didn't notice it. Moreover she doesn't mind someone addressing wives as nagging persons. suna pana image apadiyae maintain pannu.

Me: thats kind of cool too. she will get a temporary break from me.
XYZ: adappavi (can't translate is correctly but it is close to ada=hey paavi=sinner")
Me: why i am paavi?
XYZ: you are supposed to fight, how could u be happy without me
Me: i forgot and she didn't bother to tell me. so its even. Why should i fight?
XYZ: no she is punishing you
Me: for what?
XYZ: u being slack.
Me: I don't understand.
XYZ: Ah! leave it you won't understand.. ok ram its time for me to leave. have a nice day.
Me: ok:) bye

Now wait a minute. My wife is not telling me that diwali is around thinking that this is the way of punishing me for not remembering that there is diwali coming. And fighting is expected and if you don't you are a slacker. Maaannnnn!! Women are from venus. Oops another sexist statement.

"You won't understand". This means either of two things.
1. She not treating me like a grown-up as married people have more knowledge about family life than unmarried people.
2. She addresses the entire male community expecting it not to understand what women say.
If 2 is the case, more trouble lies ahead!!

Disclaimer: I didn't have my gtalk chat history with me when i wrote this. So, the words in the conversation might not be exact but they surely covey the gist.

Cast Away

I am not sure about the exact date but i saw this film 5 years ago not intentionally though. There was this contest in our college organized by our department for being the best person with quick wit and communication skills. It was called "vibr(e)ance". Till now i don't have a clue what it means. Anyway i happened to be in that team that conducts the contest and i was picking up video clips for a round thats when i was showed this movie. My senior was a marwari who pronounced "porumai"(patience) as "poramai"(envy). As an english film buff, he forgot his actual work and sat through the entire movie unknowingly forcing me to watch the movie as well. Most of the time i didn't cared about the dialogues(monologues most of the time) and paid enough attention to understand the plot alone.

Next time i saw the movie some 4 months ago. The second time i was actually watching the movie. Enjoyed the movie, acknowledged Hanks' great acting skills, amazed about the product placement marketing skills and went to sleep.

Today i saw the same movie for the third time. Only this time, this time i travelled along Tom Hanks. Whenever he spoke with Wilson, i was hearing on its behalf. Why this sudden attachment with the film and sympathy towards the character?
Turns out, it is not sympathy but empathy. In a way i have been cast away for 2 months now. Yes, there are lot of differences between Hanks and me in terms of plight we face but there are lots of similarities too.

He had no one to speak except Wilson which is ofcourse delusional. Yes, i have people to speak here. Hotel waitresses, receptionist, cab driver. I see them daily, smile at them and ignore them the same way thing they do with me. You might point out there are office people. Yes, there are many. I speak with them daily about what SCTE18, ISO/IEC 13818-6, ETSI EN 301 192, ETSI TR 101 202, CCIF etc etc. You call this speaking? I do talk to my family twice weekly. Still there are lots of time when i am alone having nobody to speak nobody in sight infact. I wish i could say that my laptop is my Wilson but i am not that desparate as Hanks' character.

He had to find food so am i. Yes i have all the dollars to buy food in indian restaurants in El Camino Real. I tried few times eating out but how many times should i have to go alone. I never cared to know what my mother does before she brings the hot food. Anyway necessity made me to take up utensils. After the first week, the cooking enthusiasm died out. So, stopped cooking vegetables or should i say stopped trying to cook. I had bought ready-made mixes, chips and eggs. i guess the bachelor boy going to america is a big business for all those MTRs and Ruchis. This has been my food for almost 2 months now. Every time tom hanks catches a fish or tries to fry something, i saw me preparing a rasam or boiling rice. When he sees the desert isle theme party, he shows little interest just like i got used to my same set of food items. It's not hate for the food but the sigh of the monotony.

On returning home, Hanks finds certain things changed from what he expected. Mostly things that he cared. While it is too early to say that i would feel the same because my trip to home is still 2 weeks away, i know for sure atleast chennai would have few new one-ways and traffice diversions.

Well you may accuse me of making storm out of a whistle. The emotion might be small when compared to a cast away but feeling lost is still significant enough to ponder. If just a 2-3 months of being away makes me write this post, i really don't know how am i am going to cope with my wannabe expatriate dream. But there is always hope that everything would fall into place and there would be some wind to guide us to the place where we want to go.
"I've got to keep breathing. Because tomorrow, the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"