What's in a name?

A whole heckuva LOT, if you had mine. 24 letters and 10 syllables, to be precise ;)

Hence, I have a whole series of nicks and fancy nicks and abbreviations and abridgments, self-endowed or otherwise. I’ve even kept some contributed by some very spiteful foes, and despite myself, I think they sound a tad better than the real ones .

Ironically enough, not until I moved to the land of strictly-ten-spaces-to-fit-your-name-on-the-tax-form, did I realize the perks of having a long name :)

In India - where the rule of christening follows the general principles of life, namely, make it as complex as humanly possible - names are made as long as the alphabet would allow, and then initialized. We even smugly expand on the initials -- for instance, K would be Kay and V would be Vee -- or shorten them to something fancier (for the uninitiated, abbreviation doesn’t require exalted levels in creativity cos they are usually a conglomeration of the choicest words, and you could pick between “good” and “pretty” and “loving” and “god”, and even among the million gods :)).

For a million bureaucratic reasons, my last name stuck on my passport and tagged along with me to Sam’s land, all 16 letters of it...

But not to worry -- like I adapted to the ‘specious yankee hello’ in my very innovative fashion ;), I’ve come up with some helpful solutions for those of you similarly plagued with that seemingly un-enunciable last name. Another important point of this piece, of course, is to educate the non-Indian and that occasional Indian who is blissfully unaware of the trials and tribulations of his long-named brethren (most often the one that gets away with the all-too-easy Das or Rao, which make even Smith look like a lot of work).

Believe me, there is no better conversation starter with a stranger than one that follows what I like to call the ‘moniker-stupefaction’. It certainly trumps the weather and it beats that Knicks-conversation hands down (yeah, they don’t just suck on the court).

“Oh my god, you have all the letters in there,” is the most common remark after squint-eyed perusal of your drivers license or credit card, your godiva martini or paycheck, momentarily forgotten. As for your response, you have many options, depending on the person, the situation and your own affability levels. If they seem to have too much time on their hands (almost always the bartender at your friendly neighborhood bar), you could proceed to explain to them which ones are actually amiss, provided you’re sober enough to recount A to Z. If they don’t seem to be particularly eager to extend the conversation (almost always the sales girl at that packed grocery store), simply – “Yeah, I get that a lot”, followed by the universal American suffix, the smile (I myself can manage a pretty decent half-grin :D).

Then there’s, “You must have had one hell of a hard time spelling that when you were little.” Here, you could go with the smartass, “Yeah, I almost sued my parents for child abuse” or take the more earnest route and tell them that you used initials, so you didn’t have to spell it out when you were 4 (my own little bit at educating Americans on the ways of the rest of the world).

The overenthusiastic salesperson requires the most work – “You have got to say this,” she says and the cheery glint in her eyes is hard to quench with curt denial. Uh-oh, allowing time for your own enunciation followed by a zillion failed attempts at hers, you can be sure your cappuccino will be a long time coming. Cursing your tough luck that you couldn’t jus dig up four bucks and save yourself 15 minutes, you try to be the sympathetic Samaritan and play along. After all, not being able to say your last name is her singular problem in life – “It’s actually not hard to say at all – just intone the syllables one by one. It’s not that much more complicated than say, Mississippi.” (It’s a good thing Americans are too polite to retort with, “That’s why it’s abbreviated to MS you doofus. We don’t usually have to say it.”) So, if you want my advice, the smarter citation would be Au Bon Pain. There seems to be a consensus on Au and bon but the jury is still out on pain – is it “pain” like it should be (owing in part to the awful coffee), “pen” or “paan”?

But you gotta give credit where it’s due -- for those that mercifully shorten gasoline to gas, spell sulphur with an f and humour without the u, and do away with complicated words like postpone, choosing to instead put it off, they try where it least matters. And I’ve successfully had about 5 of them say my multisyllablic, mellifluous, Dravidian last name...5 and counting...

I’m now wondering if my 8-letter, easy-to-intone first name is much too boring...I should probably rechristen to something more exciting. Hmmm, there’s a thought...

The New York Quotient

The impossible has happened – on my zillionth trip to the city, I finally reached my New York City threshold!

Since a trip to the city always manages to leave me short of words (in a good or bad way), I decided to resort to cartooning (pardon my sketchiness, it’s a venture after an almost 5 year hiatus, and I must say, Photoshop’s attempt at translating my 'work of art' left a lot to be desired ;)) to dissect the capriciousness of New Yorkers, broken down mathematically by a concept called the 'New York Quotient' *grin*




Numerically,

Your NY Quotient ∝

[# of subway trips] + [# of minutes spent cab-waiting] +
[# of toes stepped on & vice versa] + [# of hours camping at red lights] + [# of dollars the ticket vending machines ate up] + [# of rude, curt answers you’ve received] + [# of answers you haven’t received] + [# of times you’ve tripped on street debris] + [total line-waiting time (this includes restaurants, bars, subway & ferry booths, TICKETMASTER)]

____________________________________________________________________________

[# of bars hopped in The Village] + [# of stand-up comedies that truly made ya laugh] + [net broadway shows watched] + [# of miles of biking/skateboarding/horseback riding @ Central Park] + [# of #s danced to @ that hip salsa bar] + [minutes spent skyscraper-gazing on Park Avenue] + [minutes spent Hudson-gazing @ Battery Park] + [# of coffees at quaint cafes in the upper East side] + [# of sightings of the Macy’s Christmas windows] + [total # of different cuisines tried at Restaurant Street] + [endurance levels]

The 'People' Person

Few would call me a social being. Even fewer would find me particularly engaging company. Those that do have most likely earned it, cos I have put them through the same rigorous standards that I have every human being and they have passed the test ;) The rest of humanity, I like at a distance.

And yet Homo sapiens are my strongest allies. I don’t know what I would do without them! Who would I observe, judge, criticize, penalize, extol, worship, classify and put in categories?

I think it started with high school Shakespeare and vivid character sketches of the exuberant Touchstone vs. the melancholy Jacques, the contemplative Hamlet, the ruthless Shylock, the meddling Puck. And the less melodramatic, yet equally potent, facets of Jane Eyre’s persona and the very temperamental little woman, Jo. As much for my passion for anything that didn’t involve mind-boggling numbers and equations, as for my intrigue with the human psyche, I ardently got into their shoes, dissected their personalities and strip-searched their minds. Almost as if they were real. And then I wondered – why couldn’t they be real?

Tiring of two-dimensional characters and a tad desettled by the intangibility of print and celluloid, I took a leaf out of my text book and brought it to reality. Turning my examination to real human beings made the possibilities endless, the choices many and the world my veritable playing field. Even more so, in a little subcontinent teeming with more human beings than it could possibly handle, where tight corners and perplexing scenarios were a part of daily life. Everyone was fair game -- my best friend, my far-off cousin, that abominable guy in the neighborhood -- not entirely free of bias, but subject to the same relentless scrutiny. I had no holier-than-thou objective of revolutionizing the human race. Everyone was entitled to be themselves. I liked the differences, enjoyed the versatility, delighted in the labels, and I wouldn’t change anything for the world.

Linda Goodman helped embellish the process, so the “dreamers” could become Pisceans, the “romantics,” Scorpions, the “scary ones,” Ariens, and I could take great pride in being the practical, logical, sensible earth sign, with two feet planted on the ground and one head firmly on the shoulders. Little did I realize that I was a romantic of my own kind – looking at the world through rose colored glasses, translating fiction to reality and attempting to transport the silver lining from the very silver screen. Walking down streets in search of Laura Castellano, along alleyways hoping to get stymied by BA Baracus and entering offices, fully expecting to see a William Kane. Being Dagny Taggart and Kate Blackwell, dreaming of Howard Roark and Hank Reardon.

Then came stage three: fascination with some people, annoyance with others, sheer intolerance of still more. Enough to fire me up. String me along into an hour-long debate. Sit in awe for days on end. Why is Laloo Yadav so darn stupid? What is that inexcusable fanatic, Thackeray trying to achieve? Rajiv Gandhi is the only cultured politician. Awe of the Karan Thapar of Eyewitness fame and being totally besotted with Gurumurthy‘s unique line of thinking. I sat in rapt attention while Tim Sebastian tore people apart on Hardtalk and Siddharth Basu scoffed at no-gooders on Mastermind India. I loved Ajay Jadeja’s nonchalance. Sachin Tendulkar’s intensity. Pete Sampras’ invincibility. Detested the pompous youngster that ruthlessly broke down my demigod of a decade (not for long, considering he now adorns my computer screen ;)).

I liked the politics and the sports, I enjoyed the books and the movies, essentially as representatives of people’s personas, so I could look at them and wonder – what was behind that Pistol Pete steely reserve and that ruthless Thapar aggression? And I carried it wherever I went.

Watching, observing, learning people.

Moving to an ethnically variegated country provided more angles for my love affair with the Homo sapien. Americans are an exuberant people, I have seen few that aren’t socially gifted. Chinese are no-nonsense and persevering. Brits are insanely witty; now, if only the laughter touched the eyes. Why are the smartest and funniest people almost always Jews? Why does it have to be an Indian that jumps the line?

American politics provided more labels, more prototypes, more easily fittable templates, columns and rows with issues and beliefs and people and places. A year in this country and I was lost in the subtle differences between a social liberal and libertarian, a fiscal conservative and liberal, the patakis and guilianis pitted against the clintons and kennedies, the limbaughs and moores against the mcCains and liebermans. My character sketch of Kerry included everything from his captainship of the debating team at Yale to his aggressive outcry post-Vietnam. I had a mental make-up of Howard Dean that toned down the dementia and highlighted the intensity. One of Bush that hyped the stupidity and downplayed the niceness.

And noone seems to escape that human radar. My co-worker goes out for coffee and I notice his cup isn’t attested with the familiar green circle. “I thought you went down to Starbucks?” An innocent, guileless question.

“Starbucks? Oh, no.” An innocent, guileless answer.

Not to me, however. I have to immediately jump to conclusions and fit him in my mental list of prototypes. “Oh, you are one of those,” I say with a glint in my eyes, mentally patting myself on the back for having found someone I could vent my pro-capitalist feelings to.

A quizzical lift of the eyebrow precedes such disappointingly trite reasoning as, “I just didn’t want to walk that far.”

Fair enough.

Not in my world, however. In my world every human being is a complex conglomeration of ideas, feelings, opinions and emotions, every action an expression of that irrefutable belief, every statement a release of that undying emotion. Nothing can be pedestrian, everything borders on the philosophical and profound...

I couldn’t say it better than my good pal, Dee:

"Why the hell do I need to get deep into [the psyche] of every person I am interested in (I mean, life is short) instead of treating them like a black box and sending inputs that I care about to see what outputs I get? Instead I will prattle on topics completely irrelevant to me (sorta like a chameleon) just to draw out what I need...ugh!!!!!"

And a very pleasurable ugh at that...

Off the top of my head, the ‘things’ I am currently fascinated by:

Roger Federer
Dan Brown’s creative juices
Max Kellerman’s quick wit
Bush’s idiocy
Bill Maher’s radicalism
How Bush and Maher can be the same species on the same planet...

For a self-proclaimed misanthrope, my life sure seems to be exceedingly human-centric...

How about Pseudango?

"The US is looking forward to eating Indian mangoes.”

And while I sit there, reading Bush’s comment on the bbcworld site, chewing on a red, juiceless, thick-skinned mango from Whole Foods, Sam’s land’s best imitation of the delicious orange drupe from my motherland, my eyes light up and I even let a little saliva drip (an act hitherto restricted to tangible foods and quite excessively so).

While the thought of soon being able to delve into a bonafide Indian mango in the ‘comfort’ of my Philadelphia apartment is exhilarating enough, I must say that’s not the only reason for my new found glee. That I’m a die-hard patriotic Indian who would defend India no matter what couldn’t be further from the truth. But most of my criticism of India stems from my image of the country that ‘could have been’, and I say, quite smugly, that presently (and pleasantly), the India that is, is almost looking like the one that could have been.

Most eloquently portrayed by Fareed Zakaria in this msnbc piece, India’s current position on the world’s economic stage was something many of us happily predicted the moment we learned that the intelligent populace of the country had elected itself the most intelligent leader in history. If Manmohan Singh’s economic reforms in ’91 were the dream-budget, he’s now put together a “dream team” – the group that went to sell India at Davos was a crème-de-la-crème melange of politicians and business-men, who would be hard to ignore at a country club, much less the world economic forum. Articulation – trying not to let my unrelenting obsession with it become a factor here – is indeed one of the greatest gifts your country’s leaders can possess on the global stage, and while Indian financial bigwigs have always been gifted in the area, for the first time in decades, we’re seeing enterprising politicians, and in my opinion, Chidambaram leads the pack. And who better than the peerless Zakaria to articulate that!

Having devoured Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in college, I turned from a die-hard Marxist to an out-and-out capitalism touter. And the fact that my country just happens to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the free market economy delivers a kind of deep satisfaction that even the alphonso I’m dreaming about may not. Suffice it to say, while I don’t completely understand what Tom Friedman and Gurcharan Das are talking about (for a person that barely keeps track of her own finances, I can’t be entrusted with the world’s), I do comply with their world-is-flat hypothesis. And I’ve always been one to refute theories widely recognized and believed :)

The facts are all there. We’re big! Terms like global power and most important partner have been dripping from the mouths of top US officials since Singh’s visit here last May. From adamantly insisting that India must sign the nuclear NPT to imposing sanctions the US has now grown to recognize that India is a responsible, not to mention economically expanding democracy and welcomed us into the club. And for the politically and economically apathetic Indian, it still makes a difference that Americans are now looking beyond the spicy samosa chaat and the dazzling colors of the Punjabi sharara, to its intellectual competence, its computer technology, its super power potential.

Of course, the jokes still abound – videos of the prototype Indian at the call center being floated around the internet, the blatant stupefaction at “accent” schools and the much graver, more disheartening National Geographic account on untouchability. But now that’s just part of the spectrum of issues, almost successfully camouflaged by Discovery channel’s reviews on the changing Indian lifestyle or Tom Friedman’s piece in the NYT pondering over why Indians are more academically competent.

I say “camouflaged” because I am no blindly optimistic sunshine-seeker (though, literally, I can't seem to get enough of that huge ball of fire). I realize that India has a long way to go but it’s good to know we’ve made a start...And partnering with the best in the business is as good a start as any.

I just wish our partners would call this oblong red thing in my hand by a different name...how about pseudango? I’ll let you chew on that a while. And if you got yours at Whole Foods, that could be a really long ‘while’ ;) Not quite made for the molars, this......