Odisha vs Orissa

The only time when a parliamentary bill gets passed swiftly is to change the names of places from anglo to vernacular.Case in point being, Orissa to Odisha and Oriya to Odia.Though, it has taken an year even to do that.The fastest way to grab some footage in media is to make hullaballoo over the names of cities.Be it Bombay as opposed to mumbai or Bangalore as oppose to Bengaluroo (city of baked beans,apparently).Now, the foreigners won't be 'Bangalored',they'll be 'Bengalurooed'.Not quite the same thing.The other way to get your fifteen minutes of fame is to bash up women wearing jeans and couples holding hands and maybe much more on Valentine's Day.

Yesterday, I made a foray to Landmark to pick up the latest Chetan Bhagat offering.Then, was in two minds between buying a hundred rupee Cosmo/Vogue or 2 States (Aforementioned Chetan Bhagat timepass). Finally, ended up buying a special edition of WEEK featuring long dead Indira Gandhi.Have decided to rent "2 States" and "Cosmo" from the friendly neighbourhood librarian.So, while thinking all this on my really tired feet (as the couch had already been hogged by some unchivalrous people :-/),I chanced upon 'Kama Kahani' books.

Yes, they are the indigenous response to the videshi Mills and Boons (which I still pick up sometimes).One of my relatives had a collection of 150 MB's some years ago.I'm sure it must have grown by now.And my cousin and I were simply awed at the age of 13. (By the way, its perfectly OK to begin a sentence with 'AND' when its not an independent sentence but it refers to an earlier context. So I have learnt during my abysmal GMAT experience.But, I'm digressing from the topic.Back to Kama Kahani)

Its a semi erotic collection launched by Random House, India.
The three books set in the 18th and 19th century are named 'Mistress to the Yuvraaj' ,'The Zamindar's forbidden Passion'and 'Ghazal in the Moonlight'.

So, the moral brigade has already sprung in action.The usual arguments have been given: vulgar stuff , corrupting the young minds and what not.They have even tried to enquire if romantic fiction is legal.Maybe, now the next attack would not be on Archies shops but on shops selling Kama Kahani.M&B's might even get banned and then we'll have to ask people returning from phoren to get them.I better hoard MB's and pick my Kama Kahani copy soon :)

I'm a Sofisticat !!

I love the way 'Sofisticat' sounds :)
Took this personality quiz long back on visual DNA though putting it up now.
Love the way these people have transformed words and ideas into pictures.
So, here's my Visual DNA..

Dilli 6

'Marammat muqaddar ki kar do maula '

Just love this line.
Who doesn't need a little bit of darning and patching of their destinies by the master craftsman himself ?
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Dilli 6 reminds me of my stay in dilli at an address of 16/16 :)

Success

" Winning . Winning . Winning . Winning.
That's my measurement of success . "

- Hillary Clinton

A serene thought for the day..

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

What's in a name ??

What's in a name ?.. they say..
Quite a lot I believe..

I never liked my name that much..liked it but was never excited about it..
I always wanted my name to be a little unique..something with 5 syllables.like kaamayni or riddhima or something a little less ordinary than my present one.

But , when I was told about the various names my mother was toying with..
She thought of naming me 'Java'.. (all you raised eyebrows.. I know.. ) Apparently its the hindi name for Hibiscus..Nice thought but, still.And , in gujarat they would have made such fun of me..because 'java' is a verb meaning 'to go' and its variations . Then its the programming language in IT and its not over yet.. its the Coffee Beans and the old name for Indonesia or something.

Naming someone after hibiscus reminds me of another story.. one of my aunts is actually named 'gudhal', another hindi name for you guessed it, Hibiscus. So, one of my other aunt always gets confused and she stops herself just in time from calling her 'kathal' ( Jackfruit.. and I have not made this up ).
The surname 'Biyaani' always made me feel that a missing 'R' would have made it all wholesome and tasty.

One of our man fridays at one of the PG I used to say was named 'Bechelaal'. Our Pg lady asked us one day, " Have you listened to the story behind his name or not ? You should. Its quite interesting and he loves telling it ".So, we caught hold of Bechelaal of the stinky poccha fame and spiderman acrobatic skills and asked him about it.The story went something like this , all the children born before Bechelaal did not use to survive for long.So, his parents decided to break the jinx by selling him to his naani for a chawanni (25 paise) when he was born and hence, the unique name Bechelaal. By the way, the aunt of mine who used to have problem with names, always ended up calling him 'Chedilaal'.

And Gujaratis top the list in picking weird names for their unsuspecting kids.Once, while travelling in train I asked this 20 something mom about her daughter's name. It was 'Panache".. yes, Panache as in the word 'flair'. Wow !! is all I could say.But , the best I find is NRG's( Non Resident Gujaratis) naming their kids 'Neil' or 'Dave' . Nice names which are there in both Indian and American culture and easy to pronounce for the firangs. Then they also have these unisex names like 'Snehal' and 'Mital' and the worst is 'Peenal'..uh hullo ??

Considering all this, I was glad my parents finally chose what they did.

Pursuit of Happyness

Am yet to watch the movie..
But, here I am putting up an excerpt from the book Eat , Pray and Love( the last book to be read completely by me)

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort.You fight for it,strive for it,insist upon it and sometimes even travel the world looking for it.You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it , you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into the happiness forever , to stay afloat on top of it.