The Clique of the Frowny Baba

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, on 14th November, 2009)

“So why aren’t you doing the yoga-meditation course?” has apparently been the most-used sentence over the past few weeks in most corporate offices where I have sources.

The one industry that has benefited from the effects of recession is what one future legend (on whose proposed life and work I will shortly elaborate) calls the ‘pop philosophy jingbang’. As layoffs continue across the board, and the corporate world firmly persists in the belief that the recession is not over despite the stocks looking greener on the other side of the globe, the survivors of these layoffs are beginning to show symptoms of hypertension, disillusionment and premature aging.

And rather than hike up the salaries of these bedraggled survivors, corporates are spending huge amounts of money on new age gurus who are hired to impart the art of leaving gracefully, hyperventilating smoothly and dealing with being forced to assume embarrassing positions. While those who’ve not cut sorry figures yet aspire to sinewy ones, having foregone meaty paycheques, some of us who aren’t interested in aspirating techniques have been chalking up our own recession plans.

I happened to mention to a group of my friends in the media that I intend to become a disburser-of-secrets-to-a-peaceful-life when I have enough grey hairs on my head to pull that off. It turned out every one of them nursed this PoA. While we were making wisecracks about The Art, The Secret and The Hackneyed Phrase (“When you want something, the entire universe conspires yadda-yadda-yadda”), the Future Legend coined the phrase ‘pop philosophy jingbang’.

“Oh my God, he is perfect Baba material!” I said, to which The Mastermind of Our Clique said “yes, yes, he can just sit and frown. Now, all we need is a good name for him and for us.” After a few moments of deep contemplation, The Mastermind pronounced, “Frowny Baba” and then came up with the tagline, “Just have a brownie, baba.”

Our group, which goes by The Brownie Clique, has decided to conduct special courses on The Art of Leaving, and will cater exclusively to disillusioned-or-sacked corporate workers. (Our recently-laid-off former marketing-consultant-friends have told us that an exclusive mass audience is integral to the success of any venture.) The course will comprise three crucial components:

· Inhaling (smoke): the Frowny Baba will teach inductees into the course how to maximise the effects of a single cigarette (whose prices haven’t reduced despite a large percentage of consumers having been relieved of their corporate responsibilities).

· Forgetting (oneself): the Frowny Baba will send out teams of inductees to search out the cheapest and most effective brands of alcohol available. Inside information has indicated these liqueurs are known by the names of the gangs that brew them in little known jungles. Some of these brands are also known to expedite one’s passage into one’s next birth and a new life.

· Yo! Gah! : the Frowny Baba will induct signees into The Brownie Clique’s mantra. The “Yo!” and the “Gah!” are the two most used expressions when one is watching television. The first of these is usually used when someone gets in the way, while the second is most often used at the beginning of an ad break. Both are known to be very effective in relieving stress.

But our followers must keep in mind that consumption of water interferes with the destruction of the liver that is the aim of our Forgetting (oneself) component and therefore will be prohibited. And to state the obvious, all food except brownies is contraband in the Clique’s soon-to-be-established sprawling premises. For the moment, we are using our Facebook farms.

(With special thanks to The Mastermind, who will go by the name of Abhinav Sahay until his impending success, and Frowny Baba, who will stay anonymous by decree of our branding team.)

"Where Do You See Yourself Five Years From Now?"

It's the one question I've always wanted to hate. But it's hard for me to hate things, because I usually find the things I want to hate so hilariously stupid, they end up being funny. Yeah, from my last ex-man...umm, I'm not sure the macho gender fits because it was so effeminate it once confessed "sometimes I feel like the chick in this relationship" to which I couldn't stop myself from saying "yeah? What's that like?"... to colleagues who've got on my wrong side to women who flirt with the object of my affection to Harry Potter, my hatred turns into amusement somewhere along the way.

I've been at enough job interviews and scholarship interviews and university entrance interviews to be asked that one question that is the holy grail of all HR theorists, hundreds of times.

I've come up with a series of innovative and impressive answers to where I saw myself five years from now, for a couple of decades now. (Yes, of course there were these people who would pinch my obese cheeks and ask if I wanted to be an engineer like Daddy or a doctor like Mummy or a lawyer like Patti.)

Every single time, I've been wrong. Hell, how do I know where I see myself five years from now when I'm not sure what's around the corner a month from now? When I was trying to deal with a radio show host whom no one else in the station would work with, did I think I would end up about seven thousand kilometres away from her tantrums and receiving an award for my documentary a few months later? When I decided to humour this effeminate dude right before I left for Delhi, did I think it would write me the most ridiculous poem I've had the misfortune to read? When I finally dumped the effeminate dude in the middle of its temper tantrum about four months after I began to wonder what it was doing in my life, did I think I would meet someone who would make it impossible for me (me who has always preferred long-distance relationships) to leave a city that didn't have a beach?

I've not known when the most painful, most hilarious and most wonderful parts of my life were round the corner or about to slip into my past.

But there's always been an urge in me to leave something of me in this world before I moved on. Most people see that as the motive force to have children, but as a wise man once said, progeny are not so much the assertion of one's will to live on as the insistence of life on asserting itself. I myself was never keen on having children until about a year ago. The somethings of me I always wanted to leave behind then, are the brainchildren I dream of - the ones I keep cocooned in my head, nurse into birth and spill out on paper. I long to dress them up in thick sheets of printed paper and hard-bound covers with blurbs and praise all over them.

My fear of death has less to do with the manner in which I will die and my emotions at the moment of death than the work I will leave undone. The idea of a photograph in an obituary column in place of the tributes in edit pages and mournful news bulletins, would be the realisation of this fear of death.

In the race to do something that will make me ready to die at any moment without feeling that fear, I feel another fear creeping up on me. Do I have the confidence, at this moment, now, to go the distance? Can I create that perfect brainchild that will speak for me long after I am gone? That brainchild in whom people who know me will see me, and people who don't will imagine me?

The answer came to me last night, while I was talking about it to someone I fondly think of as Superman. Perhaps it is these moments of doubt that are the birth pangs of that brainchild. Perhaps it is only after the scum of the earth have seeped into your life that you recognise the best things in the world when they happen to you. Perhaps it is only after your confidence has been shaken that you find the energy to prove yourself. Long before Barack Obama made it a cliche, some of us knew "Yes, we can" every day of our lives. Some of us took it for granted that "Yes, we would." Some of us grew up knowing we could never be mediocre. Perhaps it is only when we feel the pull of mediocrity that we can resist with our true strength.

Isn't that what happened to Kal-El?

A Convenient Truth

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated 31st October, 2009)

There are some of us left, in this world that could end by 2012, who wish it would survive long enough for people to learn to nurture their neuroses rather than pour out their deep, dark confessions in an inexhaustible flow.

We don’t have roommates because we can’t bear to listen to them crib about boyfriends and parents. We start blogs in an effort to reduce human-to-human verbal contact. Our status on gtalk is nearly always ‘Invisible’. We were among the last to buy mobile phones and convert most of our incoming calls to messages that read, “Sorry I missed your call. Was in the shower. At a friend’s party now, text me if it’s important?”

Oh, we never go to parties, and Havana, Dublin and Q-BA are geographical names to us.

But to the world, we also have a titular moniker – “the good listeners.”

We never talk, and so we’re always called out to coffee breaks during office hours, so our colleagues can whine uninterrupted about their husbands, children, jobs, pimples, eyebrows, hair fall, receding hairlines, unrequited love etc..

Our best displays of uninterestedness have quite the opposite effect.

Display of uninterest: “I’m sorry, what?”
Response: “Yes, can you believe that! You heard right, he actually said that!”

Display of uninterest: (Makes poor attempt at hiding elaborate yawn and mumbles “sorry”)
Response: “I’ve been having hiccups all morning too. That means someone is thinking of you! Whom do you think it could be? In my case, it’s…”

Display of uninterest: (Begins detailed study of contours on the back of own palm.)
Response: “Oh, you do that too? You know, they say you can always tell a woman’s age by studying the back of her palm. And in our industry, it’s so important to look young. You know, but once, someone thought…”

And it spills over to the phone. Where most normal human beings’ unnatural silence would prompt enquiries as to the strength of the signal, disturbance on the line, soundness of one’s hearing etc. etc., the reticence of the “good listeners” is simply a foil to the outpourings of the interlocutor’s soul.

What’s even more annoying than the mega-serial-like histrionics of an interlocutor’s personal life is a ball-by-ball update of the subtle changes in the environs of the interlocutor.

There are these Compulsive Interlocutors who watch their phones like mousetraps. You send them a text apologising for not being available, and the next thing you hear is a ring.

“Hiiiiii! You’ve been ignoring me!” says the Compulsive Interlocutor.

“With good reason,” you reply, only half-ironically.

“Oh, I have so much to tell you. Yesterday…oh, Anjana has bought a new mobile phone. Anjana! Anjana!!! Come here…it’s kind of like mine, but you know, I think it’s a different colour…oh my God, they’re bringing new chairs into the office…show me your mobile…yeah, it’s kind of like mine, but it’s a different colour…let’s compare the…”

“Hey, why don’t you compare your panels and call me back later?”

“No, no, hang on a sec, I’ll get my hands free on…I’m talking to Nandini, and she’s getting irritated because I’m carrying on a parallel conversation…why do you think they’re bringing new chairs?...Yeah, the panel is different…”

But the magnitude of the problem struck me only recently, when a hitherto not-too-solicitous colleague texted me an enquiry as to whether I’d reached my vacation spot safely, and the statuses of my personal health and the health of my family.

My reply was followed by “Miss u a lot. Bad day @ ofc.”

It was at that moment that I took a stand for all Good Listeners across the world and texted back, “Don’t worry about office. Unhealthy to think about it when you’re away.”

The reply was a historical triumph: “Ya, u rt. Swtch off ur fone and relax.”

It's Time to Take That Call!

(Published in The Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated the 17th of October, 2009)

“Oh tumi he! Kiman dinor murot kotha patisu tumar logot. Kene asa? Ghorot bhal ne?”

The speaker was one of those almost unbelievably genial, typical nice guys everyone wishes the best for. The spoken-to was clearly a close friend, judging by the look of delight on his face. After pushing my linguistic sensitivities to their full potential, I deduced he had exclaimed that it had been ages since he had heard from the speaker, and was keen to be assured of the well-being of the kith and kin of the same.

“Ki???” his face took on a shocked, traumatised look that nearly stopped me from shoving pasta into my mouth, “Bupai moi eengrazi buji nepao… Tumar bikrir jojona tu bhal…Bhal lagil tumar logot kotha pati…Ebar axomiya xiki ley bhal dore kotha patim diya.”

And then the smile was back. It was the first time I had ever seen him look triumphant and – could it be?? – evil. “These insurance companies, man!” he said, by way of explanation, “I speak to them in Assamese these days, man. I told them I don’t know English, but their scheme is wonderful, and it was really nice talking, and maybe we can talk more once they learn Assamese.”

Telemarketers…sigh…well, e-mails replaced letters, mobiles replaced landlines, palmtops replaced those ancient computers that groaned into life and they replaced door-to-door salespeople. The door-to-door salespeople would, at least, give up at some point of the day thanks to the angry afternoon sun and irate siesta-takers. But the breed of telemarketers, sitting in their air-conditioned offices, manage to sound bright and happy irrespective of what time of day or night it is.

Inspired by Mr. Nice-Genial-Guy, I have recently taken to speaking in Tamil when I get calls that begin, “namaste ji. Nandni Kishen-ji se baat karna chahta hoon.”

“Aanh sollunga,” I answer, “illenga, adhu en peyar illai. Nandini Krishnan.”

“Ji?”

I use my most obliging tone, and keep the conversation going, while my interlocutor gets bewildered, panicky and finally, hostile. “Madam, you can i-speak Inglish?” one of them barked to me.

It was the first time a telemarketer had displayed symptoms of human behaviour.

“Yes, I can, thank you, were you selling a Spoken English course?” I responded sweetly, and then hung up.

I had underestimated the constitution of these creatures, though. Encouraged by the dozen English words he had heard, the hostile telemarketer went on to make fourteen attempts at calling me (albeit from the same number) through the day.

Speaking Spanish worked slightly better, though. My “¡hola!¿quién?...Lo siento, pero no hablo ingles.¿Habla español?” (hello, who is this? I’m sorry, but I don’t speak English. Can you speak Spanish?) was met by a long silence, and then a telemarketer telling a colleague in an awestruck tone that I was speaking French. But I went on to receive five more calls from curious telemarketers trying to figure out which language I was speaking in.

It was while contemplating further evasive action that I came across that rare genius that makes you want to take a moment’s break from the rigours of life and pay obeisance in full.

I overheard a friend say, “yes, I am very interested in a loan…see, I am unemployed at the moment…Uh, I travel by bus…Well, I am leaving for the UK to try and find a job soon. I need a loan of three lakhs for my expenses here. I will pay it back once I come back from the UK…yes…yes…ok, I’ll wait for your call. But please don’t let me down, I’m depending on you for the loan…I’ll call you back at this number by five…hello? Hello?”

(With many thanks to a close Assamese friend who chose to remain anonymous, and a one-time schoolmate who gets too much publicity for his own good anyway.)

Movie Review: Unnaipol Oruvan vs. A Wednesday

It's hard to have to pit my favourite film icon against my favourite stage actor. Kamal and Naseer have always brought credibility to their roles - they make you forget it's them in a role, and make you empathise fully with the characters they play. And both of them fit seamlessly into the role of the ordinary middle-class family man who goes to the market and picks out vegetables for the wife. I had the advantage of watching A Wednesday with absolutely no clue about the subject of the movie - and watching Naseer try to file a complaint about his wallet being stolen made my heart go out to him, and hope he would get it back. With Kamal, though I knew the story, I felt the same pang of sympathy.



The movie opening in the Tamil version was more credible, in that the setting was timeless. In the Hindi version, the hoardings and traffic are a bit of a giveaway that not much time has passed since 'that Wednesday'. But the song at the beginning of 'Unnaipol Oruvan' gives the movie a rather religious bias. With the Hindi version, the religious identity of the Common Man remained secret, while the Tamil version seems to have a slant, although that's open to debate.




That said, the scripting in the Tamil version is brilliant. Realising it's hard to localise a series of events that happened in Mumbai, the writers have chosen to focus on the 'it-can't-happen-to-me-bomb-blasts-don't-happen-here' attitude. For a state that witnessed the assassination of a former Prime Minister, Tamil Nadu was, perhaps is, delusionally confident. The dialogue steers clear of cliches, which can't be said for the Hindi version, and the idea of using the numbers of blast victims brought in an added poignancy. There's one shot which threatens to descend into maudlin, but Kamal Haasan just about manages to recover from the moment in which he wells up. But the segue is less smooth than it could have been.




The dialogue in 'A Wednesday' is rather cliched, though. There was no foil to the bravado, and the geek's language and accent are a little more putting off than necessary. In 'Unnaipol Oruvan', Mohanlal's dialogue is set off by asides like, "Tamil-le pesu. English-leyaa solleetruppey? Chief Minister TV parthuttuppaaru" ("Speak in Tamil. Why are you speaking English? The Chief Minister will be tuned in to TV") and a reference to the alienation of a Keralite in the Tamil Nadu Police Force.



The handling of the Chief Minister's role in 'Unnaipol Oruvan' was a riot. From using Karunanidhi's residence for the shoot, to using a mimicry artist who had people wondering if the man had chosen to make a guest appearance, to making digs at the Tamil agenda of the DMK, Kamal's fidelity to reality in this particular aspect is no-holds-barred. While it could be argued that the Chief Minister might take a terror threat more seriously in Mumbai, it seemed to make more sense for the Chief Secretary to come over and put up bureaucratic roadblocks all over the place than for the administrative head of the state to come over.




But one of the disappointments of 'Unnaipol Oruvan' is that there is too much frame-by-frame fidelity. What could pass for a Mumbai chawl doesn't translate well into a Madras slum. The actor who wants police protection works as comic relief in the Hindi version, but comes across as rather silly in the Tamil version. It isn't funny, it doesn't fit in with the plot and it doesn't contribute to the film in any way. The vernacular channels in Hindi and Tamil don't do the same kind of stories or programmes. Yes, the one in 'Unnaipol Oruvan' was a different show, but no Tamil news channel has a retarded programme with two mannequins talking. The fact that every Tamil news channel has some political affiliation if not agenda, affords a lot of plot-play, and it's surprising that the filmmakers didn't exploit that for circumstantial comedy.




The TV reporter bit was one area where neither film scores. Why call up a single vernacular channel instead of creating a sensation? While both reporters are suitably annoying, the lines are way too cliched in both languages...as is the police's bizarre decision to trust them with information. Since the reporter's role didn't amount to much in the end anyway, it could easily have been done away with.

The end in the Tamil version in terms of what happened to the Commissioner of Police is rather more credible.

As for the acting, there's very little to choose between Kamal and Naseer. Kamal Haasan came across as more erudite for the literature he quotes and the self-consciously educated accent he uses, which stands in contrast with Naseer's usage of the usually fake 'Indian English' accent theatre has unfortunately adopted as an inherent characteristic. This makes Kamal come across as rather eccentric, while Naseer plays the meticulous planner. What I don't get, though, is why the Common Man's wife has to sound so unpolished in the Tamil version. She has a nasal voice and drags her syllables and sounds more like someone who has grown up in a shantytown than someone who would be married to an idealist who's gone off his rocker.


Mohanlal looks rather young for a top cop set to retire, but given that the actor himself is close to the government's retirement age, I let that pass. He does a great job of making the role his own, and plays it very differently from Anupam Kher. Where Anupam Kher brings in a hint of indecisiveness, Mohanlal brings in an edge of frustration that portrays India's tedious layers of protocol that restrict officials' powers even at a time of crisis.


Jimmy Shergill's portrayal of Arif was flawless, and he became the character in the film. While relative newcomer Ganesh Venkatraman doesn't do a bad job, some of his actions are a little too conscious - putting his necklet with the qibah on display, for instance, or making a show of listening in when the Commissioner has a private talk with the Inspector. The other characters didn't really have much screen time, though perhaps the Inspector's wife, who's on a train with a kid, should have ideally had even less.

The music in the Hindi film is in sync with the story - it pumps up your adrenaline when the action calls for it, makes you reminisce when the script calls for it and alerts you that you are supposed to mourn for blast victims. The music in 'Unnaipol Oruvan' is extremely unremarkable. A film like this needed the genius of a Raja or Rahman. The final track, which has verses from the Bhagavad Gita, is both out of context and jarring - it's best described as Kula-Shaker-meets-Himesh-Reshammiya.

I suppose every fan of Kamal Haasan or everyone who hasn't seen 'A Wednesday' is bound to think 'Unnaipol Oruvan' is out of the world. But if it hadn't been Kamal Haasan in there, would the film have worked for me? Not a bad film by any standards, but 'Unnaipol Oruvan' could have been a better film if it had chosen to iron out the kinks in the Hindi version rather than replicate most of it.

My Introduction to the Chic Kharab

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated 3rd October 2009)

One of the most fascinating discoveries I made right after my move to Delhi two years ago, is the word ‘kharab’. It goes with just about everything, and has the advantage of sounding as offensive as a swearword without carrying the label. I loved how switches are kharab, milk goes kharab, someone can make your mind kharab, this pen is kharab…I was in love with the word!

And then it happened. I remember that fateful day, as I stepped in from the winter evening into the heated interior of a salon. I smiled warmly at its occupants, only to be greeted with a look of intense pity and the damning statement, “madam, your skin is so kharab.”

I would have been less surprised if someone had told me my face was blue. I write with an ink pen and the finesse with which I handle it is rather pathetically at discord with the maternal love with which I care for it (no one else is allowed to use it, it lies on a bed of handkerchiefs and I bathe it every other day).

Back to the point – I was the only kid in school not to sport a single pimple, and not an extra pigment permeated my skin despite years of swimming and biking under the Madras sun.“It’s tanned, it’s dry, you have an oily T-zone, you have open pores, it’s bilcul kharab,” my interlocutor certified, as others gathered round.

And suddenly, as I looked at the mirror, I could see craters open up in my face, my skin grow a few shades darker, white patches peel off, oil spills on my nose and forehead, and pimples sprout across my cheeks. I shook my head to clear it, and then looked rather admiringly at the said interlocutor.

I think it’s a course they do. Before they learn how to thread and tweeze and wax and cut, they are taught how to depress a customer with carefully chosen insults, and then offer an array of treatments that would otherwise be laughed away.

“You should wax your hairline,” one woman suggested, and stared blankly when I shot back, “it’s a Widow’s Peak! It gives me my arrogant look!”

“Yes, madam, you’ll look friendly without it,” she agreed, after absorbing the information.

“I try very hard not to.”

“Or madam, laser treatment lelo. It looks very kharab.”

Lasers to me were those light sabers they used in the Star Wars movies (and I have to grudgingly admit, something my dentist used to seal a lot of white cavity-filling goop), but NOT something you target at your face to destroy a Widow’s Peak.

On the subject of hair, I’m one of those people who are actually grateful for the curls. I enjoy it when people with straight hair are envious of my mop, and refuse empathy when my curly-haired acquaintances wistfully ask me whether I would not rather have had easier-to-manage hair.

“Mine’s pretty easy to manage,” I say, running my fingers right through it, “I wash and condition it every day.”

It’s not just my USP, but the storehouse of my humour. Yes, I do find I’m rather less witty and slower on the uptake when it’s been blow-dried straight. It’s the reason I can wake up and rush to office, and look like I have spent hours styling my hair. It’s my claim to fame – I was once stopped and photographed by a hair products company at Covent Garden, and made two hundred pounds for the trouble.

So, when someone blasphemed, “madam, why don’t you go for hair rebonding?”, I turned back and said in my syrupy voice, “because I think people with straight hair look kharab.”

That was the last time I’ve heard the word used in that salon.

A Vindication of Limited Freedom of Speech

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated 19th September 2009)

There are some people who want the country to consider an amendment to the human rights laws. One must be entitled to free speech with a stranger/acquaintance as long as it is restricted to the weather, clothes and jewellery. The professionals who are vigorously nodding as they read this are – I don’t really need my crystal ball for this – doctors, lawyers, singers and people who work in the media.

The thing about working in a news medium is, people believe interlocution with a creature that is partially responsible for what they watch, read and hear, must compulsorily involve the information the said creature has spent about ten hours processing in the office.

“So, who is going to win the elections? Congress or BJP?”

“Is Osama alive?”

“When is the recession going to end?”

Whatever answer you come up with, the weather expert talking to you has the opposite opinion, and will spend another half-hour making you reiterate all the analysis you’ve just typed out in office. And those who don’t consider us Oracles, believe in the concept of encyclomedia.

“What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Indo-US nuclear deal?” (Maybe you should speak to Manmohan Singh and Prakash Karat.)

“What exactly is the subprime crisis?” (Look up ‘Bird and Fortune’ on Youtube.)

And then there are those who believe they hold the key to broadening the perspective of news media.

“You know, you people are all doing the same story again and again. You should do something about how corporation people have dug up the road outside my house and are not filling it in.”

“Nowadays, you get these sunshades for cars which you can put across the windscreen…”And then there are those lovely little innocent questions that insiders would roll their eyes at, but which might strike the layman as intelligent.

“Do you people learn the anchor reads by heart, or is it written on the camera?”

“What about reporters? Is someone telling them in their ears what they have to say?”

“How do you know when to start talking and when to stop?”

And of course, there is that dreaded ‘compliment’ – “Wow! There is SUCH a huge difference between how you look on television and how you look in person! I mean that in a good way!”

When I worked in radio, several curious strangers have asked me, “say something like you say it on radio?” A friend of mine who did a spot of playback singing has become a recluse because she couldn’t go to a get-together without someone asking her for a demonstration.

And then there are doctors. With every generation of my family sprouting a few of those, I’ve seen just what they undergo. At funerals, people want to know what could have caused the person’s death and how he or she could have been saved, and whether they themselves run the same risk. At weddings, people want to know what the possible causes of heartburn could be. There is always someone around who sticks out one’s forehead or neck, and wants to be checked for fever, or someone who sniffs and asks if the noise is indicative of swine flu.

My lawyer grandmother spent most of her youth being questioned about divorce proceedings, and turned rather cynical. But that world view came in handy when someone asked her opinion on a good time to make his will.

“Ask that man,” my grandmother claims to have said, pointing at a smiling gentleman, “he is an astrologer.”

Shakespeare Gets it Wrong Now and Then

(Published in Zeitgeist, The New Indian Express, dated 5th September, 2009)

“I don’t even know these people!!! I mean, what the hell? Roschelle?!” my friend’s face was first puzzled, then angry, then quietly appreciative of his sense of poetry, while all of us wondered whether he was doing the British ‘apples and pears’-equal-to-‘stairs’, ‘Britney Spears’-equal-to-‘beer’ thing. Or the American, "no way, Jose!" thing. You’ve got to admit, ‘what the hell, Roschelle!’ has a ring to it.

“What…is a Roschelle?” he asked, looking at a piece of fancy stationery.

“Oh! Oh! Roschelle!” I came to life, “that’s…”

“A brand of Swiss chocolate?” another friend offered, “are they opening a store here?”

“No, Roschelle’s not an ‘it’!” I said, “it’s a she…uh…”

“Uh…Roschelle is not a ‘she’. It’s a groom!” the friend who was trying to figure out which wedding he was invited to, said.

“WHAT?!” and all of us pored over the invite. After intense scrutiny, and a search of social networking sites, we decided a man named Roschelle was unlikely to have friends, and had decided to send out invitations by the (phone) book.

It might be a source of comfort to him, if he happens to read this, whoever he is, that he is not alone in his misery.

Maybe months of being sick, clothes one cannot fit into, kicks in the gut, nightmares of being fat for life and scary scenes of childbirth from sitcoms and pulp movies leave women bitter enough to avenge their newborns by naming them. Or maybe it’s that the fathers get so nervous they can’t quite think and come up with the first word or object they can think of. Or the grandparents are upset they couldn’t name their own children, and the deprivation has had a lasting psychological impact. But whatever it is, some children are doomed from the start.

I logged on to a networking site after a four-month hiatus, and discovered three of my friends had had babies, and a couple of them had status messages about going nuts trying to pick a name.

“Oh, that’s a scary thing,” a friend of mine said, “I know someone called Rhythm.”“Rhythm? Like Hridim or something, or like ‘rhymth and blues’?”

“Oh, his sister is called Blues!” my friend said. Turns out their parents tried really hard at being musicians, and decided they would produce R&B one way or the other.

It was a story I refused to believe till I saw a Page 3 (or whatever the local alternative is) picture of Rhythm with his girlfriend (Jazz?)

Then, of course, there is the Ganesh-Dinesh-Mahesh syndrome. As a child, I knew a couple of sisters called Shruthi and Dhvani. When their mother discovered a third was on the way, guess what name the child was endowed with…yes, full points for Smrithi. It could have turned out to be a Princess September story, but the mother chose to act wisely. Instinct tells me she’d have started naming further offspring, if they had chosen to spring, after the ragams.

And then, there was this Sanskritisation syndrome. I have a feeling it all began with someone flipping open a religious text after a lot of hair-tearing and nail-chewing, in the hope God would solve the dilemma. Now, kindergartens are crawling with Dhrishtis, Shrishtis, Saattviks, and possibly Rajases and even Tamases (for the kids that turn out rather more base than their procreators hoped).

But one must give credit to the Egyptians. In defiance of the millions of Arabic names waiting to be chosen, they’ve populated the country with just three names – Khaled, Omar and Sharif. And after four years of my bringing up the topic everyday, my friend Khaled chose to name his first-born Hassan. Apparently, they’re facing quite a challenge with his passport.