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Mani (Kandan P.B. :-(()
my name still reads Rajhesh Panchanadhan;
a low sounding THUD ricochets from 1977. I could hear it.
Thank god my name is not Blossom BabyKutty or Innocent Kumar or like my neighbour in Trichy, Xylophone (he was named straight from the dictionary)
Really cool post, man. I guess you cud publish them as an assorted collection of essays, anonymously ;)
A Venkateswarulu who's willing to share his idli and tomato rasam with me gets my vote any day over black-leather-sporting Aryans and Rajs gyrating in discos!
While my parents were kind enough to name me Megha, being a southie gal, I have a zillion middle names as well. The Seetaraamamma Ventakaramani et al portion was kept a closely guarded secret by choice.. however when people discovered it, they always thought it was 'sooo sweet!' and so 'adorably southie babe-like'. Then why the bhed bhav for the Balaraam Paalaasamudrams and Suryanarayana Domalapudis? Not a fair world that we live in, methinks!
Megha
Shameless self-promotion -(http://yumnyum.blogspot.com/)
http://anuragjain.blogspot.com
Kotamarthi Naga Siva Srinivas (another one of those)
Anyways, ur face looks a lot familiar or mebbe I just want it to be familiar :D. Me from that dust bin of a college that was like 20 km due east from Thuvakudi, Shanmugha College of Engg.
Had tried some humour of my own.
Srini (Kotamarthi Naga Siva Srinivas, one of those South Indian men)
Fantastic post!! I sent this out to a bunch of people in office and there laughter across the floor.
Very well written and the humor was fabulous.
Ranjith
(a fellow mallu) :)
cool one da..just now saw the article in PG..
my friend mailed me your Blog..
cheers,
haripi2
Me a newbie as a Blogger..
Superb da...
Being Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan (Tam Bram, with malllu Palaghta bram blood thrown in), I can categorically say this is in no way offensive and is hilariously funny.
Thanks a million man, for lighting up my day.
Visit me at Selective Amnesia
priceless piece of writing, and now i know why I am still single. But why not see the other side of the table where prefectly amazing women too have similar nomenclature and suffer. i luv my name but then not every one seems as keen. My CEO tried to shorten my name to MK and when I refused him such privilages, insists on mauling the name to obscenity. Being the only woman in the entire mech engg dept meant that i got called by my surname and Bschool insited on the shortcut as it was easier on the winpopup. knowing tht there are others who have similar problems really puts a balm on the wound.
Got ur post as a forward in my trainee batch mail and its a real talking point, totally infested by mallus as it is. have fun.
That was simply too good an article.
Enjoyed it thoroughly... so much that I blogged it at my LiveJournal.
Thanks,
Nakul
We poor Bongs Males don't have a shot in hell..... Tell me, who has ever pronounced a bong name right? And it is certainly nice to tell to your friends that your girlfriend is not Aparna but 'Oupourna'.... So the eastern senoritas are on the safer side.....but how on earth does a southie belle (and so gorgeous they are)... go tell her mom that her boyfriend's name is Soumya? Ah, the hue and cry about the daughter turning lesbian, which generally is the first reaction..... And then, when the storm has settled a bit, "No Amma, it is a guy, Soumya is a guy's name in Bengal.... and pronounce it shoummow......plz" .... HELLO!!!!!
The grass is always greener on the other side, trust me
Keep penning Sidin
Explanation: Your page is XHTML 1.0 Strict, for which Mozilla does strict parsing of HTML comments (nested comment are allowed).
Solution: Save the page, edit the HTML file to remove the first line (the DOCTYPE declaration), save the changes, then view the page.
I hope this will help some of your readers. BTW, nice write-up!
Your nomenclature will cause you few problems in getting that dream job - Mr. Sin, a few years ago became top dog in the Catholic Church in the Philippines - he was called Cardinal Sin (And he then chose to remain celibate for the rest of his natural existence). Nirodh Kumar didnt have a problem either, this illustrious northie grew to be quite famous in the Indian Army, despite being the butt of several jokes.
Our Southie names can be worked around though, Subramaniam, wanted to make his name easier for his yankee freinds and took to calling himself Subra-maniam, this however got shortened to an All-American Subra hypen.
In Australia, my anglo-saxon colleague has taken to calling Viknaswaran Subramaniam - a coded V25 S32. Has this done anything for Vik's ability to get a little bling-bling - I have no idea and would believe it hasnt one bit. Vik's only chance as you said is to call himself Jon Sebestian.
Me have just a tiny little Avinash Iyer, a big time compression after what could potentially have been Thiruvidaimadudur Anantharamakrishna Rajaraman!!
And the shortening was done by my dad!!
But then, my dad lived most of his life up north, hence I wont count him among the Tambi/Mone's dads of this world!! :)
Great piece dude.... keep it up!
--Avi
This email has undoubtedly invited some brickbat like the hateful comment just above-
But relax people- no need to get defensive or offensive about this. take it with the lightness that its written in.
So we have,
Vasanth Vihar
Sangeetha
Vineetha
Jayanthi
Shanthi
Tamizh
Planet M (music) and Planet Yum (food) - to the man on the street here, both these franchises are the same thing.
Oh ! The best one yet, Mahesh is pronounced Maghesh.
Egads.
reading this for the second time. first time on a blog, so now i know where to comment:) needless to say, the hilariously self-depracating style of writing is loved by anybody with a halfway decent sense of humour. but i should tell u that nomenclature has little to do with sex appeal of men, south indian or otherwise. married to sivananda ramnath, i'm in a good position to vouch for that:)the brainy, intelligent, witty types do turn women on (i'm sure u know that by now;))
but yes, do keep on writing such stuff. makes for a great way to end the day, start the day, stall the day, whatever...
Pretty awesome writing... and cmon, after reading this, you _can_ get any!
Received your post as a forwarded mail, again, after all this time... So thought I would thank you again for a wonderfully-written amusing anecdote, if indeed it can be termed as one!
Thanks for making my day, again.
Nakul
keep writing ...they come as a surprise "no class" in between the series of unannounced quizes...
keep it up Dev
regards
sid
Nelly
Got here from India Uncut.
-Brad Thottatri.
and large parts of it, without
attribution. Donot revel, in reflected
glory..
that was one hilarious article!!...i have read quite a few humorous articles, but i must say urs takes the cake :D u really do have a great talent sir...it was a pleasure reading sucha witty post :D...
Hard core southies are settling down material..not the "have a fling" types i spose..
A friend of mine passed the link on..Ur awesome!!!
the post shows how much of narrow vision you had..
its such a narrow vision of most of the northies that has kept this country like this still ready to be divided and conquered.. when a guy doesnt knows hindhi he is teased like anything, but there are so many guys who doesnt know that the other guys mother tongue was a 2000 yrs old language and they still arent aware of that.. the narrow vision starts here and goes on everywhere, even into the names.. as you had been..
have you ever noticed that most of the tamilian names nowadays are not using the caste or the group they belong too..
my name is Senthil Kumar and nobody could ever guess my caste or subcaste.. or blah...blah..
but its most of the northi's who are proud to gather themselves in their last name as their caste name.. isnt this a shame... than wearing a lungi and having curdrice..
shame on you guys...
-
????????/Senthil
Good one....
keep going ..
me being a guju who married the eligible south indian (tam) guy - yes.. what's in a name. well. lots of non-southies are i guess waking up to the whole new section of husband-worthy guys of south india who other than typical name have lots of everything else to shower their love..
You are now famous as hell...
And what is this accusation about Plagiarism?? Why don't you clear it up???
http://lifeandtimes75.blogspot.com/
As an SI woman in L.A. - away from SI thought process/sharing for sometime, it was interesting to get a whiff through your reflective essay.
Names do matter - just as first impressions do. Depends on what you are looking for - a brief fling/romantic interlude, or commitment to relationship...
But as one of your commentators felt, SI men seem to be less socially, politically, environmentally aware therefore do not come across passionate about life and its activities the way some others do, or... they have a problem expressing themselves - meaning less confidence.
Please - lets not allow SI & NI differential - A man of substance stands more of a chance than a raunchy, leather/ denim clad swinger. Again perspectives my friend...perspectives, exposure & experience
I would love to meet a man who can express himself in a face to face dialogue as well as you have expressed yourself in writing...
My view : SI males - who are successful educationally and professionally need to develop their own personality socially or otherwise instead of following the American Dude, Duh! etc... afterall we can bring a rich cultural and social heritage. Lets define our'selves' than homogenize...
With much appreciation for opening this dialogue
Mekala - not short for Manimekali
:-)
Seems you have felt so bad... Why don't you use some simple nick names like what i do------------ Ambalavanan M called as Anand in Bombay :*)
Amazing article!! Unfortunately, I read it about 2 years later... Would have saved some questions :-D!! Heheh!!
Amazing humor there!
Regards,
Sujeet Kuchibhotla
Hmmm. Wonder if people know the meaning for these words. Guess, for some people going to nightclubs, pubs, and hanging out with girls are main goals in life.
I see some comments from "South Indians", praising you for your ignorance. I was also about to laugh, ofcourse at your ignorance, but did not as it is rude laugh at someone's ignorance.
South India has its own unique identity and culture which are not borrowed from any invaders of India. In general there is Last name concept in South India. Early migrants from South India, used to add Iyer, Iyengar, Chettiar (BTW, if you don't know, these are caste names). The modern South Indians do not like to add their caste names to their names, hence, they use their father's first name.
I think the poster of this topic should read more before writing something.
-- a proud South Indian with a long first name and a longer last name
incidentally, Gautam Kumar Raja (presently Joshua Perreira) strikes a bell. he is from iitm??? i seem to know him i guess...
~Bharathwaj Ramanathan (believe me, this is first time i have written my full name in ages)
ciao once again it was just awesome...
reading this nearly two years after u posted it, and still find it relevantly hillarious. timeless peiece of writing. do u still stick to what u wrote or have u been lucky enough to find a beautiful head with some gray cells between the ears? would love to read more of ur work, as someone said earlier, in a book.
atb,
vurshaa
www.vurshaa.com (as someone said: self-promoting!)
I think it should read as under :
YOU ARE WHAT YOUR LIMITING BRIEFS ARE! LOL
cant say i love the kutty and patti (pls. pls. i only meant it to be a joke) nomenclature...but hell, whats in a name so long as you have ur brains in the right place (i did not intend the so-called northies have it located elsewhere...still) !
Great Job.
Sorry, just kidding, your post is hilarious. And now I must go thank my husband for not allowing me to name my two boys as Subramanian and Karthikeyan ( I lobbied heavily for Karthik and was vetoed)...no offense to the Karthik's and Subramnians out there..I happen to think they are delightful names :)
I thought it was insightful, well-written and fuckin' hilarious...
- a 'not so unfortunately named' mallu
[got your link from a number of people - picked one of them at random ;)]
If thats what you want, then be it.
And all this noise and cry for what? so that you can escort that skinny, clothes allergic, makeup dependant undernourished female species of the homeo sapiens. IS this what bothers you and you are blaming your name for your incapability. RE-think my boy. Though i must say that it makes a good read.
Apart from that i dont find anythin sensible in it.
tis first time am visiting ur blog...u rocked my heart...ill b visiting regularly frm today for sure...
i'm linking it to my blog...hope u don mind
cheers,
subhashini muralidharan(we don have it so easy either, do we?)
:)
Suspiciously, 2 of them are from Mumbai! LOL! We'll take sweet Southern Indian guys anytime! :)
Cheerz,
MS. Dhaval
http://entrezdevildom.blogspot.com/2006/09/namesake.html
Innumerable ways/reasons/causes one think of for not having a girl friend! and to cover one's incapabilities. Blame it on parents/community seems to be the mantra.
And loads of followers,give-up cases to support the cause ;-)
Not to offend nebody..but those were my initial reactions.
Cheers
here, it is not only the names but also the color!!
Cheers,
Hilarious man :)
Loved the lines "“Yes appa we have named him Goundamani…” THUD."
so heres the scoop...subramaniam is as sexy as rahul - its what u make of it. a name like kathiravan sounds like a breath of fresh air, and the nickname kathir sounds better still...
sample this -
subramaniam is the god of war
parthasarathy is the charioteer of arjun, or krishna
elangovan is the prince of gods
kathiravan is the sun god, or surya
karthikeyan - c'mon man...kartik is a pretty pseud name...
goundamani - well, even my optimism has some limits...dude, ur screwed...;-)
That was an interesting read but must say you are belittling your own race!!! I am a North Indian but lived all my life in South India. I dont think all South Indians are like this. For god sake the Pizza guys you are talking about could be from Bangalore, chennai or Delhi! nothing to do with the demographies. And you forgot our lads from Bihar and UP who too feel left out because of their "HUMBLE" background!
What I believe is that you will be treated as you want to be treated as!! Be proud of what you are rather than cursing your name (well not all North indians have a name like Bobby kahn!! how bout Shailendar tripathy !!!!)
And also you should not forget many jean clad north indian who think they look hep in the rib hugging t shirt forget that they have a big stomach rolling out!!
Again think how you need to projected and you will be seen that ways!
Cheers
Calvin
Small correction though whenever I am referred by a Southie they rape my name eg "Goutham", "Gowtham", "Gawtham" anything but there has to be as "H" followed by "T" only Balaji (read God) knows why?
On a serious note I agree on the name part which a person can't do much about rather than changing it or shortening it to a better one. At the end its all perception dude..
I can relate to what you are saying....I was almost on the verge of going on a date with a tambrahm who had a quite north indian name [i of course dont know his full name] ....did a doubletake when he insisted on cooking rasam and avial for me to show his love for me....and i am a non veggie bong girl.....so discovered a migraine that day...saved!!!!!!!!!!
Hey you forgot something, northie men and southie women are supposed to be aggressive...no wonder we have a thing for the Kapoors ;)
Good post pal... Great sense of Humour. It was wonderful piece of writing. Well, why suddenlt one portuguese name came in your post - "Joshua Perreira"??
Infact you took only a smaaaaaaaaaaallllllllll section of NI guys and compare it with All of SI. It was bit unfair,ooooppss... really not fair...
Well I'm not at all here to argue with anyone... Thought of expressing some of my findings to all the people here...
I'll ask you some questions, I know the answer for those questions too... Lemme start..
1. Have you ever seen a Mallu Beggar anywhere on earth. Even here in Kerala none of the beggars speaks Malayalam, they speaks tamil or Hindi (No offence to my tamil brothers)??
2. Have you ever seen an Illiterate Mallu in your life time???
3. Have you ever seen a mallu child labor in your life time???
4. Have you ever seen a mallu house without toilet in your life time???
5. Have you ever seen a mallu slum dweller in your life time??? (Kerala have less than 0.8% of its poplation lives in Slums, lowest in India and all these slums are occupied by other state people)
6. Have you ever seen a mallu sleeping on road side in your life time???
7. Have you ever seen a mallu women walking miles on barefoot in search of water in your life time???
8. Have you ever seen a mallu riding a bullock cart in your life time??? (I never saw a single bullock cart in my life time here)
The answer is a big NO.....
plz learn something from Mallus and implement all those in NI.
but my point is that ur name need not necessarily be the reason y girls would not take a second look... not that i would not think twice if i met a guy name ponnusami or Ponnalagusamy or whatever ( no offence to anyone who was unfortunate enuf to be named like this!)
heh heh..but, seriously well written! =)
PS - My name is ranjani narayani ramswamy ayyar...now my parents were kind enuf to shorten it to ranjani ramaswamy ayyar in school..n now in office,i made it ranjani ayyar! so.. well...its not oly u men who face the issue u kno..we have our share too!
ROFLMAO!
Thanks for the laugh, I'm sure I will enjoy reading your other posts :) And don't worry, after all- what's in a name :)
Cheers
superbly brilliant
well-written with the exact level of truth
ahahahahaha
With a name like Apu Nahasamapatial Iyer, you can blame their women folks.
ROFLMO!
Pakadolawski? Ching Chang woo? Bhattacharjee?
:)
amazing...
friend, your sense of humor is absolutely impeccable.
i hope that it's just out of humor, not frustration.
keep on writing
I agree with you on one point - Southie females have wonderful sounding names, much better than some of the Bong ones :-(
Wonderful, wonderful post :-)
Check out http://debosmita.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/mind-...
Cheers :-)