The naming crisis

The snap-

The post-

I still remember her name. It has been almost 8 or may be 9 years since I met her (I think it was in my 8 th standard summer holidays). It was during one of those summer chess camps which have a string of good and bad memories attached to it. She is a fragment of such a sweet memory a long time ago that I am not able to remember her exact face except for that she was extremely cute and her name was Chudar(meaning a splinter of a flame).


I loved her name. It was short, sweet, interesting and it was in my favorite language – Tamil*.


For people who do not know how kids are named over here in Tamil Nadu – An astrologer is consulted who after examining the birth time of the baby, does some calculations (oh no, not arithmetic – it’s more like based on the nine planets*, they would say – ooh yeah whatever you say dude, whatever you say) and then he selects the starting and ending of the name. Then the parents, having a couple of impossible letters in hand would name the kid which is usually predictable.


If it’s a girl the names Ishwarya, Deepa,Ranjini,Priya are common. If it’s a boy the names Kumar,Arun,Santosh,Muthu are common. And the word Sri is used as an addition for both girl’s names as well as that of the names of the boys (its like – oh you think the name needs a bit more spunk, ok -add Sri before or after the present name ).


It has always been simply a wonder to me – How can parents pay these astrologer guys to pick out names for their kids that are as common as anything. Isn't naming your kid, an absolute joy to yourself? I think every baby finds a unique relationship with their parents even before it’s born. And what amazes me is that the parents think that other people can name the baby better than them.


I think naming a baby defines what that baby means to you. You are inheriting to your kid a very small segment of your culture but of significant value. A name that your son or daughter can relate to and feel a sense of pride in being called and identified by that name. Get creative. You can simply do better than following the crowd in this major event of naming your child. After all your kid is a piece of your own flesh and blood. It’s a private relationship and for Gods sake honor it with the love and ingenuity that it needs.


The real inspiration to write this blog came a few days back when I visited a new born mother and her new born baby boy (apparently a parent is as new born as a kid to see her own flesh and blood smile at her). After spending a while with them, the mother said that she has to name the baby starting with M and she was thinking of Muthu Kumar as a possible nice name. I simply looked at the kid. “Welcome to the clan dude, Welcome to the clan. Hmhm May be we should start collecting royalty money for using our name kid, simply no other go.”

Can boys Cry???

The Snap-

The Tale-


I am a bit of an avid reader and I believe that any good readable stuff must have more than literary finesse. May be, something originally refreshing. May be, something that challenges our present perspective. That would not only make an interesting read but something to reflect upon. I think I came across such a good piece of anecdote and not wanting to spoil it, I am quoting it in its exact words.


---A world famous bull fighter, the epitome of masculinity in his culture, entertained some guests in his villa one evening. After dinner he disappeared and one of the male guests went in search of him. He found the bull fighter wearing an apron and washing the dishes. The guest was appalled and blurted out, “How can you be doing such a feminine thing?” To which the bull fighter replied looking down his nose at the guest: “Whatever I do is masculine.” ---


Wow, the bull fighter did give a very good reply but I think that, there is more to the story than that. The bull fighter boldly challenges the perspective of not only his friend but the perspective of every single reader.

The guest’s attitude simply shows the acceptance of sex – role stereotypes by almost everyone in general, including you and of course also me.

“So what s wrong in associating the characteristics of being bold and brave (a bit bald too– just kidding) to be masculine and that of coyness and tenderness to the fairer sex?”


One may be absolutely right in asking the above question. But by role specifying the sexes, aren’t we becoming a bit too rigidly dogmatic, that we simply forget to be fare to ourselves?


Well, let me think to put it in better words or lets say, in every day circumstances.


I can be a bit of a cry baby. Good books, good movies, whatever touches me, makes me wet my eyes. Sometimes I get caught by my friends in one of those teary moments; they would give me that “dude you crying??? Look”. And of course my “ooh my god, my hand got stuck in the cookie jar” look never ever helps me and I end up feeling real bad that my friend saw me getting mushy.

Now, what’s so bad in a guy crying? Haven’t you guys been to a single movie that moved you that you had tears at the end of the movie. If not, guys you simply don’t know, what you are missing. Pity you. For gods sake there is more to Hollywood than mind blowing action, graphics and yeah of course hot girls. Even Hollywood action movies can pack some real good punches that move you in the end (like brave heart and the guardian).

Also in a way, as easy as it is to behave violently for a guy, it’s as easy for him to have emotional issues. And dude, you know what’s the worst part - guys can do anything better, I mean it anything better than expressing his own needs and feelings.


And of course what’s so obsessive with girls being sweet and soft. I loved it when Anjolina Jolie busted balls in her latest flick (Unless my balls aren’t the ones getting busted). I think that confident women are a real turn on than the usual “damsel in distress”. I simply hate the way regional movies depict love. Almost every single time the hero saves the day (always just in the nick of time) and the heroine simply goes gaga for him. Silly hindi heroines!!!

Girls let me tell you a secret; we guys simply love it when a girl enters a place head held high, hair thrown back, totally confident of herself and with a bold but elegant walk than the usual girl.


So defining stereotypes is too silly and purposeless. As silly as asking Salman Khan to wear shirts(of course nowadays every single hindi hero bares his body at least in a single song. What does the hindi cinema field has against wearing shirts, God only knows.)


So next time you catch your friend crying. Simply leave him be. (You simply missed the part where he got his chops busted by his girl- just kidding). After all, boys too can cry.

Defining divinity

I was just watching Anjolina Jolie fully pregnant, glowing with all the beauty in the world at the premiere of the movie “the kungfu panda” (in which she voices the tigress) on the channel U TV world movies. Moving across the aisle in all her brilliance and loveliness, the gorgeous evening clouds would have been put to shame seeing her floating by, carried by the graciousness of her self.


Well of course Jolie is the heart throb of nearly all the guys on the planet and I am not talking about that. There was something more than a famous actress in her, when I saw her on the television. She is expecting her child. She is a mother to be.
For the people who are thinking “okay now what’s so special about it”, I want to ask what else can be more special than a girl bearing a child.


I try and fail to imagine the magnitude of sheer happiness a girl can feel when she is carrying her child. (Lack of first hand experience, I presume.) The bliss she feels with every kick of her child, the sensation of all her hopes and dreams growing inside her, the feeling of total connection to the unborn, savoring every single move that the baby makes inside her, I can try to imagine and go on and on. But in fact the real list must be endless.


Motherly love has no boundaries and inhibitions. Not always you can see people in absolute pain that’s tearing apart their nerves and so much in eternal happiness, completely satisfied like a mother who has just given birth to her child and is about to pass out. Total love in every sense is divine. Motherly love is in that aspect I think is more than divine. It is incessant.


Nature must have had a really good reason for picking out women to carry the essence of our generation inside her. Whatever may be the reason, I think that she has decided it well.

The temple teachings:

“Will you do something for me? Don’t say no. I won’t ask you if I had any choice”


These were the exact words my mom said to me and since she never really goes for this approach, I can simply guess that she wants me to do something that I really hate. I was wondering what she might want me to do. That was when she said that she wanted me to go to a temple to attend a specific pooja* and bring back the prasadham*.

Now I hate going to temples. It’s not like I don’t believe in God. I am a theist. I believe in God. But I see him as someone who is not just bound to the temple, as someone who is in the essence of everything living and non living. I hate the customs that people do at temples and people paying to see the deities of the divine. With my mother it’s just the opposite, she is totally into it. She is regular in her prayers. Never misses her poojas*. Is a devoted hindu* to put it in simple terms. What makes peace between us in this aspect is that she never asks me to go to the temple and I never dissuade her from going.

And when she broke her deal when I was least expecting it, (of course she breaks the deal once in a year, on my birthday) I was not going to give in without a fight. And when she said that she will not be able to go temple because she had to be at another temple, it simply left me completely bewildered. But her approach gave me no space to refuse or fight back (Damn…. These women really know how to get things done by a guy). I simply asked the specifications of what I have to do at the temple and left for the same.

On reaching the temple, I gave the priest the specifications of the pooja* and waited for my prasadham*. A lot of women and a few men were there gossiping about as they were also waiting for the aarathi*. I was really feeing like the odd man out. It was so completely dull and boring that I was watching the ants that were laboriously doing whatever they were doing near my feet.

After a while the aarthi* was shown and people crowded up to see the view of the decorated deity. Then the prasadham* was distributed. It was then that I noticed the old man sitting by the side of the temple. He must have been about 65 – 70 years old. It could be easily seen from his torn clothes that he was too poor to even feed himself. But his clothes were washed and neat. After eating half of the prasadham*, he slowly looked around and after satisfying himself that no one was looking, kept the other half in his pocket. He must be saving it for later or may be for some one, I presumed.

I felt really bad for him. But his face showed no such emotion of pain or regret. In fact he started to play with a small kid nearby. I got up and went near him. When he saw me coming to him, he simply smiled and said “Isn’t the child a beauty” and smiled at me. I smiled back assuring myself that I am not going to defeat this man by showing sympathy or charity. He needed neither. He may not be the richest guy around but he was so happy that the happiness seamed to flow out him when he was playing with the child.

After a while, I bade him good bye and reached home. Thinking about it now - What I saw in him, completely over whelms me.

You need not be the richest or the cleverest or whatever superlative terminology you are going to add, to be immensely happy. You simply need to loss your self to something beautiful. It never matters what it is. It may be the playfulness of a small child to the calmness of the early morning dew. Also it never matters in what state you are. You will be happy and find peace within yourself.




Hindu - A religion that is predominant in India.
Pooja - A custom in which the deity is washed in milk and other auspicious things, then garlanded and decorated along with the chanting of the hymns. Each and every single deity has its own special day for pooja and each pooja has its own requirements.
Prasadham - The eatables and other things that are offered to the deity and then are consumed by the devotees as a token of the blessing received from the divine.
Aarathi - It’s the climax of the pooja, where along with ringing of the bells, a burning flame is shown to the deity(the flame is usually on a plate and burns from camphor or from oil lamp).

Let’s get drenched:

The snap-

The Tale-

Yesterday it drizzled. The smell of the wet earth, the sudden lush greenness that jumps out of its hiding, the rhythm of the rain drops, the umbrella flowers and raincoats, the dirty puddles of mud – rain has always been the very essence of life to me. I always wondered why can’t people just for a while get lost in the chaos and get drenched. May be, they are too much forgotten in their own life that they easily miss to see the bliss of beauty around them.


Once one of my friends asked “what’s so special about getting drenched in the rain?”


I was simply not able to find the right words to describe the feeling to her.

What happens to a kid when he is given such a lot of beautiful wrapped gifts that he is not able to decide what to open first? He would be bouncing with all the joy in the world. What happens to a congenitally blind guy (blind from birth) if he is given his sight? He simply wouldn’t have enough eyes to see all the loveliness in the world for the first time.


The same happens to me in the rain.


There cannot be any more poetism than the world in a shower. There cannot be any more a symbol of purity and virginity than the world after the dance of rain. The wet road gleaming inviting to the foot of the dreamer, the fallen flowers and leaves on them, a Picasso or Renault I would say and the blooming flowers in trees still dripping wet, the drenched walls with the water arts of rain on them, the willowy sun slowly blooming out, its rays so slant that it seems like its bowing to the rain’s performance, the air hugging you as it passes so pure in its earnestness like a kid saying to her parents her first learnt rhyme and finally like a girl so spontaneous in love that she blushes on seeing her guy, comes out the rainbow raining again on the spectators a plethora of colors.

Now again I to ask “Are you going to miss all this sitting in the monochromity of your home?”

May be you can enjoy the same rain from the safety of your home.

But hello….wait Am I hearing you right? Are you refusing first row stadium tickets to see your favorite star’s foot ball match to see the same on television? Dude you must be seriously nuts. Come on I am waiting……


“Let’s get drenched”