Harrumph! Finally caved-in and created a Facebook account. Over the years many friends have sent friend requests to my email ids and I've always politely responded to them by email instead. I'm always glad to hear from them - I guess there's something about "being connected" that I just don't get yet. How someone can Tweet about the minutae of their lives is still beyond me.
I remember having misgivings about owning a cell phone back in the day - "I don't want to be that reachable!" I asserted. Besides, I was almost always in front of a phone at work or at home and what could be so urgent that it couldn't wait till I got to my phone? I do have a cell phone now but I use it mostly for message collection, an antic my wife strongly disapproves of. I guess she didn't enjoy running out of gas within a stone's throw of my office and not being able to reach me.
I guess at the heart of it all is that communication has gotten so terribly interrupt-driven. Email is as instant a form of communication as I'd like.
And then there's the matter of imposter accounts (don't ask me why - I'm neither famous nor particularly interesting). Twice in the last few years Facebook accounts appeared for me - complete with a picture pulled from my website, and posts to my friends. Facebook promptly deleted the accounts when I reported them and suggested I report it to law enforcement if it happened again.
Anyway, without much further ado here it is. (Blogging to say "Here's my Facebook account" reminds me of the early days of email. My dad's colleagues would email him and then call him to let him know they had emailed him.)
Looking forward to connecting with many many old friends! I'm also starting school shortly (and they required a Facebook account, so now you know why!) - look forward to making many new friends too!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Friday, April 17, 2009
The omnipresent
It’s 4 am when we get off the bus. It drops us outside the choultry – inexpensive hostel-like accommodation for visitors. It’s not the sort of place you’ll see advertised in brochures for a weekend getaway. This is basic accommodation – hundreds of small rooms housed in a few massive buildings.
The place is buzzing with activity even at this time. We’re atop a hill and it is cold. Night watchmen from a few of the buildings are huddled around a fire that they’ve built out in the open with newspapers, twigs and other rubbish. Some beggars stand close by. We’re in Thirupathi, the world’s richest and most-visited place of worship. There’s free food everyday and a steady stream of visitors in their most benevolent frame of mind.
Large groups of people are already leaving the choultry. They’ve bathed, donned new clothes and are now walking hurriedly towards the temple. Seeing them hurry immediately shakes us out of the dozy state the bus ride has put us in. The race is now on for us too. For the rest of the day we will tear through mammoth crowds in our quest to visit the temple.
We rush to our room and hurry through morning ablutions. The taps only have cold water and I go to one of the night watchmen to have my bucket filled with hot water. Anywhere between a hundred and five hundred thousand people will visit the temple today. There are queues or crowds every step of the way. Want to get a room in the choultry? Want hot water? How about some hot tea from the vendor with the tiny cart outside the choultry? Wait your turn. After all, aren’t faith and patience the two keys to salvation?
In an hour, we start our push towards the temple. It is about a kilometer away and we walk like everyone else does. As we near the temple, we’re greeted by loud repetitive devotional music that seems to fill the whole town. The streets are lined with tiny stores selling both mundane and divine things – flowers, paintings of various Hindu Gods, film for your camera. There is very little product differentiation here. Every shop is like every other. You let your intuition and the store-owner’s good fortune guide you to a given store.
Very soon we are right outside the temple. The proximity is deceptive. This is where the journey begins. Now long, almost interminable queues start. We go to a ticket window where you can pay differing amounts of money to cut in line at different places. We then follow the signs to where our tickets will let us go. If you’ve accumulated enough good karma since your last visit you may get to see the diety in two hours, but four to five hours is normal. I follow the rest of our group feeling guilty when thinking about the thousands who we’re passing because they can’t afford these tickets.
You may not remember much about the temple or the diety at Thirupathi, but you’ll never forget its lines. They start inside some building constructed to house these lines. Different sections of the lines have different personalities. The initial parts are hurried. The temple authorities have of course planned for peak traffic. Today is not one of those days, so everyone runs through the enclosures to get as far ahead as they can till they reach the sea of devotees lining up ahead. Inside the building the lines seem quite comfortable. There are benches along the way, restrooms, drinking water and even television sets even though we cannot stop to partake of any of these things. We forge ahead.
My personal space ends where my body does. Beyond that someone else’s body may begin. This is especially true at junctions where lines of different ticket holders are merged. All hell breaks loose at such points and everyone tries to stay ahead of people merging in from the other lines. After a few hours of standing in line I develop a heightened sense of fairness. I make it my solemn duty to ensure that no person who deserves to be behind me get’s ahead. I often fail but keep trying with mounting indignation.
After some time, our line takes us outside in the space between the building where we started and the actual temple. The lines will now snake around the temple many times. We have a wall on one side, a tin roof above and metal bars on the other side. I get claustrophobic. I can see free people walking outside the enclosure. These are visitors who have finished their visit, or hawkers trying to sell us water, fruits and toys to keep us occupied. I pity a few parents whose children are giving them a hard time. But mostly, I’m tired and determined to keep our group moving as fast as it can.
After three hours, we finally make it inside. It is an ancient temple, many centuries old. The central part has the ambience of a tiny cave with some modern building material slapped on it. The heart of the temple is about the size of our living room and is dimly lit. Now the crowd’s excitement has reached a fever pitch and everyone’s pushing the person ahead. The line gets right up before the diety then makes a U turn and leads everyone out. Even before we get to the very front of the line, temple employees start goading us onwards. No stopping at the head of the line. Jaragandi! Jaragandi! I don’t know the language but don’t need to. They want the line to keep moving. An enterprising man ahead slips some bills into the hands of one of the employees. His group is taken aside and gets to spend an extra thirty seconds inside. Others are herded on, Jaragandi! As we approach the front, I see others getting yelled at loudly and in some cases pushed out. For the remaining few seconds my attention is split between paying obeisance and making sure no one in our group is yelled at or pushed. And then, we’re out in the sun.
The place is buzzing with activity even at this time. We’re atop a hill and it is cold. Night watchmen from a few of the buildings are huddled around a fire that they’ve built out in the open with newspapers, twigs and other rubbish. Some beggars stand close by. We’re in Thirupathi, the world’s richest and most-visited place of worship. There’s free food everyday and a steady stream of visitors in their most benevolent frame of mind.
Large groups of people are already leaving the choultry. They’ve bathed, donned new clothes and are now walking hurriedly towards the temple. Seeing them hurry immediately shakes us out of the dozy state the bus ride has put us in. The race is now on for us too. For the rest of the day we will tear through mammoth crowds in our quest to visit the temple.
We rush to our room and hurry through morning ablutions. The taps only have cold water and I go to one of the night watchmen to have my bucket filled with hot water. Anywhere between a hundred and five hundred thousand people will visit the temple today. There are queues or crowds every step of the way. Want to get a room in the choultry? Want hot water? How about some hot tea from the vendor with the tiny cart outside the choultry? Wait your turn. After all, aren’t faith and patience the two keys to salvation?
In an hour, we start our push towards the temple. It is about a kilometer away and we walk like everyone else does. As we near the temple, we’re greeted by loud repetitive devotional music that seems to fill the whole town. The streets are lined with tiny stores selling both mundane and divine things – flowers, paintings of various Hindu Gods, film for your camera. There is very little product differentiation here. Every shop is like every other. You let your intuition and the store-owner’s good fortune guide you to a given store.
Very soon we are right outside the temple. The proximity is deceptive. This is where the journey begins. Now long, almost interminable queues start. We go to a ticket window where you can pay differing amounts of money to cut in line at different places. We then follow the signs to where our tickets will let us go. If you’ve accumulated enough good karma since your last visit you may get to see the diety in two hours, but four to five hours is normal. I follow the rest of our group feeling guilty when thinking about the thousands who we’re passing because they can’t afford these tickets.
You may not remember much about the temple or the diety at Thirupathi, but you’ll never forget its lines. They start inside some building constructed to house these lines. Different sections of the lines have different personalities. The initial parts are hurried. The temple authorities have of course planned for peak traffic. Today is not one of those days, so everyone runs through the enclosures to get as far ahead as they can till they reach the sea of devotees lining up ahead. Inside the building the lines seem quite comfortable. There are benches along the way, restrooms, drinking water and even television sets even though we cannot stop to partake of any of these things. We forge ahead.
My personal space ends where my body does. Beyond that someone else’s body may begin. This is especially true at junctions where lines of different ticket holders are merged. All hell breaks loose at such points and everyone tries to stay ahead of people merging in from the other lines. After a few hours of standing in line I develop a heightened sense of fairness. I make it my solemn duty to ensure that no person who deserves to be behind me get’s ahead. I often fail but keep trying with mounting indignation.
After some time, our line takes us outside in the space between the building where we started and the actual temple. The lines will now snake around the temple many times. We have a wall on one side, a tin roof above and metal bars on the other side. I get claustrophobic. I can see free people walking outside the enclosure. These are visitors who have finished their visit, or hawkers trying to sell us water, fruits and toys to keep us occupied. I pity a few parents whose children are giving them a hard time. But mostly, I’m tired and determined to keep our group moving as fast as it can.
After three hours, we finally make it inside. It is an ancient temple, many centuries old. The central part has the ambience of a tiny cave with some modern building material slapped on it. The heart of the temple is about the size of our living room and is dimly lit. Now the crowd’s excitement has reached a fever pitch and everyone’s pushing the person ahead. The line gets right up before the diety then makes a U turn and leads everyone out. Even before we get to the very front of the line, temple employees start goading us onwards. No stopping at the head of the line. Jaragandi! Jaragandi! I don’t know the language but don’t need to. They want the line to keep moving. An enterprising man ahead slips some bills into the hands of one of the employees. His group is taken aside and gets to spend an extra thirty seconds inside. Others are herded on, Jaragandi! As we approach the front, I see others getting yelled at loudly and in some cases pushed out. For the remaining few seconds my attention is split between paying obeisance and making sure no one in our group is yelled at or pushed. And then, we’re out in the sun.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Kid-o-phobia: unscientific generalizations about male discomfort with children
What is the minimum amount of attention that you can respectably give a child before returning to a normal conversation with his or her beaming parents? Do you feel silly joining the chorus of coochie-coos when a little child enters the room?
I'm told that in one episode of Seinfeld, Jerry meets some friends who've just had a baby. When the proud parents present the baby to Seinfeld, he nods and greets it with a "Hi". And he moves on. Is Seinfeld really alone in his discomfiture? When you go to a postnatal baby shower, do you put as much distance between yourself and the baby as you possibly can and hide among other male friends? When someone 'lets' you hold their baby are you siezed with a morbid fear that makes you employ every cell in your body to maintain your combined center of gravity? Relax. You're part of a fraternity as old as the human race.
Note that I exclude women from this fraternity. This is, firstly, because I've called it a fraternity, and secondly because most single girls I have observed have shown a remarkable absence of the aforementioned affliction. Whether this is because of some deep seated maternal instinct or a less lofty desire to conform to social expectations is a question I dare not ask. I'll therefore turn my attention away from this advantaged half of humanity.
With such a dread of children wired deep into his psyche is it any surprise that it is seldom the newly wed husband who announces that it is time to multiply the fold? To be fair, even wives are not always the initiators of the litany of appeals (and other machinations) that lead to acceptance that it is time to have a child. The idea that it is time to have children is often planted by the mother-in-law, grandmom and other such venerables who take it as their solemn duty to see new leaves added to the family tree. Faced with this onslaught, the hapless husband capitulates.
As things progress and the the birth of the child is imminent, it is time for the husband to dutifully evince interest in various baby things. It is time to learn about baby showers, and diapers and car seats. And about foetal positions and development stages and various other ghastly things whose knowledge he'd be happier to entrust to God.
Then comes a day when he meets some friends and finds that he has had a whole conversation about babies and their needs.From that point, and aided by the birth and growth of the child, the husband's transformation is rapid. The sheer joy, the everyday achievements, the fun and the laughter overcome tears and fatigue and poop. But most of all they help the husband overcome the long developed trepidation on seeing every new child. Now, the husband is an expert. Now the husband is also a father.
I'm told that in one episode of Seinfeld, Jerry meets some friends who've just had a baby. When the proud parents present the baby to Seinfeld, he nods and greets it with a "Hi". And he moves on. Is Seinfeld really alone in his discomfiture? When you go to a postnatal baby shower, do you put as much distance between yourself and the baby as you possibly can and hide among other male friends? When someone 'lets' you hold their baby are you siezed with a morbid fear that makes you employ every cell in your body to maintain your combined center of gravity? Relax. You're part of a fraternity as old as the human race.
Note that I exclude women from this fraternity. This is, firstly, because I've called it a fraternity, and secondly because most single girls I have observed have shown a remarkable absence of the aforementioned affliction. Whether this is because of some deep seated maternal instinct or a less lofty desire to conform to social expectations is a question I dare not ask. I'll therefore turn my attention away from this advantaged half of humanity.
With such a dread of children wired deep into his psyche is it any surprise that it is seldom the newly wed husband who announces that it is time to multiply the fold? To be fair, even wives are not always the initiators of the litany of appeals (and other machinations) that lead to acceptance that it is time to have a child. The idea that it is time to have children is often planted by the mother-in-law, grandmom and other such venerables who take it as their solemn duty to see new leaves added to the family tree. Faced with this onslaught, the hapless husband capitulates.
As things progress and the the birth of the child is imminent, it is time for the husband to dutifully evince interest in various baby things. It is time to learn about baby showers, and diapers and car seats. And about foetal positions and development stages and various other ghastly things whose knowledge he'd be happier to entrust to God.
Then comes a day when he meets some friends and finds that he has had a whole conversation about babies and their needs.From that point, and aided by the birth and growth of the child, the husband's transformation is rapid. The sheer joy, the everyday achievements, the fun and the laughter overcome tears and fatigue and poop. But most of all they help the husband overcome the long developed trepidation on seeing every new child. Now, the husband is an expert. Now the husband is also a father.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Hare Krishna!
My temple visits in the US have become what beach visits in Goa used to be - the default choice when we want to do something different. Temples are a great place to take Addu. He can freely exhaust his athletic and vocal capacities. We usually find other toddlers up to similar antics and I can hide among their parents when elders or authorities throw us disapproving glances.
The Hindu temple closest to our house happens to be a Hare Krishna temple. Our American handyman is a Hare Krishna follower. He sang praises of the local temple, drew us a map, brought us tasty prasad and called my mother-in-law "mataji". Now we had to go. I successfully diverted our piety to other, more distant venues for months, but finally gave in.
I had never been to a Hare Krishna temple before but experiences and reading combined to make me file Hare Krishna followers in roughly the same corner of my mind as I place Amway folks and telemarketeers. My first encounter with a Hare Krishna follower was many years ago. He was cordial, extroverted and in every way the sort of person I'd want to hang out with. The only gotcha was my name (yes, again). All the words in my name - Jagannath Gopal Krishnan - are Krishna's names. The follower decided this was adequate proof of my devoutness and perhaps that bringing me into the fold was his divine duty. I enjoyed our subsequent exchanges about as much as visits from Jehovah's witnesses. Why don't the proselytizers of the world believe in freedom of choice? I would love to learn about a religion or sect if I'm told, "Hey, here's this wonderful thing that I want to share with you. Yakity yak... Ok that's all - let me know if you ever want to know more".
Then there's the dancing. Back in India, my most vivid memory of Hare Krishna followers is that of foreigners with their heads shaven and wearing ochre robes, dancing in large groups with an energy and abandon that I've only been able to envy, not emulate. It's hard for me to picture dancing in a place of worship; I'm just not used to it.
I was thus less than enthusiastic when Charu decreed that we'd go to the Hare Krishna temple last weekend. I hadn't even practiced my dance moves yet (none of them go with a large paunch anyway).
I was mistaken about the temple. It buzzed with activity, people were friendly and the place was welcoming. It was like any other Hindu temple - we were left alone and could choose how we wanted to participate. There was dancing during the Aarti, but it wasn't, as I imagined, a reckless expression of joy on beholding the lord. That would be hard to match. Or feign. The dancing was coordinated and rhythmic. Most people swayed or moved gently. It had the pull of a dance or party where the music is good, you see a bunch of people dancing and pretty soon you can't keep yourself from moving to the beat too. It was similar to the garba and even that seemed boisterous in comparison.
If my Amway radar picks up even the slightest bit of solicitation, I am transformed into an unsocial, unfriendly person. Even the anticipation of such an interaction is enough to make me assume such a defensive stance. I therefore regarded any overtures of friendship with some suspicion but overall the evening went well. I spent most of my time in the outer hall preventing Addu from pulling down two giant curtains that extended all the way from the high ceiling to the floor.
The visit was thus thankfully uneventful. Addu didn't do any major damage other than occasionally screaming his lungs out in glee. Charu added to our mirth by walking up to the follower who manned the prasad table and shocking him in all innocence by asking - "Is this all vegetarian?"
The Hindu temple closest to our house happens to be a Hare Krishna temple. Our American handyman is a Hare Krishna follower. He sang praises of the local temple, drew us a map, brought us tasty prasad and called my mother-in-law "mataji". Now we had to go. I successfully diverted our piety to other, more distant venues for months, but finally gave in.
I had never been to a Hare Krishna temple before but experiences and reading combined to make me file Hare Krishna followers in roughly the same corner of my mind as I place Amway folks and telemarketeers. My first encounter with a Hare Krishna follower was many years ago. He was cordial, extroverted and in every way the sort of person I'd want to hang out with. The only gotcha was my name (yes, again). All the words in my name - Jagannath Gopal Krishnan - are Krishna's names. The follower decided this was adequate proof of my devoutness and perhaps that bringing me into the fold was his divine duty. I enjoyed our subsequent exchanges about as much as visits from Jehovah's witnesses. Why don't the proselytizers of the world believe in freedom of choice? I would love to learn about a religion or sect if I'm told, "Hey, here's this wonderful thing that I want to share with you. Yakity yak... Ok that's all - let me know if you ever want to know more".
Then there's the dancing. Back in India, my most vivid memory of Hare Krishna followers is that of foreigners with their heads shaven and wearing ochre robes, dancing in large groups with an energy and abandon that I've only been able to envy, not emulate. It's hard for me to picture dancing in a place of worship; I'm just not used to it.
I was thus less than enthusiastic when Charu decreed that we'd go to the Hare Krishna temple last weekend. I hadn't even practiced my dance moves yet (none of them go with a large paunch anyway).
I was mistaken about the temple. It buzzed with activity, people were friendly and the place was welcoming. It was like any other Hindu temple - we were left alone and could choose how we wanted to participate. There was dancing during the Aarti, but it wasn't, as I imagined, a reckless expression of joy on beholding the lord. That would be hard to match. Or feign. The dancing was coordinated and rhythmic. Most people swayed or moved gently. It had the pull of a dance or party where the music is good, you see a bunch of people dancing and pretty soon you can't keep yourself from moving to the beat too. It was similar to the garba and even that seemed boisterous in comparison.
If my Amway radar picks up even the slightest bit of solicitation, I am transformed into an unsocial, unfriendly person. Even the anticipation of such an interaction is enough to make me assume such a defensive stance. I therefore regarded any overtures of friendship with some suspicion but overall the evening went well. I spent most of my time in the outer hall preventing Addu from pulling down two giant curtains that extended all the way from the high ceiling to the floor.
The visit was thus thankfully uneventful. Addu didn't do any major damage other than occasionally screaming his lungs out in glee. Charu added to our mirth by walking up to the follower who manned the prasad table and shocking him in all innocence by asking - "Is this all vegetarian?"
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Email search tools
I have long struggled with the deluge of email at work. In my crusade, I have tried everything from no organization (death by a thousand emails!) to having a million folders. I have now settled down to just letting it all accumulate whereever and searching for what I need. When Gmail was first introduced, I wasn't among its fans. Searching for email? Sounded like another nail had been created for the Google search hammer. I see the beauty of Gmail now. Even at work, where I use Outlook, my folders have boiled down to the single 'archive' folder that Gmail offers.
Lightening fast search is your friend if you get a lot of email. I used Lookout to search my emails in Outlook but eventually replaced it with Google Desktop. The latter's many gadgets and brand probably conned me into this shameful act. Google Desktop is fast, but is integration with Outlook is clearly not a priority for its makers. Every now and then I need to fish out some old email and attach it to another email that I'm composing. With Google Desktop I can quickly find that old email but there's no way to just drag it from the search window and drop it on to the email I'm composing. Instead, I have to manually find the older email in my Inbox and then attach it. This means sorting my Inbox first, or changing its view to include older emails - not fun with a massive mailbox.
So I bid Google Desktop a tearful adieu and installed Outlook 2007 and Windows Search since I heard the latter was fast. I've never been a fan of mindless Microsoft bashing, but this software makes me want to scream in agony every time I use it. It takes well over 30 seconds to search for any email. What's worse, Outlook often freezes while this is happening and you're pretty much blocked.
What's 30 seconds, you ask. I'm not being cantankerous; 30 seconds by themselves may not matter, but the distraction can be deadly. Before you know it you're looking at a bug report, thinking of some other to-do or your mind has wandered and the squandered seconds start stacking up. Concentration is such a hard-won trophy, why suffer a tool that impedes you?
For now, I'm back to Lookout. Lookout is fast and well integrated with Outlook. It's no longer supported since Microsoft bought it a few years ago and had the team work on Windows search instead. It works with older versions of Outlook and you can tweak it to work on Outlook 2007.
Lightening fast search is your friend if you get a lot of email. I used Lookout to search my emails in Outlook but eventually replaced it with Google Desktop. The latter's many gadgets and brand probably conned me into this shameful act. Google Desktop is fast, but is integration with Outlook is clearly not a priority for its makers. Every now and then I need to fish out some old email and attach it to another email that I'm composing. With Google Desktop I can quickly find that old email but there's no way to just drag it from the search window and drop it on to the email I'm composing. Instead, I have to manually find the older email in my Inbox and then attach it. This means sorting my Inbox first, or changing its view to include older emails - not fun with a massive mailbox.
So I bid Google Desktop a tearful adieu and installed Outlook 2007 and Windows Search since I heard the latter was fast. I've never been a fan of mindless Microsoft bashing, but this software makes me want to scream in agony every time I use it. It takes well over 30 seconds to search for any email. What's worse, Outlook often freezes while this is happening and you're pretty much blocked.
What's 30 seconds, you ask. I'm not being cantankerous; 30 seconds by themselves may not matter, but the distraction can be deadly. Before you know it you're looking at a bug report, thinking of some other to-do or your mind has wandered and the squandered seconds start stacking up. Concentration is such a hard-won trophy, why suffer a tool that impedes you?
For now, I'm back to Lookout. Lookout is fast and well integrated with Outlook. It's no longer supported since Microsoft bought it a few years ago and had the team work on Windows search instead. It works with older versions of Outlook and you can tweak it to work on Outlook 2007.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
What's in a name?
Finally created my own blog. I guess a "Hullo, world!" is in order. I hope my blog gets more of my attention than my web page.
When registering for this blog, I had to pick a name for it. Needing to name something is still one of my guaranteed time sinks. Back in college, we organized "hops" - all night dances for students. This hop had an elaborate theme based on symbols from Rome and figures from Asterix comics, all of which were put together almost single handedly by Dilip Menezes. Everyone was working hard decorating the dance hall. My task? To name the hop! A couple of friends and I were up in the wee hours of the night dishing out one unattractive name after another. We finally settled on Roman Rumble (I think), a contribution I can't take any credit for.
Names and I have always had this hate-hate relationship. Growing up, I was never too fond of my own name. To add insult to injury, a number of aunts and grandmas claimed credit for naming me. My wife, Charu, and I sometimes wonder - have we done our son in too? I like "Advait", but will he? Very few people seem to be able to pronounce it correctly, even in India! But we weren't optimizing for ease of pronunciation, I tell myself. For what then? Meaning? Maybe. It takes some effort to assign a profound and yet sensible meaning to Advait. I guess we've fallen prey to the prevailing trend among Indian parents to pick culturally significant names based on old Sanskrit words. I hope Addu (as we call Advait) won't feel like Gogol Ganguly from the Namesake when he grows up. We'll see. If he retains his current enthusiasm, it doesn't look like he'll be fazed by much.
Charu and I agonized over names for months before Advait was born. We grew up in different parts of India, and are used to different names. I preferred simple names like Mohan or Tamil names like Kadiravan, which sound magical to me. Charu felt these were very common in the south and impart as much distinction to their bearer as Raju, Pappu or Bunty. Instead, she preferred names like Narhari or Dhurandhar Bhatawdekar. Ok, I'm making those examples up, but some of her choices had the same ring to them.
I tell myself I'm older and wiser now and that names don't really matter. Shakespeare and I are in violent agreement.
When registering for this blog, I had to pick a name for it. Needing to name something is still one of my guaranteed time sinks. Back in college, we organized "hops" - all night dances for students. This hop had an elaborate theme based on symbols from Rome and figures from Asterix comics, all of which were put together almost single handedly by Dilip Menezes. Everyone was working hard decorating the dance hall. My task? To name the hop! A couple of friends and I were up in the wee hours of the night dishing out one unattractive name after another. We finally settled on Roman Rumble (I think), a contribution I can't take any credit for.
Names and I have always had this hate-hate relationship. Growing up, I was never too fond of my own name. To add insult to injury, a number of aunts and grandmas claimed credit for naming me. My wife, Charu, and I sometimes wonder - have we done our son in too? I like "Advait", but will he? Very few people seem to be able to pronounce it correctly, even in India! But we weren't optimizing for ease of pronunciation, I tell myself. For what then? Meaning? Maybe. It takes some effort to assign a profound and yet sensible meaning to Advait. I guess we've fallen prey to the prevailing trend among Indian parents to pick culturally significant names based on old Sanskrit words. I hope Addu (as we call Advait) won't feel like Gogol Ganguly from the Namesake when he grows up. We'll see. If he retains his current enthusiasm, it doesn't look like he'll be fazed by much.
Charu and I agonized over names for months before Advait was born. We grew up in different parts of India, and are used to different names. I preferred simple names like Mohan or Tamil names like Kadiravan, which sound magical to me. Charu felt these were very common in the south and impart as much distinction to their bearer as Raju, Pappu or Bunty. Instead, she preferred names like Narhari or Dhurandhar Bhatawdekar. Ok, I'm making those examples up, but some of her choices had the same ring to them.
I tell myself I'm older and wiser now and that names don't really matter. Shakespeare and I are in violent agreement.
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