By a spate of comments, how many of you insist on calling people by their last names? Who are you people? I can emphatize with your cause if its your luck to have drawn and met people with such first names as Bartholomew or Sambasivam, but on your average day and when meeting with the average Colin Fitzwilliam, you dont have to go "Oh, i dont know, Mr. Fitzwilliam, but that was how i was addressed when i was brought up and that is how i will you."
To explain things easier, i pick the thing that comes to mind readily.
Cricket commentators already suffer when referring to Waugh... if it is slip catching and lazy grace and elegance, we know they are on the "Mark" and if it is about steely grit, it sure is "Steve". Otherwise, it is difficult. Why cant they just say Steve and Mark?
Calling Anil and Mukesh, "Ambani" would do disservice to Dhirubhai. And why should a certain Patrick cash in on the surname "McEnroe"???
However, regards "Bush", both father and son have the same traits, ie, the world hates them, and it makes little difference anyway, so it is ok. And both wives must be livid, when called "Ms Bush" (joke intended)
First names are cool and easy, and moreover, its urs, so that way you know they are addressing you.
Most of the world except perhaps some places in south india emphasise on surnames. For instance, Ramesh Nihalani would definitely respond if someone calls him Nihalani, but I would look elswehere if someone calls me "Ramanan"!!
If south indians were addressed by surnames, it would be comical. Maharajapuram and Seerkazahi are accepted because the 2 men probably were the only known guys from these 2 villages in Tamilnadu. But think of Conjeevaram (Ramaswamy?) and Pondicherry (Sivasankaran?)..
There are also plentya personal experiences that tag along where i experienced this particlar problem, some pretty comical.
I kinda received a letter some 2 years ago from a US University confirming my admission. It read "Mr. Kripa Ramanan. Congrats" and so forth. And my dad is like " Wow.. You write the exams, apply and stuff, and i get an admit. Thats cool".
And we should all have 1 last name man.. Not 2 last names..like mine, Kripa Ramanan... I know!!!! Blame my grandfather.
I remember applying for a credit card when i told my first and last names to a dood that was typin stuff to enter my details. And i got a letter in the mail addressing me as "R Kripa Space Ramanan".
Of course, if you are a Telugu guy, all laws and restrictions, basically anything that makes sense do not apply to you and dont join my tirade. You better respond to whichever part of your name manages to escape out of others mouths. What the fuck are you people thinking, huh " Thirumala Venkateshwara SivaSubramanya Aditya Devarakonda", is without exaggeration, the name of a good friend of mine. We didnt remain friends for long becuase he didnt find my takes on his namessss funny. "Srinivas NagaVenkata Gundapathula" or " Vangipurappu VenkataSai Laxman" maybe easier comparitively but drive the person thats listening/ calling your name crazy. By a certain oddity, have you observed 'Venkat' figures prominently in every Telugu name. Its no coincidence. Thats their beleif. Every good name should have one. "Srini or Venkat". Hearsay has it they wanted to rename " Andhra Pradesh" into "Venkatesh". Thats it, just that, like Bangladesh, and people outside of AP shouldnt be allowed to use it.
And the auto process of having ur dad's name as ur last name sucks. I really say that. I had a neighbour who got married to one " Madhu Thyagarajan" and ppl call her " Mrs. Thyagarajan" -Thyagarajan who is her dead pop-in-law she's never met in life. That screws relationships all over man. People should ban that.
My friend writes his name as Rohan Arjun Karthik, and sometimes as Karthik Rohan Arjun. He bet me 50 bucks i cant guess his first name, ( not that he was gonna admit if i did). Rohan is his name and Karthik is his dad's name and Arjun it seems is his family name. Can it BE more confusing?
This acquaintance of mine Vijay Immanuel, who originally sent me a hilarious piece on a conversation between an Indian and American data collector, had this to say when i asked him about it. He seconds my opinion and recollects the problem he had in getting his details - the spelling and stuff - through. And i thought it was pretty funny.
Vijay says " It is not only u..Even I (Who does not have my father's name nor my house name) have to go thru it very often.
IMMANUEL.....spelt as Imman vel (As in Vel Murugan)
Apparently, this dint work, and i try another angle "Manual...Immanuel with an E, i.e
Emmanuel...etc .and so on."
People do not seem to be giving respect to ones names!...no matter what it is."
Right on mark, Manny.
January 28, 2005
January 15, 2005
Swell fable...
Apparently, the fable(of all fables!) goes thus:
God created man, but was soon disillusioned with his creation and
swore... rather, exclaimed "Ah, Damn".
The poor man asked "What" and God quickly composed himself and said "Yeah, Ah-Damn..er.. Adam is your name."
God was still giving finishing touches to man and had a rib left, not
knowing what to do with it.
By now, Adam was fidgeting and wanted to get away from God.
So Adam cried out "I wanna leave."
God heard it as "eve" instead of "leave" (This is b'cos God, like any boss, has no record being a good listener.)
Quickly latching onto the idea, God created Eve out of the rib, and
cautioned Adam, "But, I want you together always" (meaning he wanted
both Adam and Eve to be "together" at all times).
Adam replied "No, problem".
And since then, Adam's biggest mission has been "to-get-her" !!!!!
God created man, but was soon disillusioned with his creation and
swore... rather, exclaimed "Ah, Damn".
The poor man asked "What" and God quickly composed himself and said "Yeah, Ah-Damn..er.. Adam is your name."
God was still giving finishing touches to man and had a rib left, not
knowing what to do with it.
By now, Adam was fidgeting and wanted to get away from God.
So Adam cried out "I wanna leave."
God heard it as "eve" instead of "leave" (This is b'cos God, like any boss, has no record being a good listener.)
Quickly latching onto the idea, God created Eve out of the rib, and
cautioned Adam, "But, I want you together always" (meaning he wanted
both Adam and Eve to be "together" at all times).
Adam replied "No, problem".
And since then, Adam's biggest mission has been "to-get-her" !!!!!
January 06, 2005
Tsunami aftermath...
Dont know if this a joke out of place but apparently appeared in the Colombo Times - which is quoted below :
Quote
On 26th Dec '04 early morning several hrs before the catastrophy happened, Honolulu Tsunami Monitoring center have been trying to call our Meteorological Dept. monitoring center in Palekelle and Colombo but failed. They also got in touch with presidents' office however it was informed that she's out of the island on a private vacation.
Finally they called the Prime minister's secretariat, but the Prime minister was out on his morning walk. Thinking at least it's best to keep him vigilant on this, the Honolulu officials left the message with the person who picked up the phone to inform the Prime minister that there's a Tsunami coming from Indonesia .
On the prime minister's return, the operator told the prime minister about the call, and said T. Sunami from Indonesia is arriving in 2 hrs. The Prime minister promptly took action to send a delegation to Katunayake Airport in Colombo with name boards ' Welcome Mr. T. Sunami - Indonesia'.
The trouble is we never know if these reports can be true. Yes, we can trace back and ask the operator if he did leave the message, but then " Yes buddy" is gonna be the obvious answer.
Then, you trace the dood that got the message and fry him why he didnt report to the right authorities.
Okay, but then do you expect a peon in the PM's office to know what a tsunami is, when the PM sneds a convoy to the airport ??
And no, i wudnt blame the PM either. How can he know what a tsunami is? Very few did before it happened. Frankly, I knew very little of Tsunami (before this thing happened), except for it had something to do with Japanese earthquakes..
We all paid a pretty big price to find the actual meaning of that word which most werent even aware existed.
Thanks to the current era, people of today are aware of things which are not vital parts of our vocabulary eg. SAARS, AIDS, Bofors, Tsunami, Rogue-state, Regime-change etc.. And what a price has been paid to know the meanings of those words too..
There are more stories to go along with this, one of them being this....
" Apparently, an ex-IIT Chennai student who had worked on a communications project
(during his course) in a village near Cuddalore, had called the village people from Singapore where he is working now and warned them of the disaster a few hours before it struck. All the villagers moved to safety with their children and vital belongings... and there was not a single casualty in that village!!"
I cannot fathom, why this piece of 'providing information' could not be escalated at the highest levels (if PM/Presedent of SL is not available, inform the BBC/CNN and other news channels all over globe, which will have the fastest reach).
Particularly, the IIT case, to be frank, is difficult to digest. When he can warn and save successfuly a village, he could have done it to the whole state if he had informed the State Govt machinery and the media.
To be frank, i do not know if i would have informed anybody had i had this piece of information. So, whoever did their bit to pass it along is to be applauded. But when you have that amount of foresight to inform a village, you are expected to have the intelligence to pass it to more effective/ more reach sources too.
May be I have the benefit of hindsight. What the hell... I do have the benefit of hindsight and i have admitted i totally lack foresight, who am i to complain and point fingers at?
Quote
On 26th Dec '04 early morning several hrs before the catastrophy happened, Honolulu Tsunami Monitoring center have been trying to call our Meteorological Dept. monitoring center in Palekelle and Colombo but failed. They also got in touch with presidents' office however it was informed that she's out of the island on a private vacation.
Finally they called the Prime minister's secretariat, but the Prime minister was out on his morning walk. Thinking at least it's best to keep him vigilant on this, the Honolulu officials left the message with the person who picked up the phone to inform the Prime minister that there's a Tsunami coming from Indonesia .
On the prime minister's return, the operator told the prime minister about the call, and said T. Sunami from Indonesia is arriving in 2 hrs. The Prime minister promptly took action to send a delegation to Katunayake Airport in Colombo with name boards ' Welcome Mr. T. Sunami - Indonesia'.
The trouble is we never know if these reports can be true. Yes, we can trace back and ask the operator if he did leave the message, but then " Yes buddy" is gonna be the obvious answer.
Then, you trace the dood that got the message and fry him why he didnt report to the right authorities.
Okay, but then do you expect a peon in the PM's office to know what a tsunami is, when the PM sneds a convoy to the airport ??
And no, i wudnt blame the PM either. How can he know what a tsunami is? Very few did before it happened. Frankly, I knew very little of Tsunami (before this thing happened), except for it had something to do with Japanese earthquakes..
We all paid a pretty big price to find the actual meaning of that word which most werent even aware existed.
Thanks to the current era, people of today are aware of things which are not vital parts of our vocabulary eg. SAARS, AIDS, Bofors, Tsunami, Rogue-state, Regime-change etc.. And what a price has been paid to know the meanings of those words too..
There are more stories to go along with this, one of them being this....
" Apparently, an ex-IIT Chennai student who had worked on a communications project
(during his course) in a village near Cuddalore, had called the village people from Singapore where he is working now and warned them of the disaster a few hours before it struck. All the villagers moved to safety with their children and vital belongings... and there was not a single casualty in that village!!"
I cannot fathom, why this piece of 'providing information' could not be escalated at the highest levels (if PM/Presedent of SL is not available, inform the BBC/CNN and other news channels all over globe, which will have the fastest reach).
Particularly, the IIT case, to be frank, is difficult to digest. When he can warn and save successfuly a village, he could have done it to the whole state if he had informed the State Govt machinery and the media.
To be frank, i do not know if i would have informed anybody had i had this piece of information. So, whoever did their bit to pass it along is to be applauded. But when you have that amount of foresight to inform a village, you are expected to have the intelligence to pass it to more effective/ more reach sources too.
May be I have the benefit of hindsight. What the hell... I do have the benefit of hindsight and i have admitted i totally lack foresight, who am i to complain and point fingers at?
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