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There are elections in India. The only thing we were looking forward to, was to see the incumbent Congress party go. Looks like that is happening. 

We have been getting updates from supporters of different parties on the Facebook feed more than from any news media. This morning, decided to see what Google news presented for me and here it was (link)

Now for someone who is not that much into Indian History and knows Nehru as Jawaharlal Nehru and Gandhi as Mahatma Gandhi... 

Ok, I know the desi's who read this are going "not possible", but seriously! Today's American textbooks have three pages for Indian political history. Not much mention is there of the fact that Indira Gandhi, who gets mentioned as the first woman prime minister of India is not related to the Mahatma. People put two and two and come up with four!

In all of Indian history, this move by Indira to marry a dude with the same last name as Mahatma Gandhi, was probably the most brilliant branding or marketing idea! 

In South INdian families we stopped using caste or religious sub sect related last names post Indian Independence. Then folks started using their fathers first name as their last name, as "expanded initials". That is why I am now Sundar Narayanan instead of Sundar Iyer. My fathers first name is now my last name. Still it made sense in a way that we were all part of the Narayanan family. Unlike family names in the US, this gets to be tricky. My wife does not want to take my fathers first name as her last name. She was okay with being Sangeetha Sundar (which is how it works in India if a woman wanted to change her last name, she took her husbands first name!) and that also made sense.  

This is a common issue in desi families when they apply for a US passport. They all want to fill out one customs form and have the same last name but cannot agree on one. So the new trend is that the entire family changes their name to the old system. Either go with sect, subsect names or their Gothrams(lineage) in Brahmin families. 

If we ever cross that bridge, we should take a page from Indira and find a "nice" family name to change to!

Name-onic..

If you have a name that is not so common in the country you live in and anything more than a Jack or John is given up as "too complicated", you tend to start giving folks a mnemonic just so they can get your name right.. at least the spelling part!

This moring there was a yoga teacher who taught class. Apparently she has been teaching at BYSJ for a few months but this was my second time attending her class. Asked her for her name after class and she said "what is your name?"

So I gave her the mnemonic "It is Sundar. Sunday with an R" and she smiled. The real issue is that most of the folks who are told "Sunday with an R",  forget the R part and call me Sunday which is worse!  

Flashback to the early nineties..

Having spent precious rupees just spelling out SUNDARARAMAN NARAYANAN to various university admins to find out that they cannot find my file or GRE or TOEFL scores and going over the name over and over again, a strategy was deviced.

Had gotten tired of making AT&T richer and my parents poorer by the day..

Thanks to one of those admins who recomemnded she asked me to spell my name on the ISD call with a word for each letter. She had asked me "N as in Nancy or M as in Mary?" and I went "Voila! that is it. I can now spell my name to these folks who are unfamiliar with long names and get it right the first time!"

Still remember talking to Judy Trachtman who was our Admin head at Drexel shortly before I came to the USA for the first time to check on something about my I-20.. She goes "Spell your name for me kid!" and I go "Sugar Uncle Navy Dates Alpha Rainbow..." and she just started laughing and said "Oh my. You are special. What a colorful picture we paint!" Will always cherish conversations with Judy.. again, I am digressing.. 

Coming back to the name.. Sundararaman was too complicated for anyone. So came down to Sundar and my thesis advisor asked me "Can I just call you Sun?" and my jaw dropped. Not because of the additional 50% discount that was being asked of my name that had already been cut in half... but because there was a Chinese dude by the same name in the department roster! 

That is when I came up with "My name is Sundar. Sunday with a Rainbow at the end!" 

The ones that do get it right based on that mnemonic say it "Sondaar" which is as close to it as they will ever get. The short sound for the u and the a?

Have given up on it, a long time ago!

You should hear Jr. and the little one introduce me to non-desis.. they introduce me as "my dad soondaar!" 

I laugh on the outside...

Numerology gone too far?

We ran out of Appalam (papad)and was asked to go get one from the new stock. Grandpa had recently replenished the stock of Appalam on his November visit.

Was surprised to find the usual "Ambika" brand replaced by this one..

If Lord Krishna has this fate with his name changed, thanks to Numerologists, you should not be surprised to see me change my name to Soondaar Naarayenin..

Maybe the person who sent me that mail saying Mohammad Narayanan, my brother from some Aaafrican republic has passed away and has left me close to a million dollars did spell my name with numerology in mind?

One cannot help but think along those lines...

On a side note, the Applam is not that great and gets a passing grade.

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