In search of a Good name

It all started with me trying to find a name for my kid. I didn’t even know why I was doing that. Hell! I am not married. And I don’t have a kid and as far as I know none in the making. Why should I be worrying about this? Makes no sense. But no, I just can’t get rid of the thought. What is my offspring to be named as? How on earth is the world going to refer to my kid? This was one question which has been plaguing my mind for a long time now. The reason of course is obvious, at least to me. It is one of the few things that I can decide in my child’s life. And if I end up having a Calvin'esque kid, the only way I am going to get back at him is by giving him an impossible name. And no, I was not thinking of something like Rushyendramani.

So what do I name my kid?

Naming of Hindu boys in Tamil Nadu is a very simple task. People don’t spend a lot of time or thought on that. The reason is of course easy to determine. Just take a look at the telephone directory. Take a Subramaniam, a Karthik, a Vijay, a Mohan, a Raghu, a Siva, an Ashwin, a Kumaran, and a Sekar. Add the necessary prefixes or suffixes like Thiru, Sai, Kumar and Ram. Multiply by a large 6 digit number and lo and behold you have got the names of more than half the Hindu male population of Tamil Nadu. At least a quarter of the remaining have names which are just minor variations of the above. I don’t want my kid to be literally lost in the midst of million Karthik’s and Subramaniam’s. So then do I go in for the modern naming convention, which is to find a name which sounds sophisticated and un-Tamilian, the emphasis being on the un-Tamilian nature of the name. The sophistication can after all be brought through proper pronounciation. So now we have names like Ashwath, Advaith, Chinmay, Ankit, Chathurbhuj, Sanjay, Deepesh, Sachin, Akaash, Akshay and Prakrit (and I thought Prakrit referred to a group of dialects!!).

I realise that I have been politically incorrect in not considering the birth of girl child. I apologise for that. So what do the modern pundits of names have to say about the nomenclature for girls. “Oh we have a plethora of names for girls”, they claim nonchalantly; Ankita, Madhumita, Prerana, Varshini, Harshini, Manasvini, Rachna, Pooja (Can someone tell me why a Hindi film heroine has to always be a Pooja. Probably that is the first name that comes to the director’s mind after he has named the hero Rahul) and that ubiquitous name Ishwarya. Whatever happened to Meenakshi, Sharada, Shenbagam, Karapagam, Gayathri, Valli, Rajeshwari, Lalitha, Lakshmi and the various varieties of Lakshmi,viz,Vidyalakshmi, Annalakshmi, Mahalakshmi, er....Jyothilakshmi?

At the other end of the spectrum are the names from the belt of Tamil lovers. So we still have names like TamilAnban, Navukkarsu, Vadivukkarasi, Saravanan, Murugan, Illanko, Malarvizhi, Thenmozhi and so on. The problem with these names lie in the incompatability of Tamil and English and the penchant of the Tamils themselves to speak their language incorrectly. Tamil as a language has too many sounds not present in English and the resulting hotch-potch is painful to anyone who knows and loves the language. So while I find all these modern Sanskritised names very artificial and foreign, the Tamil names themselves are ruled out because of their complexity. And added to this is the modern practise of mis-pronouncing Tamil. So if I were to name my kid pulimelazhagan ( which can be translated as “ the handsome man atop the tiger”….which could mean Lord Ayyapan), it is highly likely to be pronounced puLimelazhagan which would mean ahemmmm…… “the handsome man atop the tamarind”.


Then I thought I would name my kids after my heroes. In the age of no genuine heroes (excluding Captain Vijaykanth of course), one is forced to look into the past for names. The near past is sprinkled with a lot of heroes who transcended religions and nations. But the problem with naming my kid a Gandhi, a Marx, a Napolean or a Mandela was that these are too heavy a weight to carry. What if the kid does not live up to the name?

So I looked further back in history; into the era of the Mahabharatha. Arjuna was of course my hero, but then the name was again too common for my liking. Bhima would be more often than not a too ambitious name for obvious reasons. The rest were no heroes.

As I scanned through the other characters, one name struck me as the correct choice. A funny choice though. The man responsible for making a superb story out of a family feud. One man whose standard my kid would not have to live upto.

"Duryodhana".

The only problem I can foresee with that name is, the shock the friendly Indian neighbour would receive when he would ask, “What is your good name please?”

September 11

Writing of Vande Matharam, today happens to be the death anniversary of the man who in addition to writing a Vande Matharam song, defied death as no other.

"kaala unnai siru pulenna mathikiren
en kaalaruge vaada satre unnai mithikiren"

Vande Matharam

With Vande Matharam making news for all sorts of reasons these days, I thought I should highlight a lesser know Vande Matharam song from Siraichalai penned by Arivumathi and set to music by Raaja. In Raaja's era when one comes across good lyrics, one immediately tends to think of Vairamuthu or Vaali. But this song probably proves that given the right situation there are others too who can do an equally good job. But thanks to Tamil cinema's theevira "Kadhal" with "Kadhal" in the 80's and 90's we generally got pedestrian and unimaginative songs from most lyirc writers(with exceptions ofcourse). Thank "whatever is up there", that we atleast had the "Young King" to do magic even when given the most uninspiring of situations.


idhu thai pirandha desam
nam thandhai aaNda desam
idhu naam vaNangum desam
uyir naadi indha desam
maN peridhaa uyir peridhaa
badhil tharavaa ippothe
vaa puliye nam vazhvum saavum yaar vasam
vande maatharam.. vande maatharam..
vande maatharam.. vande maatharam..

veerathai gundugal thulaikkaathu
veeranai sarithiram puthaikkaathu
nattai ninaikkum nenjangaL
vadagai moochil vazhaadhu
izhandha uyirgaLo kaNakkillai
irumi savadhil sirappillai
innum ennada viLaiyaattu
edhiri narambile kodiyetru
nilathadiyil pudhaindhirukkum
piNagaLukkum manam thudikkum
vande maatharam.. vande maatharam..
vande maatharam.. vande maatharam..

thayo paththe maasamthaan
adhigam sumandhadhu desamthaan
udalum uyirum yaar thandar
uNarnthu paarthal desamthaan
indha puzhudithaan udalaachchu
indha katruthaan uyirmuchchu
indru irandume paripochu
innum ennada verumpechu
kaivilangai udaithuidadaa
erimalaiye vedithuidadaa..
vande maatharam.. vande maatharam..
vande maatharam.. vande maatharam..

Fanaa and Raja

As I sit in my lab I can hear "Chand Sifarish Jo Karta Hamari", from Fanaa, which someone's playing somewhere down the corridor and I soon find myself singing it. I first came across this beautiful song in the closed confines of a crowded car in Bangalore. Believe it or not, that was the first full "modern" Hindi song I was hearing since Machis. I ofcourse have a huge liking for the good old Hindi songs of Rafi, Kishore, Mukesh and others but as my profile would tell you, I don't dwell much in this age....

Coming back to this song I somehow took an instant liking for this Fanaa number. It reminds me of Raja's innumerable classics. Maybe not the actual tune but the surely feel of the song. Probably the resemblence is not a surprise since Fanaa is by Jatin-Lalit. Unlike Anu Malik, the duo have been more honest about the influence of Raja on their music. Maybe someone can tell me actually which song(if any) has influenced this.