Nicks that bowl you over.

Our cricketer nicknames bear a striking resemblance to the dust bowls we pass off as pitches. Mostly they are dry (Gauti, Viru, Zak, Yuvi, Dada), lifeless (Sanu, Chikku, Mahi, Jaddu) or doctored for spin (The Wall, Haryana Hurricane, Turbonator, Master Blaster, Very Very Special, Captain Cool).

Rarely do you get names with wit. ‘Amarnought’ (the moniker Mohinder earned when he scored three ducks against Holding in the Windies tour of India in 1983/84) and ‘Bombay Duck’ (bestowed on Agarkar for notching seven straight zeroes against the Aussies) are the only two, I can recollect.

In stark contrast, the willow wielders and red cherry hurlers from other nations sport far more colourful pet names. David Boon, the portly opener who is best remembered for glugging 54 cans of beer while flying from Sydney to London for the Ashes tour, was called ‘Keg on Legs’ for his high-spiritedness.

Angelo Mathews was labelled ‘Superman’ by his team mates for his kinky penchant for wearing the underwear over his tights. Richie Benaud, the all rounder turned commentator, was famously lampooned as ‘Diamonds’ as his friends believed Richie was so lucky that even ‘if he were to put his mouth into a bucketful of shit, he’d come up eating diamonds’.

Mfuneko Ngam, the South African cricketer who played three test matches in his career, had a cleverly concocted nick. He was ‘Chewey’ as Ngam sounded very much like the ‘ingum’ in chewing gum!

When the team members are too polite, sometimes the crowd pitches in with a suitable moniker. Umar Gul was anointed with the ‘Peshawar Rickshaw’ tag as his pace was rather slow when compared to ‘Rawalpindi Express’ Shoaib Akhtar. Likewise when the bodyline-fame JWHT Douglas took 183 minutes to clock 33 runs, the irate spectators dubbed his initials as ‘Johnny Won’t Hit Today’.

Sometimes the media contributes to the fun with spicy coinages. Nasser Hussain’s tendency to break his fingers, earned him the snarky ‘Poppadom Fingers’ appellation. Nantie Hayward, the man touted to replace Alan Donald, was billed as ‘Wayward Hayward’ for his unpredictably raw pace. And slow runner Mark Richardson was mocked as ‘Rigor’ (short for rigor mortis) as he moved like a dead man!

How bad words became bad words.

If some aliens were to knock at your door and beseech you to teach them the most vulgar sounding swear words, please remember one little tip: profanity sounds most profane not in Punjabi or Hindi but in our very own Chennai Tamil.

Let’s face it. The wimpy Kutte Kaminey is no match for our cringe-inducing Kaide Kasmaalam. Word for word, expletive for expletive, your average son of the gutter Tamil obscenity, is far more abrasive, offensive and repulsive.

Despite creating an enviable pool of cuss words, not many are aware of the etymological roots of our favourite insults. As a leading practitioner of the unparliamentary, I think it’s my duty to chronicle the evolution of local invectives.

So let’s start with Capemaari (thief or rogue). You’d be surprised to know that Capemaari is derived from a thuggee like tribe called Kepumaaris who were a public nuisance during the time of the British. They were the lead criminal class in Tiruvallur in the then Chengalpet district. For their misdemeanours, the Brits gave them a bad name and the derogatory saga continues.

Mada Sambrani (bumbling idiots) is another popular affront with Tamil families. It has a Sanskrit origin. Mada means ‘insanity induced by intoxication’ in the so-called Aryan language. And Sambharani is the vessel in which soma (intoxicant) is served. Hence Mada Sambharani can only mean a cantankerous empty vessel or a blabbering dolt!

The scurrilous Tamil terminology for ‘illegitimate son’ owes its origins to the Temple dancers. In those days, they were called Devadiyals (slaves of gods). The rich and the famous used to bed them and the offspring were called Devadiyal Magans. Today, it’s morphed into the foul mouthed you-know-what.

Badava Rascal has a rather amusing ancestry. The Badavas are a caste in old Maharashtra who took care of temples. In the pecking order of priests, the Badavas always took the pride of place. Some enlightened soul extended the analogy of ‘pedigreed priest’ to good-for-nothings and thus was born ‘the rascal of rascals’

I could go on and disrobe the bad halo of more bad words. Lest you label me as a ‘Bemani’, I shall stop with Kasmaalam (born from the Sanskrit word ‘Kashmal’ meaning dirty).

Killer Names of Rowdies.

If at all, Anurag Kashyap were to make ‘Gangs of Waseypuram’, he will get plenty of grist from the crimson hued crime columns in our Tamil dailies famed for sober headlines such as Kadhara Kadhara Karpazhippu (raped till she screamed and screamed), Oda Oda Virati Konraar (he chased and chased and killed him) and Kanavan Sathak, Manaivi Puthak (husband stabbed, wife knifed).

The sense of blood curdling sensationalism one notices in our crime reporting is a reflection of the inherent melodrama in our veins. Even the roadside rowdy in Tamil Nadu prefers cut-through names rather than blunt monikers that will escape the eye of the cops.

VP Pandian sounds like a veshti-clad bank manager who will never hurt even a Mambalam mosquito. Obviously, it won’t work if you were considering a rewarding career as a dreaded henchman, right? So what does VP Pandian do? He goes to a barber shop and chooses a hairstyle that catches his fancy. The slang word for the style is ‘Attack’ and it seems to make a perfect prefix for a hoodlum. From that red letter day, VP Pandian became ‘Attack’ Pandi and thus began the mythology of the man, Madurai fears the most.

The need to send a cold shiver down the spine is why you have almost Kollywood Villainesque names like ‘Bomb Selvam’, ‘Kathi Kuthu Ravi’ and ‘Karadi Mani’.

Using weapons as your tag can be very limiting. As in, there can only be one ‘Soda Bottle Suresh’ in every pettai. Too many gangsters laying claim to the ‘Revolver’, ‘Aruvaal’ and ‘Crowbar’ epithets can rob the fear factor and all you’ll evoke is titters and not jitters.

That’s why every mobster has developed his own formula. ‘Welding’ Kumar chose his profession to carve his identity. Ayodhya Kuppam Veeramani used the violent halo of his fishing colony to deliver the message. Out Arumugham leveraged his weird mannerism (he’d say ‘OUT’ after murdering his target) to underline his cold bloodedness. Mundakanna Selvam looked into his ‘big eyes’ for inspiration for a nickname. Sketch Ravi deployed his talent (he sketched his victim’s face before getting the job done) as his visiting card. Wonder what they’ll think of next.

The Theistic Atheist

The patently political Viswaroopam ruckus has pitch-forked Kamalhassan again into the national limelight. For a country used to seeing Tamilnadu as Rajnikant country, this was a rude reminder that there are other superstars in the Southern sky with the mystic power to dodge bullets, defy bans and part the sea of tranquillity in our humdrum lives.

The controversy took Kamalhassan totally by surprise as he’s always presented himself as a dyed-in-the-wool rationalist with a high level of tolerance for religious plurality. The last thing he was expecting was the ungainly taint of ‘anti-islam’ on his radiant secular persona.

Atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris would have proudly worn this badge. But in politically correct India, it never pays to tread on other people’s toes. And for a box-office dependent icon like Kamal with 100-crores at stake, image is everything.

Forget ‘anti-islam’, but is the ‘Ulaga Nayagan’ really a non-believer as he’d like us to believe? Evidence from his enviable body of work is to the contrary.

Ever since he’s donned the hats of producer, writer and director, Kamal has dropped cryptic clues on where his faith lies. The Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva keep recurring in the character names - he so carefully crafts - in all his recent productions.

Take ‘Virumandi’. Kamal could have easily given it a rustic irreligious name like ‘Veeramani’ and it would have still worked. But he chose ‘Virumandi’. Is it because of his penchant to opt for god names? For the uninitiated, Virumandi is worshipped in Theni district as ‘Viruman’ or ‘Brahman’.

If one peels the many subtle layers in his films, one can spot a Saivite streak. Sample the names ‘Viswanath’ in Viswaroopam, ‘Nallasivam’ in Anbe Sivam, ‘Avinash’ in Mumbai Express and ‘Ramalingam’ in Kaadhala Kaadhala. Innocuous as they may seem, all are synonyms for Lord Shiva. You’ll be surprised to know that Kamal has used the ‘Shaktivel’ name in 3 movies: Nayakan, Sathi Leelavathi and Thevar Magan!

Add Adinarayan (Kurudhipunaal), Saket Ram (Hey Ram), Krishnaswamy (Mahanadhi), Raghavan (Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu) and the Dasavatharam imagery, to discover his Vaishnavite streak. So, is the atheist role, another stellar performance from the actor we all love?

A Degree of Levity.

Universities are like the stereotype white-coats who appear in toothpaste advertisements. They need to appear credible. They need to sound academic. And above all, they need to be visibly boring.

Being ‘effortlessly uninteresting’ is the true hallmark of a good university. Jog your rusty memory and you’ll solve the puzzle of ‘why your college life sucked’. Because Profs are meant to look constipated. Courses are preordained to be colourless. Classrooms have to recreate that assembly line feel. Journals are deliberately engineered to be slumberous. Mottos have to be profoundly unintelligible. And every little trapping associated with the university needs to conform to the carefully cultivated image of gravitas.

The ardour to maintain a weighty veil of solemnity is probably why universities have dreadfully ho-hum names. And to give them their due, that’s probably why the world takes varsities seriously.

In this milieu of soberness, it is rare to spot a dash of frivolity. But the oddballs do exist. Turn your gaze to Lovely Professional University in Punjab. Yes, the beauty parlouresque name happens to be ‘India’s largest private university in one campus housing 25,000 students’ offering degrees in Arts to Aviation!

Lovely makes Arindam Chaudari’s IIPM seem like Harvard. I am sure that the embarrassed alumni will be typing out their resumes with the abbreviated LPU instead of the bizarre moniker chosen by the Punju promoters (Lovely Group of Companies).

If Lovely raised a chuckle, teleport yourself to Transylvania University (TU). Lest you assume it to be the campus featured in the vampire romance ‘Twilight’, TU is very much a 48-acre brick and mortar campus in Kentucky that has educated many thousands including two US vice presidents and fifty US senators. Nestled in the heavily-forested regions of West Virginia, the founding fathers chose Transylvania as it meant ‘across the woods’ in Latin. Considering Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula hadn’t been invented then, you could pardon the name.

But how do you condone the outlandish UFO University in Tirana, Albania? The deceptively paranormal name apparently is a contraction for ‘Universitas Fabrefacta Optime’ which means ‘university to forge the good’. If you found that too surreal, you should perhaps queue up for admissions in ‘Beijing Normal University’ in China!

Operation Hush Hush

A military operation is not a military operation till you dignify it with a code name. The German Army was the first to hit upon this brainwave when they cryptically labelled their World War I invasion of the Baltic Islands as ‘Operation Albion’. If they had called it Operation Bloodyhell or Operation Takethatyoulosers, then history may have judged the act of taking 20,000 Russian prisoners, rather offensively.

The German innovation of dressing up of crimson war wounds with high sounding monikers inspired Winston Churchill to issue the now famous guideline, that nomenclature to designate war ops, ‘ought not to be of a frivolous character’ as no mom or widow would like to say ‘that her son was killed in an operation called Bunnyhug or Ballyhoo’.

That’s probably why America opted for ‘Enduring Freedom’ in Afghanistan, ‘Restore Hope’ in Somalia and ‘Uphold Democracy’ in Haiti. If you ask me, all these names sound like words you’ll associate with peaceniks like Yoko Ono or Bob Geldof!

Sometimes even Pentagon is not so politically correct. Operation Geronimo, the covert raid to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden was roundly criticised by Native Americans for running down not just their chieftain but also their race.

Indian cryptonyms - in my humble view - have shown a lot more intelligence. The Hyderabad Police Action in 1948 was billed as ‘Operation Polo’ as Hyderabad had the highest number of polo grounds in India during that era.

India’s first nuclear test in Pokhran was evocatively designated as ‘Operation Smiling Buddha’ cueing the peaceful nature of the program. . The Indian Army’s desire to be a thorn in the flesh of the coup plotters in Maldives resulted in ‘Cactus’. While the IPKF endgame against LTTE in 1998 was dubbed as ‘Checkmate’.

One name that must have given great angst to the brand manager of Blue Star air conditioners is: Operation Bluestar. I’ve always wondered why they called it so. Could it be that Bluestar refers to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the star of the Khalistan movement who was always seen in a blue turban? Or did Indira Gandhi have a frivolous reason that fails the Churchill test? We’ll never know as this is a national secret.

Learning languages over lunch.

Cholesterol and Diabetes can turn even diehard foodies into food voyeurs. After years of bingeing on the crispiest, crunchiest and sinfully sweet eats, one gets reduced to being a serial ogler of the forbidden fruits on the menu card.

One way to channelize the food lust is by developing an insatiable appetite for learning new languages by studying the smorgasbord of dish names. So while your friends are debating on what to order at Little Italy, you could just tap a few screens on your smart phone and discover that Antipasto cues ‘before the meal’ Vermicelli means ‘little worms’, Fettuccine is ‘little ribbons’, Penne is Italian for ‘pens’, Farfalle is ‘butterflies’, Salsa is ‘sauce’, Piccante is ‘spicy’, Salato is ‘salty’, Dolce is ‘sweet’ and Tiramisu can literally be deciphered as ‘pick me up’. By the time your pals let out their symphony of burps, you would have added ten new words to your vocabulary!

It need not always be menu cards. You could pick a smattering of Chinese, Spanish or Greek by just getting curious about restaurant names. The other day, I was walking past Zaitoon, the fast food joint. I hurried home and googled. I figured out that Zaitoon is Arabic for ‘olive’.

Being curious has its benefits. You could always appear smarter than you are. I may have never been to ITC Grand Chola’s ‘Modo Mio’. But I know it’s the Italian way of proclaiming ‘My way’. All I have to do is to shove this nugget into a conversation to score my corporate brownie.

Since French is the ultimate way to appropriate blue-bloodedness, these days I am learning the Parisian lingo by leering at signboards. During the first course of my misadventures, I’ve learned that Brasserie is not a lingerie store but an ‘informal restaurant’. La Boulangerie is not as sophisticated as it seems. It’s French for ‘the bakery’. The ‘Parfait’ in Parfait 3 stands for ‘perfect’. Haute Saute translates to ‘High Toss’. And Chez Vous is ‘your place’.

Thanks to my new found linguistic mojo, I can now aspire to be a pseudo polyglot who’s at ease mouthing the Arabic ‘Yalla Yalla’ and the Korean ‘Deok Su Gung’.

The Best Names of 2012

A name is a tattoo that gets etched in the brain. A forgettable name is like a temporary tattoo while a memorable name is a permanent tattoo that leaves a lasting impression.

The year 2012 threw up thousands of instantly vanishing brain tattoos, a few erasably average imprints, and some indelible ones that actually made a deep impact. I am gonna serve you the cream of the cream, culled out by yours truly.

Best Band Name: It was a toss up between the party punk peddling Ohio band ‘Hookers Made Out Of Cocaine’ and the Australian garage pop duo ‘Bleeding Knees Club’. ‘Hookers’ seems like a concoction designed to create shock value, while BKC does the job without really trying too hard. So my vote is for the Bleeders.

Best Named English Movie: Four films caught my eye. The Osama manhunt themed ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, Bruce Willis starrer ‘The Cold Light of Day’, romantic comedy ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’ and the time travel drama ‘Looper’. I picked none of these. Instead, I flipped for the bombastic appeal of ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’.

Best Bollywood Title: In a field populated with foul-mouthed college slangers like ‘Kismet Paisa Love Dhoka (KLPD)’, ‘Bumboo’ and ‘Fatso’, comedy drama ‘Ferrari Ki Sawaari’, Shoojit Sircar’s ‘Vicky Donor’ and Gauri Shinde’s ‘English Vinglish’ felt a lot more evolved. In the end, the prancing car won the race for its out-of-the-box titling.

Best South Indian Film Title: Rajamouli’s runaway hit starring the humble housefly had a clever name in ‘Eega’. But more fascinating were Balaji Mohan’s sophomorish ‘Kaadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi’, Prabhu Solomon’s refreshingly catchy ‘Kumki’ and the brilliantly named ‘Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom’. Packaging an amnesia tale by alluding to missing chapters in the middle was truly ingenious. So NKPK it is.

Best Book Title: Breathe easy folks. The mommy porn ’50 Shades of Grey’ is not my winner. That crown belongs to Ryan Holiday’s ‘Trust Me, I’m Lying’, the confessions of a media manipulator!

Best Celebrity Baby Name: Ash’s ‘Aaradhya’ or Uma Thurman’s 7-word wonder ‘Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson’ was no match for Reese Witherspoon’s ‘Tennesssee’- a charming nod to the playwright Tennessee Williams!

Harvesters of The End.

The ‘Gangnam’ guy Psy, the feminist Russian punk-rock band Pussy Riot, the Higgs-Boson particle and the Mars Rover Curiosity are among the oddballs in the reckoning for the iconic Time ‘Person of the Year’ title.

The chap leading the pack at the moment is the boyish North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Left to myself, I’d say, no one deserves the crown better than the Mayans. As they alone are responsible for making 2012, the most over hyped year after 1984.

The doomsday aura surrounding the 12/21/12 Mayan Prophecy is palpable all around. Everyone, everywhere, is either tweeting or texting about it. Advertisers, ever the milkmen, are on an overdrive milking every drop of publicity through some cheeky fear mongering.

Axe was the earliest to jump on to the apocalypse bandwagon. Sometime, last year, they launched the ‘AXE 2012 - Final Edition’ deodorant with the sensual power to attract bimbos hiding in even nuclear bunkers.

South Carolina based Latitude 32 credit union, was a bit more brazen. They announced the Mayan ‘End of the World’ auto loan special with the rider that the loan would be forgiven ONLY if the world crashes on December 21st!

Global Chain TGIF is classier. It’s urging customers to live it up on the fateful day by celebrating the ‘Last Friday’ at their key joints in America. On offer is free access to the dance floor to 21 year olds and the proceeds from the sale of Mayan Margaritas will be donated to charity.

If TGIF couched it with a little social spin, some others like Proof Drinks have no such pretensions. They are out in London organising fortnight long Gastronomic Events under the ‘Last Supper Club’ banner.

Meanwhile, History Channel is squeezing the last drop for TRPs by running programs that present as many doomsday scenarios as possible. Breweries have joined the Armageddon party by launching unique short-life drinks that are ‘brewed to not last’. Not to be left behind, Durex Condoms has put out a print campaign, exhorting men to ‘Go out with a bang’!

But the one that takes the cherry is Survivalist Singles, an online dating site for like-minded people who ‘don’t wish to the face the future alone’!

Tamil Footprints in Armenia

The Armenian Church in Chennai was built in the year 1712. Contrary to what historians would like us to believe, the Church is not the only umbilical cord that connects Tamil Nadu to Armenia. The relationship is far more ancient. In fact, there is now linguistic evidence to back the claim that Tamil blood used to flow in the veins of Armenians around 140 BC.

Before I unveil a few exhibits to bolster my arguments, let’s see what the genes say. The Armenian DNA has 35% R1b and 8% R1a – two of the most typical genetic groups in South India. What that means is: we may share the same forefathers!

Let me muddle your mind further by bringing Yerevan into the equation. Yerevan, the capital and largest city of Armenia, is said to have been named after King Yervand IV. Many early manuscripts pronounce Yerevan as Erevan, Iravan and Erivan. Now just utter the name aloud. Doesn’t Yerevan sound like the Tamil word Iraivan (meaning god)?

And where was the Yerevan kingdom located? In Urartu. The Ur in Urartu bears a striking resemblance to the Tamil Oor (meaning city). If that felt like a bit of a stretch, how about examining Lake Sevan?

Sevan, Urmia and Van are the three great lakes in Armenia. Most strangely so, Vanam in Tamil cues forest; Sev-vanam translates to red forest (may be the allusion is to Lake Sevan being the breeding ground for the red-crested duck); and Urumi means curled sword. Considering, Urmia lake derives its roots from Urmia, the warrior kingdom, that fits perfectly.

The coincidences get more predictable as we study Armenian surnames. Let’s try and interpret the Kardashian in Kim Kardashian. Karkal in our mozhi means ‘stones’ and dasan means ‘one who is dedicated to’, so Kardasan must be a stone craftsman. You’d be amazed to know that Kardashian means a ‘stone sculptor’ in Armenian!

The sense of déjà vu grows when you notice that a large chunk of Armenian surnames end with either –ian or –yan. Coming from a state that’s full of Vijayans, Narayans and Subramanians, we don’t need a better cultural connect, do we?

The Above Average Party

After sifting through 40,000 emails, the usually astute Arvind Kejriwal picked the most pedestrian name for the party targeted at the man on the street.

Aam Aadmi Party or AAP should easily rank as the KLPD of the Year. On par with Sachin Tendulkar’s string of Maggi Noodle style performances against Mr. Cook’s boys.

Being a tacit supporter of the anti-graft movement, I was suitably aghast when I heard of the underwhelming name. AAP might be the respectful way of saying ‘You’ in Hindi but in Chennai, aapu only means one thing: letdown!

So why did Team Kejriwal choose a spectacularly ordinary Hindi label when they had infinitely better options? I suspect numerology might be the culprit. Aam Aadmi Party adds up to 6 in both Pythagorean and Chaldean numerology. Considering the party was launched on 26/11/2012 (which again summates to 6), there does seem some mysterious connect.

We can solve the puzzle by looking at India’s birth number which happens to be 15th or 1+5 = 6. Kejriwal’s twin heroes Bhagat Singh and Anna Hazare share the same name number.

“What’s the big deal with 6?” you may ask. Well, it’s the birth number of powerful people like AR Rahman, J Jayalalithaa, Tendulkar, Mayawati, and Arundhati Roy. Considering 2013 is going to be the electoral debut year for AAP, six will come into play again.

Given all this mumbo jumbo, did Arvind the IIT-ian make the right gamble? The mind may say YES but the heart still feels cheated. AAP is indeed a massive compromise. It panders to the lowest common denominator and denies the movement, the branding edge it deserved. Worse still, it’s a clear Intellectual Property violation of the ‘Congress ka haath, aam aadmi ke saath’ slogan.

Personally, I would have preferred the nationalistic ‘Jai Hind’ or the ideologically correct ‘Swaraj Party’. But then, these names will position Kejriwal as a right winger when he desperately wants to be seen as a left liberal.

Now that we can’t do much about it, let’s just hope that the voter does a Nazia Hassan and sings: AAP jaisa koi mere zindagi mein aaye toh baath ban jaaye!

Where Gorky is Car Key.

Language Nazis may not like what I say. But the truth is: Tamil, the semmozhi we all love, is akin to an ancient beauty, sorely in need of a little cosmetic makeover to become a more perfect global tongue.

The recent Kollywood thriller ‘Pizza’ captures the foibles of Tamil best.  When transcribed in the local alphabet, ‘Pizza’ reads as ‘Peecha’. If you know what the peecha in peechangai means, you’ll swear that the movie is all about crap!

The unintentional distortion of meaning is a direct result of a minor design flaw in Tamil. The language doesn’t have the ‘Z’ sound. And this can mean hell to marketers as Maruti Zen will always be decoded by the son of the soil as the very Bengali Maruti Sen. And Zodiac will become Jodiac, Zara will be read as Sara and Zippo as Jippo.

Also, the absence of characters or accent lines to cue ‘ba’, ‘ga’, ‘dha’ and ‘da’ has led to grotesque mispronunciations that can be quite embarrassing and at times, even funny. If one had been schooled only in Tamil medium, one can’t be blamed if Beethoven is mouthed as Peethoven (meaning ‘braggart’), Gabriella Sabatini as Cupriyella Sapaadini (name with gluttonous phonetics) and Gucci turns Kutchi (stick).

A walking talking advertisement for the quirks of Tamil is renowned poet Vairamuthu’s son Madhan Karky.  His now famous second name is said to have been inspired by Russian author Maxim Gorky. To me, Karky feels more like a phonetic sibling of ‘Car Key’ rather than Gorky.

Victoria’s Secret, the American lingerie brand, offers a classic test case to pinpoint the many improvement areas that exist in our lingo. Secret can be written as Seekret in Tamil. Since ‘kret’ can also be interpreted as ‘gret’ in our bhashai, Victoria’s Secret may appear as Victoria’s Cigarette to a passerby and he might take the brand’s ‘smoking hot’ claim quite literally and end up asking for King Size instead of cup size!

Surely, the immaculate language with so many proficient linguists can do better and invent new some new glyphs to ensure that the Mageshs, Bathmas and the Parkavis are subjected to no more ridicule.

   

On Zachariah and Shekar Aiya.

Names are footprints in the sands of time. Pursuing the trail of footprints and tracking them back to the original source can be as exasperating as identifying a virgin in a Sheikh’s harem.

Nevertheless, it’s an adventure well worth the effort, as success could mean linguistic discoveries that can change the way we view history.

The thrill of uncovering new cross connections led me to examine ancient Jewish names. I pored over scores of Judaic names and their biblical etymologies. The more I stared at the names, the more I got this feeling that there is a distinctive Indian flavour to most of the monikers.

Noah, the builder of the ark, sounds like the Sanskrit word for ‘ship’ (Naava). The third month of the Hebrew calendar is called Sivan. Incidentally the Shivratri is celebrated in March, the third month in our nation.

Abraham derived from Avram meaning ‘father of the multitude’ and Ab-Brahma (father of mankind in Hindu scriptures) seem homophonic. Moses or the Hebrew Moshe looks like a long lost cousin of the Malayalam word ‘Mashe’ (master). The brother of Moses is Aaron (Hebrew for ‘mountain’). Doesn’t it feel similar to Aaran in Aaranya (hilly forest)? Zipporah, the wife of Moses, also has a Sanskrit type name and it may have flowed from Shipra (river).

The most interesting parallel however is the striking usage of the ‘iah’ suffix. Cueing ‘the lord’, it serves the same purpose as the Tamil word ‘aiya’. Given this background, may be we should start viewing the ‘-iah’ set of names from a Tamil prism. In which case, Jeremiah (‘the exalted one’) will be Yerum Aiya (‘the one who rises’). Isaiah (‘salvation of the lord’) will be Eesha Aiya (‘the lord is god’). Zachariah (‘god remembers’) will be Shekar Aiya (‘the divine lord’) and Nehemiah (‘god’s compassion’) will be Nesam Aiya (‘the lord who’s affectionate’).

If Samuel owes its birth to Sami Vel and Rebecca to Rupaka, then how come no one ever talked about it? Actually, a wise old man did. Three hundred years before Christ, he argued that Jews could be a philosopher tribe from India called the ‘Kalani’. His name was Aristotle!

50 shades of the unusual.

In the world of colours, there’s only one gray area: no one can vouch for the number of shades perceivable to mankind.

Because the self-pitied, feel only the blues; the intolerant, view everything in black and white; the printer, thinks of just CMYK; the child, cannot look beyond the rainbow; the internet, has a palette of 256 safe colours; and the computer, can detect nearly 16.7 million tints.

So where does the truth lie in the chromatic spectrum? Well, the staggering reality might leave us red faced as a recent research put the humanly observable colour count at a mind boggling 18 decillion (18 followed by 33 zeros)!

Despite this infinite ocean of vividity, it’s a pity that many of us are tongue tied when we have to reel out names of a hundred colours. My aim will be to expand your exotic quotient beyond lavender, lilac, turquoise, and tangerine.

Mountbatten Pink is a great name to start with. Invented by Louis Mountbatten (the last Viceroy of India), it’s a shade of pink that can help ships to camouflage their presence during the twilight period. It was actively used by British Royal Navy during the World War 2. For maximum impact, you can suggest this as the lipstick shade for your chick.

If that don’t impress her much, try Lust (a rich texture of red). Or gently urge her to buy an ‘Alice Blue’ gown. The back story being the pale tint of azure was in rage in America when Alice, the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, made it famous.

Another way to appear cerebral is by injecting new colours into insipid conversations. Like, if your sister wants to streak her hair you can just flash your smart phone and suggest: Android Green. Or during a cricket match, you can just pose a rhetorical question: do you know that there’s a shade of green called Pakistan Green?

And if you want to come through as the Mensa types, you should probably flaunt your knowledge of Peru (dark brown), Fandango (deep fuchsia), Sinopia (red earth), Isabelline (pale grey yellow) and Gamboge (Buddhist monk saffron). That should make your pals go green with envy.

Nilam and why it blows.

Now that Cyclone Nilam has gone with the wind, it’s time to investigate the misogynists who propelled this Urdu word into our national consciousness.

First things first, Nilam (means Sapphire) is not an Indian invention. It was a Paki brainwave. For reasons best known to them, the weathermen in Shoaib Mallik Country gave 8 name suggestions for tropical cyclones. And nearly all of them have a feminine ring and a lyrical lilt. Since it’s not quite a CIA secret, I am gonna let the billi out of the bag.

The Pakistan Shortlist almost sounds like a Dubai Sheikh’s harem - what with names like Fanoos, Nargis, Laila, Nilam, Nilofar, Vardah, Titli and Bulbul. The World Meteorological Organization has already used up Fanoos, Nargis, Laila and Nilam in the years 2008, 2009, 2010 & 2012. So next year, in all likelihood Nilofar will come knocking at our coasts, breathing fire and brimstone!

Guys like you and me may not have an issue with such names. The ones who will suffer the most are the chicks who’ve been bestowed this moniker by their loving mammas. Imagine if you were Nilam and you had just fallen in love with say, Ranbir Kapoor. You’ll become an object of ridicule overnight in the Kapoor Khandaan. ‘Manhoos naam hai beta,’ is the kind of whispers you’ll hear from the Lalita Pawars on Ranbir’s side. What’s worse is when you stumble upon billboards for NILAM TABLE FANS with the rather tasteless tagline: For the best blow jobs! You’ll feel like hiding under the table, right?

That’s my bone of contention with Disaster Naming norms followed world over. You can’t let a bunch of jilted folks extract revenge by naming thunderstorms after their former lovers. Care must be taken to pick unusual names that won’t cause embarrassment to anyone. If I had my way, I’d name hurricanes and typhoons after the most destructive men and women in history. I am certain, a Hurricane Hitler, Cyclone Saddam, Typhoon Osama or Twister Stalin will make no one cringe. On the contrary, it might make the babus more alert, the citizens more aware and the media, less flippant.

Naming, Jest For Fun.

India is at war with itself. There are a million mutinies brewing now that should make a VS Naipaul proud. Viru is up in arms against Dhoni. Hesh and Lee are still at loggerheads. Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal don’t see eye to eye. There is talk of Vasundhara Raje rebelling against the BJP. Sharad Pawar is plotting against Prithviraj Chavan. And Mamata is abetting Mulayam’s uprising against the UPA.

Meanwhile the landless are livid, the middle class is mad, factory workers are furious and industrialists are irate. In this agitated atmosphere, we look like a country on the verge of reaching our boiling point. May be it’s time we cooled off with a little levity. What we sorely need today is a bit of everyday humour to perk ourselves up.

I have an elegant solution to cure our collective grouchiness. Let’s start by giving our newborns some really whimsical names.

Suppose you happen to be a bloke named Ram with a soft corner for the saffron party, you can actually plan on procreating a mini Sangh Parivar by naming your kids: Narendra, Sushma, Arun, Yashwant and Nitin. If Sushma wants to tonsure her head at the drop of a hat, Narendra is a riot, Arun grows up to be the Argumentative Indian, Yashwant insists on micro managing your budget and Nitin earns a mota maal, then you’ll have proof for the saying ‘ram naam satya hai’ (ram’s names were right)!

In case you’re Padma Nabhan, the deprived soul who’s never even won a participation certificate, you can light up your life by calling your kids ‘Padma Shree’, ‘Padma Bhushan’ and ‘Padma Vibhushan’. This way, you’ll become the toast of your kith and kin and every time you go to a family function with your children in tow, everyone will want a photo-op with your award-winning family.

And if you’re Pradeep Sarkar, how about naming your son as Bharat Sarkar? At least that’ll give you the legitimate bragging rights to claim ‘Ab Bharat Sarkar mera hai' (the Indian government is mine).

Now that you know the trick to spread some sunshine, go on, spawn a thousand fun names!

The Art of Ridiculing Politicians

Politicians are not as rhino-skinned as you think. They do shed a tear or two over three things: I, Me and Myself. So when you’re dealing with such self-obsessed megalomaniacs, it helps to either boost or burst their egos. And the easiest way to bring them to their senses is by mocking at their Teflon-coated names.

Let’s demonstrate the power of name calling through a recent example. From Lajpat Nagar to Lal Bagh, everyone now knows about Robert Vadra the businessman and his many spotlessly clean, ‘highest ethical standard’ transactions with DLF by following the laws and in-laws of the land.

Despite the negative press and the multiple tongue lashings he’s received from the mango men at the IAC, our dear Raabert displays no sense of contrition. But no matter how smug-faced Mr. Priyanka Gandhi may be, he cannot escape from the unflattering ‘Robber Vadra’ label he’s earned from the mocking birds.

As days roll on, no one will remember the crores of rupees exchanged or the acreage of favours delivered, all that will stick is ‘Robber Vadra’. Make no mistake. That will really hurt, as even a petty thief doesn’t like to be called a ‘chor’.

Talking of political nicknames, the firebrand Arvind Kejriwal has been a worthy recipient of many monikers from his detractors. Khujliwal (meaning ‘the one with the itch’) and Kachdawal (‘one who dishes out rubbish’) are two names that have gained traction with BJP and Congress supporters.

Those who pooh pooh the damage wreaked by mock names should just see what ‘Bliar’ did to Tony Blair. It not only portrayed him as a master of doublespeak but also ended up destroying his political career in a snap.

That’s why leaders can ill afford to ignore the ramifications of a pesky nickname. That’s why a Mitt Romney needs to actively speak up on issues intelligently if he sees ‘Mute Romney’ going viral. Obama has to come to terms with ‘Oh Bummer!’ and do everything in his means to fight the ‘disappointment’ perception. India’s princeling has to come through as smart if he wants to outgrow the ‘Rahul Buddhu’ tag. And our Manmohan must stop being ‘Maunmohan’.

The Real Taste of Bombaat

We, the deprived citizens of Chennai, are forever envious of Bangalore. Not only do you guys have all the water in the world but also the hippest watering holes, the hottest jobs, the coolest chicks, the rockiest rock shows and even the yummiest restaurant names.

If the last bit is news to you, then you better visit every one of the restaurants listed here and order a Fresh Lime Soda Salted to celebrate your discovery. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to raise a toast to me for serving you this worthless piece of trivia.

Okay, let’s now dive into the meat. Coming from a city full of boringly named Bhavans, I was utterly delighted to stumble upon the South Indian joint called South Indies. Tucked away in Indira Nagar, South Indies is a fabulously franchisable moniker that evokes the joy of sipping a piping hot Kumbakonam Degree Coffee while soaking into the rhythmic riffs of Carnatic Reggae.

Three Quarter Chinese was another quaint name that caught my eye. The reason I flipped for it is simple: All of us have seen so many Chinese joints that also serve Indian food. But no one’s made a virtue of it. Here’s a chain that unabashedly proclaims that its menu has 75% Chinese and 25% North Indian food. I found that cute. BTW, which came first Thermal And A Quarter or Three Quarter Chinese?

Phileas Hogg in Marthahalli, is one more sparkler that can pull any passerby inside with its college humour charm. To me, it’s the perfect restaurant name. It’s not overtly wannabe and yet, it sets the right expectation of cuisines from around the world.

The Vietnamese Phobidden Fruit , the Korean Soo Ra Sang (meaning ‘fit for a king’), the resto bar Ruh (Arabic for ‘spirit’) and the Mexican Habanero (a real red hot chilly pepper) piqued me too.

But the ones that make it to my Top 3 are, Toit (the Irish way of saying ‘tight’ - a slang word that means both ‘with it’ and ‘hooters’), 69 Seconds (69 symbolises the single quotes) and the very playful I & Monkey. Agree maadi?

Comical Names of Comedians.

In the poverty stricken days of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, nobody took comedians seriously. Even if you were born with 206 funny bones, no one would notice you, as there was no concept of stand-up acts, mimicry or Lollu Sabhas. The only mass medium of entertainment was Tamil Cinema, a world dominated by singing heroes, crying heroines and scheming villains.

To be deemed humorous, you had to be supremely talented and more importantly, you needed a name that evoked a smile. That’s probably why many funny men of the past consciously spiced up their pedestrian name with a titter-inducing prefix.

K.A. Thangavelu was one of the earliest comics to use this trick. He promoted himself as ‘Danaal’ Thangavelu. Everywhere he went, the director used to ask him the same question, ‘What the heck is Danaal?’ and he used to recount gleefully that the character he played in his debut flick ‘Singari’ had this mannerism of repeating the word ‘danaal’ all through. The mannerism became popular and hence the name.

Likewise Sundaresa Ramamurthy once played the role of a cartoonist called Kathadi (Tamil for ‘kite’) in Cho Ramaswamy’s play ‘If I Get It!’ From that day, he chose to call himself ‘Kathadi’ Ramamurthy.

‘Thengai’ Srinivasan has a similar story. Having played a coconut seller who walked away with the applause in ‘Kal Manam’, he decided to announce himself to the film world as ‘Thengai’.

Even the Stan Laurelesque ‘Omakuchi’ Narasimhan picked his quirky screen name from the reed thin character he played in the stage play ‘Naradarum Naangu Thirudargalum’. In comparison, Loose Mohan had it easy. He just borrowed it from his dad ‘Loose Arumugham’ who in turn earned his spurs in the drama ‘Tight and Loose’!

Suruli Rajan didn’t have to resort to any such tomfoolery as he was named after his family deity with an amusing name - Suruli Vellapar, the god on the hilltop graced by the Suruli waterfalls. Suruli, by the way, means ‘the curled one’.

Idichapuli Selvaraj, Venniradai Murthy, Goundamani and Crazy Mohan have carried on the zany tradition. Sadly, the Viveks, Vadivels and Santhanams of today are no longer mirthful.

The Devilish Streak of D

If the 26 letters of the English language were herded into a classroom and a professor named Noah Webster Samuel Johnson were to be persuaded into picking the most dangerous, delinquent, and debauched character from the lot, in all likelihood, he would not hesitate to bestow that title on Mr. D.

Because ‘D’ has a history of initiating the most debilitating words known to mankind. ‘Downturn’ and ‘Depression’ are the most unwelcome visitors in the world of economics. ‘Dictators’, ‘Despots’, and ‘Dynasties’ are responsible for half of our political woes. The blame for the other half could be laid at the door of ‘Democracy’ – a creaky, leaky system that deludes us into choosing the daftest dullards as our demagogues.

‘Divorce’ has caused more heart aches than heart attacks. ‘Diabetes’ has killed more people than bullets and bombs. ‘Death’, of course, is still the Dreaded No.1 in most societies.

In war and sports, no individual or nation relishes ‘Defeats’. In the bloody domain of crime, cops are forever obsessed with ‘Dons’. In cricket, batsmen dislike ‘Ducks’ and bowlers get livid when their catches get ‘Dropped’. Even in the make-believe moviedom, everyone is shit scared of delivering box office ‘Duds’.

So if the D-word were so dark and dismal, then how come people are happily naming their children as ‘Dennis’, ‘Diana’ and ‘Diwakar’? I have a theory for that. ‘D’ is just like the Devil. It may come with a discernable negative aura but it packs a lot of positive power to perpetuate the seven deadly sins. That’s the reason why you have the ‘damsels’, ‘desires’, ‘diamonds’, ‘delicacies’, ‘daredevilry’, ‘dynamos’ and ‘distinctiveness’ in our universe.

Ergo, the most famous D-names are linked in some way to these delectably diabolical traits. Drakkar Noir, De Beers, DKNY, Dolce & Gabbana and Dom Perignon reflect the ‘desire’ dimension. Demi Moore, Drew Barrymore, Daniel Craig and David Beckham exemplify the ‘dazzle’ aspect. ‘Dunkin Donuts’, ‘Domino’s’, and ‘Doritos’ represent the drool factor. ‘Duracell’, ‘Drogba’, and ‘DHL’ cue dynamism. ‘Diesel’, ‘Disney’ and ‘Discovery’ stand for distinctiveness. One can go on and on. The thing to ponder about is, ‘Is the fourth letter, really demonic? Or is this all pure dog poo?’

Meet the Anagram Twins.

Anagrams are the geekiest geeks in the nerdy world of words. Except for the odd cruciverbalist (crossword buff in layman parlance), not many really care about their existence. Two unlikely people deserve all credit for giving anagrams the attention they deserve - Jim Morrison and Axl Rose.

Jim Morrison, the god of rock and singer-songwriter of The Doors, was the first to inject the concept of imprinting remixed names into popular consciousness via music. His now popular ‘Mr. Mojo Risin’ refrain in the ‘L.A. Woman’ song is but a sonorous shuffle of the eleven letters in Jim Morrison.

Axl Rose, the sex symbol and lead singer of Guns N’ Roses, is arguably the best known anagram in the world. Not many know that William Bruce Rose picked the name ‘Axl Rose’ as his new identity as it seemed to be an oomphy variation of ‘oral sex’!

Sadly, anagrams have been underexploited by namers across the globe. ONIDA (a play on NOIDA) is the only top notch Indian brand to have embraced this technique. I attribute the severe poverty in anagrammatic names to lack of skilled wordsmiths in our country.

While it might be difficult for many to derive a ‘Western Union’ from say ‘No Wire Unsent’, still, there’s no harm in trying. When a Tirupur based lingerie brand approached me to create an international sounding name, I just wrestled with the word ‘Innerwear’ and it resulted in ‘Anne Wrier’. So you never know when you’ll strike gold.

In case you want an easier way to create names, all you have to do is to rejig an already famous name. I call such creations, ‘Anagram Twins’. To demonstrate my point, let’s take Nivea. If I wanted a moniker for a French Alps-based mineral water brand, all I have to do is to stir Nivea and get Evian.

The beauty of giving birth to anagram twins lies in the fact that they can yield names that work in a totally different culture. A Latin sounding Visa can take the form of the Indian Siva. The fashionable Esprit can morph into the no-nonsense Sprite. And the corporate IBM can become the cool MIB. Two much, na!

Brushing away the Coalgate.

When 23-year-old William Colgate started his starch, soap and candle company in New York in 1806, he could never have imagined even in his wildest dreams that his surname would one day become synonymous with a toothpaste or for that matter, a 186,000 crore scam.

Such is the dance of destiny. One moment, you look like a squeaky clean dental brand. The next instant, you seem to be having all the teething troubles.

The strange fate that has befallen Colgate is not at all new in the naming world. Every now and then, an unexpected event has forced companies, brands, individuals and even towns to confront and contemplate the bitter pill of name change.

Fucking, a village in Austria, was named after a 6th Century Bavarian nobleman ‘Adalpertus de Fucingin’. For centuries, it’s had the same Fucking name. Then along came the four-letter word and its usage became so effin prevalent, that the village name started sounding offensive. Tired of the innuendoes, the hundred odd residents of Fucking voted to rename their town as Fugging!

When low cost American airline ValuJet’s Flight 592 crashed in 1996, killing all the 110 passengers, the company quietly merged with AirTran and took AirTran as its name to ensure a spotless reputation.

Closer home, Maytas Infra, the corporate sibling of the disgraced Satyam Computer Services, recently changed its name to ’IL&FS Engineering & Construction Company’ to airbrush its perceived blemish.

Lest I be accused of advocating a name change for Colgate, let me clarify. Rebranding is simply out of the equation as Colgate is the market leader and has got zero connection to the scam.

But not doing anything to arrest the image slide will be equally foolhardy. Colgate will have to deal with Coalgate. Else, Pepsodent will smile all the way to the bank.

If I were the creative person on Colgate, I would immediately urge the brand to launch a limited edition mock toothpaste called ‘Colgate Black’ targeted at corrupt politicians. The USP of the toothpaste will be ‘Black ko white bana dey’. Such a campaign would give Colgate, a much needed whitewash and a good word of mouth. What say?

The Sudoku of Surnames.

The most popular Japanese name among the Tamil Diaspora is not Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha or Mitsubishi. It’s Nikumo Nikado. In case you’re wondering what that means, all I can say is it’s a vintage mokkai (Tamil for PJ) conjured up during the times when the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ (not to be confused with the real estate owned by DMK) was dominant enough for some droll Dravidian to pop the question: what’s Jap for the ‘Leaning Tower of Pisa’?

Jokes aside, now that we’ve got you thinking about ‘Made in Japan’ names, it’s perhaps the right moment to slip in a neat piece of trivia. Did you know that it was illegal for 90% of Japan to have a surname, for almost 280 years, between 1587 and 1867? Things changed when the Meiji government passed a decree on Feb 13, 1875, ordering all citizens to compulsorily register their surnames!

The result was a mad name rush. Everyone from the geisha girl next door to the ninja turtle in the sewers, rushed to their local priests, seeking help. The harried men of god donned the role of wordsmiths and minted thousands of rustic sounding surnames by investing as much time as it takes to make Top Ramen noodles.

The hastily cooked names would amuse you if one dissects them. The 'Kurusawa' in Akira Kurusawa does not mean anything poetic. It just indicates ‘the black swamp’ from where his forefathers originated. The fashion brand ‘Yamamoto’ just means ‘mountain base’. Likewise ‘Suzuki’ is ‘rice ear’, ‘Matsushita’ is ‘below pine tree’, ‘Kawasaki’ is ‘river peninsula’, ‘Honda’ is ‘rice root’ and Toyoda (which gave rise to Toyota) cues ‘abundant rice field’.

The obsession with rice and paddy was largely because farming was the lead occupation. And you can’t blame the priests for their pedestrian choice as surnames are by definition meant to answer the ‘where are you from?’ question. Given that framework, they picked the likes of ‘Fujimori’ (Wisteria forest) and ‘Kobayashi’ (small grove). But now that Nippon has evolved into a highly industrialised society, may be it’s time the Japanese said sayonara to their legacy names and konnichi wa to modernity.

When Britney checks in.

Poor Prince Harry. He went to the Sin City trusting the movie adage, ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’. Unfortunately for him, the code was compromised. Someone set up the honey trap. Harry was made to meet Sally. And the Prince was caught wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes!

Put yourself in his embarrassing shoes. If you were Dirty Harry, what would you have done differently? Banning camera phones is out of the question, as they are too ubiquitous. The one sensible thing Princess Diana’s son could have done is to check in quietly with a bland alias. That would have given him the mask of anonymity to be his primal self.

Which is precisely why, travelling incognito is a favoured strategy among celebrities. It is said that Marilyn Monroe was one of the early pioneers of this technique when she escaped to New York, using the nom de plume ‘Zelda Zonk’.

With a wig, without any make up, whether Miss Zelda Zonk bonks a mystery man named John F. Kennedy or lets her white skirt billow, no one would really give a fig. Such is the power of a pseudonym.

Sometimes hotels play along just to protect the privacy of the superstars from the prying paparazzi. In such moments, the celebs get to cherry pick their fake names. Britney Spears has confessed that she prefers Ms. Alotta Warmheart, Mrs. Diana Prince, Queen of the Fairy Dance or simply Mrs. Abra Cadabra!

The Talented Mr. Matt Damon signs in as ‘John President’ as he could have White House like conversations when someone asks him, ‘Would that be a wine or champagne, Mr. President?’ In stark contrast, Johnny Depp opts for the downright uncool Mr. Stench or Monseiur Poopy.

Famous people often use mock monikers to express their sense of humour. When Jeniffer Aniston was dumped by Brad Pitt after ‘Mr and Mrs. Smith’, Aniston playfully chose Mrs. Smith as her check-out name. Likewise prankster Marlon Brando is reported to have registered as Lord Greystoke (Tarzan’s real name) several times during his career. But the one who takes the cake is George Clooney. They say he often pretended he was ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger’!

The Rule of Three

In advertising, a print campaign invariably has three ads. In screenwriting, 99% of movie plots follow a 3-act structure. In arts, just three colours are enough to derive every other colour. In genetics, information is always represented using a system of triplet codes. In yoga, they say, we exist in three bodies. In Ayurveda, good health is all about achieving a balance of three doshas. And in Indian marriages, the symbol of marital union is the mangalsutra with three knots!

So what’s the mystery with number three? Why on earth is the Earth, the third rock from the Sun? Why is the USA (a triple letter nation) the lone super power? Why are the UPA and the NDA, the lead coalitions of India? Why do the Iyengars and Iyers sport three lines on their foreheads?

For the answer, we just have to turn to Pythagoras. He saw three as the perfect number symbolising a universe ruled over by the trinity – Jupiter (heaven), Neptune (sea) and Pluto (underworld).

Brands across the world have harnessed this power of the triad by naming themselves after it. 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing), Mistubishi (Japanese for ‘three diamonds’), Samsung (‘three stars’ in Korean), and Sanyo (‘three oceans’ in Japanese) are some billion dollar enterprises that have reaped the dividends.

In India, the story is no different. ‘3 Idiots’ is the biggest ever Bollywood blockbuster in our history. Rajiv Rai’s ‘Tridev’, Yash Chopra’s ‘Trishul’, Shyam Benegal’s ‘Trikal’ and Dev Anand’s ‘Teen Deviyan’ didn’t do badly either. Down South in Kollywood, Balachandar’s ‘Moondru Mudichu’, Balu Mahendra’s ‘Moondram Pirai’ and Rajnikanth’s ‘Moondru Mugham’ fared spectacularly. Aishwarya Dhanush perhaps assumed her film ‘3’ will enjoy a similar fate. Unfortunately for her, the flick sank without a trace. But not before delivering Kolaveri, our very own global chartbuster!

To sum up, whether you’re sipping ‘3 Roses’ tea, or wearing jewellery from ‘Tribhuvandas Bhimji Zaveri’ or watching a 3D version of a trilogy in the comfort of your living room in Tripura, or talking on a 3G phone in an ad agency that used to be called ‘Trikaya Grey’ never forget to ask yourself as to why threesome is awesome!

A Bowl of Blistering Barnacles.

Cheetahs can scorch any race track. Cuckoos can sing any tune. Parrots can talk eloquently. Rats can travel to outer space. Chimps can be trained to paint. Horses can slog harder. Dolphins can think smarter. Rabbits can multiply faster. Dogs can teach us a lesson in love. Lions can offer us a doctorate on brutality. So what is the one thing that sets us apart from animals? I think it’s the act of cussing.

Cussing or the ability to use language colourfully to vent one’s anger, has done more for world peace than diplomacy or nuclear deterrence. Tragically, our society has rarely acknowledged the unsung contribution of swear words to mankind. We shall right this hideous and historic wrong by celebrating the Picasso of Profanity – Captain Archibald Haddock!

Haddock, the mealy-mouthed multi millionaire friend of Tintin, has a lot to offer to anyone whose lexicon of unparliamentary lingo begins and ends with F-words. With his genius to sculpt expletives out of even cyclotrons and gyroscopes, Captain Haddock is the undisputed God of Foulese.

You can rediscover the magic of Haddockery by deploying his unique creations in your everyday encounters with numbskulls, bloodsuckers and bashi-bazouks. When you spot the familiar silent visage of Manmohan, you can perhaps yell, ‘Certified Invertebrate!’ If that didn’t whet your appetite, you can try ‘Macrocephalic Mameluke’ or ‘Unfeeling ungulate’.

In case, some politicians are up in arms objecting to your insult, just shush them by saying, “Lily-livered bandicoots! You profiteering pachyderms will never understand what I am getting at. Go be your miserable pithecanthropic pickpocket self. And spare me your loathsome lubberscum!”

Talking like the Captain can make you feel good when you feel biliously bad-tempered. When a girl friend dumps you can thunder like ten thousand typhoons by shooting an SMS labelling her as a ‘two-timing troglodyte’.

When your boss denies you a raise, dismiss his as ‘blundering bird-brained bell bottomed balderdash’. When your colleague stabs you in the back, call him, a ‘cowardly cro magnon cannibal’. When your dad bugs you, put him in place with ‘anachronistic antediluvian autocratic Arabian aborigine’. That iconoclastic gobbledygook should work like a road roller road hog!

Partying with the Kejriwals.

Right Wingers swear that they are Naxalites. Left Wingers aver that they are Saffron Chaddiwalas. Conspiracy theorists whisper that they are Congress Agents. While the Congress thinks they are nuts!

So how does one slot Team Anna? Are they the proverbial elephant being pre-judged by the ideologically blinded? Things will get clearer when Kejriwal & Co pick a suitable name for their party.

Meanwhile let’s analyze their options. ‘Swaraj’ and ‘India Against Corruption (IAC)’ are two names doing the rounds. ‘Swaraj’ has gained currency as Arvind has penned a book by the same name. And ‘IAC’ must have been floated as it’s been spearheading the anti-corruption movement for the last two years.

Although single minded and powerful, ‘India Against Corruption’ is highly unlikely as it sounds like a mouthful and feels like a one-issue party. ’Swaraj’ on the other hand is highly evocative and stirs the imagery of ‘liberation’ as voiced by Tilak and ‘rule of the self’ as imagined by Gandhi. Given his newfound love for ‘the village and the farmer’, I am sure Arvind Kejriwal would plump for ‘Swaraj’.

But there are some basic naming issues to be taken into consideration. The domain Swaraj.org has already been taken by Swaraj Foundation, an NGO that focuses on community development. There are two ways to circumvent the problem: call it ‘Swaraj Party’ or ‘Swaraj Andolan’. But Swaraj Party reads ‘SP’ when abbreviated and we all know SP is Samajwadi Party, so that’s out. ‘Swaraj Andolan’ is a likely prospect as ‘Andolan’ gives it a movement feel.

‘Anna Dal’ is another suggestion that’s become popular. But it is personality-centric and seems like a poorer cousin of Apna Dal. Also, it could be spoofed as ‘Anna Dalal’. Humorist Ramesh Srivats has come up with the baap of all names. He’s proposed Bharatiya Anna’s Alternative Party (BAAP)!

‘Parivartan’ or ‘Change’ is a dark horse that might clinch it as Kejriwal already runs an outfit by this moniker. If I had a say, I’d pick ‘Jai Hind!’ where JAI can stand for Jan Andolan for Inquilab (People’s Movement for a Revolution). That way, every time someone utters ‘Jai Hind’, they’d be unknowingly campaigning for the party!

Going ballistic over missiles.

To understand missiles, you just need to study two Indian politicians: Subramanian Swamy and Digvijay Singh. Swamy typifies the guided missile. His target is anyone who rubs him on the wrong side. His warhead, the explosive dossier he keeps on his enemies. His guidance system is a secret army of moles who supply him the inside dope at will. The flight system he uses is pesky litigation. And his engine is his belief that someday he will be the Prime Minister.

Diggy is the other extreme. He is a classic unguided missile hoping to create impact with the incendiary nature of his bizarre barbs that defy all laws of physics.

Now that we’ve got our heads around missiles, let’s launch into the smoky world of missile names where countries use nomenclature to flex their muscles and to perpetuate an illusion of being macho.

Nations with a treasury of mythology have no qualms in calling upon their angels, gods, demigods and revered figures to dignify their destructive war toys. Israel’s Gabriel (guided anti tank), Barak (naval defense), Delilah (cruise missile) and Nimrod (long range point target) are all biblical in origin. In the cold war era, the United States had Nike (anti aircraft), Hercules (short range), Zeus (interception missile), Titan (Inter Continental Ballistic Missile) and Poseidon (submarine-launched). Closer home, India relies on Vedic mythology. Agni (surface-to-air), Prithvi (surface-to-surface), Nag (anti-tank) and Surya (the work-in-progress ICBM) were carefully picked to project an image of being benign protectors.

Over time, Pentagon decided to drop all pretence of goodness and named the missiles after monsters. Gorgon (the snake haired sisters), Gargoyle (the fire breathing creature), Griffin (lion body, eagle head) and Snark (the snake cum shark monster invented by Lewis Carrol) are telling examples.

After exhausting all Birds (sampler: China’s Hong Niao means Red Bird), Animals (sampler: Germany’s Gepard derives its name from the German word for Cheetah), Weapons (sampler: Tomahawk the Indian hatchet) and Invader Names (samplers: Pakistan’s Ghori, Ghazni and Abdali), soon the defense establishment will run out of ideas. That’s the time to perhaps explore names of people with a destructive streak (read: Swamy and Diggy)!

Witius, Altius, Fortius.

India’s strike rate at the Olympics has always been underwhelming. We’ve won just 0.16% of the 12,796 medals awarded in the last 116 years. Even poor Sangma would have fared better!

The positive way of looking at it is if there are around 950 medals at stake in London, the law of averages will guarantee us at least one. So we won’t be returning empty handed.

Feeling better, already? Let me cheer you up further by culling out some unintentionally comical names from the hallowed roster of medal-winning Olympians.

First up is Gustave Cabaret, the Frenchman who bowed out to two other competitors in the 1908 Olympics Continental Archery finale. I wonder if Mr. Cabaret was allowed to do a victory jig when he climbed up the podium to receive his bronze.

James Lightbody is another chappie, history shouldn’t take too lightly as he finished with a hefty haul of 3 Golds from 2 Olympic games. I am tempted to think that James wouldn’t have been as fleet footed had he been blessed with a less cruel name.

Harry Porter, the high jumper from the United States who went on to win the Gold in 1908, was lucky not to have been born in our era. Else, his critics would have lectured him to stick to Quidditch, every time he failed to clear the bar.

But Nastia Liukin wasn’t as fortunate. Although she won the All Round Champion title in gymnastics in Beijing, many Americans had nothing but pity for her as they heard their commentators address Nastia Liukin as ‘Nasty Lookin’!

Gold winners Irina Slutskaya, Ruth Fuchs, Fanny Fischer, Balazs Kiss and Misty Hyman faced a lot of snigger and were the object of ribaldry for similar reasons. ‘What was Misty’s mom smoking when she named her Hyman?’ was the oft-heard banter about the swimmer.

Some like Bruno Junk, Salvatore Morale, Daniele Masala, Albert Gutterson, Emile Champion, Nick Winter and John Child, escaped the scrutiny of the late night comedians as the limelight was on the more glamorous stars. But this Olympics expect no such favours. If the Usains disappoint, expect the Bolts from the blue!

How Countries Got Their Names.

To most of us ignoramuses, Turkey is a textured bath towel. Tonga is a vintage horse carriage. Monaco is a salt-kissed biscuit. Congo is a misspelled African drum. Qatar is a BSNL lady saying ‘you’re on hold’. And Panama is a nostalgic whiff of strong tobacco.

Being clueless folks who cannot pinpoint West Indies or West Mambalam on a map, I thought it might help, if we took a crash course to improve our GQ (Geographic Quotient). Hence the excursion into country names.

Before we suit up for the deep dive, let’s first do a quick head count of the nations. According to reliable sources, at the moment, there are 196 sovereign states in our little world. When we put them under the microscope, you’ll uncover 5 types of nomenclature.

Type 1 is what I call the ‘Tribal Nation’. Simply put, they are nations that have been named after tribes of yore. Germany (from ‘Garim’ - a noisy Celtic tribe), France (from the spear throwing ‘Franks’), England (land of ‘Angles’), Iran (‘Aryans’), Afghanistan (‘Avaghanis’ or horseriders) and Kyrgyzstan (land of ‘forty tribes’) are celebrated case studies in this genre.

Type 2 is the ‘Dynasty Nation’. These are countries christened after kings and dynasties. China (a nod to the Qin dynasty), Korea (‘Goryeo’ lineage), Saudi Arabia (‘Saud’ family), Egypt (Home of the ‘Ptah’), Philippines (a tribute to ‘Prince Philip’ of Austria) and Mozambique (after Sheikh ‘Mussa Ben Mbiki’) are some eloquent illustrations.

Type 3 is the ‘Topographic Nation’. Here, some prominent topographic feature might have triggered the moniker. Examples include Malaysia (Tamil & Latin for ‘Hilltown’), Croatia (derived from the Indo-Iranian ‘Hrvati’ or River Saraswati), Bahamas (‘Shallow Sea’), Netherlands (‘Lowlands’) and Ukraine (‘Borderlands’).

Type 4 is the ‘Evocative Nation’. Countries of this kind sport meaning-rich names like Uzbekistan (Home of the Free), Burkina Faso (Land of Honest Men), Japan (Land of the Rising Sun), Costa Rica (Rich Coast) and Liberia (Liberty).

Type 5 is the ‘Trivial Nation’. Or a country with a fun name story. Italy (from ‘Vitulis’ or sons of bull god), Barbados (‘bearded ones’) and Spain (land of rabbits) typify this. Don’t you wish we had more such quirky names?