lilEndian bigTalk

…was redefined last night, it would’ve left a vicious pack of hyenas totally incompetent — OMG, I’ve never seen so much meat on a single table. Apart from the regular poultry and cattle, there were some other stuff to relish, like rabbits and something like a pigeon. Yes, you heard me right. Oh, crabs and prawns were consumed in the process too. That was some challenge thrown to the digestive system to handle, pretty good I’d say.

Meat eaters of the world unite.

…vijayalutchum-paa… So, if you’re wondering what the first Japanese and the other Indonesian sounding names mean, you aren’t alone. No, you really aren’t.

…what are they, anyways? They are simpler versions of Yoga-lakshmi and Vijaya-lakshmi Pai. This country boasts having as many languages equal to its number of states, which are only the primary ones, and a thousand dialects connected to each of them. So, that leaves us with one dialect for every thousand people. Now, that people, is a lot.

…hulyalkar, shirsikar, vernekar, tendulkar, mongolkar and such are surnames from the state of Maharashtra. If you’re thinking, what I thought, no, Linekar is not from that state. Baasgar, Divagar, Saegar, Prabagar are Tamilized versions of Bhaskar, Diwakar, Shekar and Prabhakar. Mages, Sures, Rames, Mogun used to be known as Mahesh, Suresh, Ramesh and Mohan before some people let us know they had other ideas. Oh, leshmi, Laludaa, Anidaa, keedaa are screwed up versions of Lakshmi, Lalita, Anita and Geeta. Now, these aren’t foreigners who are not used to the names. It’s a result of a divide in the country based on languages and their roots.

…basically, all the languages in the country can be categorized as Sanskrit-infuenced and non-sanskrit. Most of them are based on Sanskrit and the rest are heavily influenced. Now, Tamil can claim as being the least influenced, although, it’s falling for it. It’s fancy to have sanskrit names, as, some weird notion prevails that they are classy too. For instance, a “Saravanan” or a “Ezhilan” is far-less popular than say, “Adarsh” or “Nikhil”. I would also call this a brahmin hangover, they were once the “Learned Men” of the lot. It’s hard to believe that kids in school also think and behave that way. Now, I know why a name can screw up a kid’s life in school, it’s because the rest don’t think (s)he has a cool name to go with.

…so, coming back to the language, most of the languages in south are influenced by sanskrit and not based on it. They are called the Dravidian languages. There’s a ton of difference in the way a lot of words are pronounced, which leads to the names getting screwed up. In English, we add an ‘h’ to ‘t’ to soften it. For instance, if you want to soften the ‘t’ in cat, you add an ‘h’ and make it ‘cath’ as in Cathy. The same rule is followed in South when you write the names in English. So, anitha is written so, to soften the ‘t’, and make it sound better. The people up north aren’t usually aware of this, they would naturally say it ‘Ani’ — ‘tthhaaa’ — yea, they salivate and spray all over. The same rules are applied to foreign words or names like “Tthhaai”land. The alphabet set for sanskrit and non-sanskrit languages are so different, that it makes life far from simple. You can see, why a name like “Baasgar” was ever manufactured, when it had to be “Bhaskar”.

…but, thanks to all the technology like cable networks, internet and such, the awareness is a lot more than it used to be. But, it’s still funny. I would often think, if we would’ve become like Europe, if not for the British. That would have really made things interesting.

…Thermal rocked last night at OktoberFest, err.. NOktoberFest Bruce looked like one of the guys from the Chaplin movies, who really walk and do things fast. He was playing with some urgency, it was incredible to watch. Some tributes to great bands were paid in the process, floyd, beatles, police et al. Boy, “Shine on you crazy diamond” sounded as good as Waters and co., they opened their act with that.

The next couple of hours were just filled with some mind blowing music. An evening well spent.

…every morning I’ve to wake up and thank people for all the wonderful music they’ve given to the world to listen and enjoy. First of all, there’s good music, music, bad, worse and INDIPOP. Well, the last genre of music is not what ‘m thankful for, although, their only claim to fame is people identifying it to music. I keep asking myself, why ‘m I being critical of something, that has a lot of creating thinking and hours of effort put into. Well, here’s what I think is the answer:

…’ve an incredible opportunity to influence an entire generation by offering a whole lot, and, we’ve to live upto it. Now, something like INDIPOP must’ve been a huge mistake, a grave blunder, I think. Well, you can say ‘m being harsh, yea, I dont’ wanna be nasty. So, what’s the answer, you may ask? What’s my take on good music? JAZZ! Jazz, is one of the answers, if not the only one. Now, that could be the mother of all, where, creative skills are unleashed and sheer genius comes through.

…we get carried away by offerings such as “Dance Music”, which, probably why a lot of mediocrity has creeped in and corrupted the “Popular Music” scene. Every decade in the last 40 years has left its mark and tried to create a genre or give an existing one a new meaning. We had the happy music in the 60s, the psychdellic 70s, disco 80s, grunge and trance 90s. Now, we’re right now into an overdose of Indi Rock, although, we can identify it to this decade. Sometimes, it’s impossible to put together a bunch of rockers and get them to do music, results in a loss of identity.

If we all listen to music for the same reason, I don’t think a lot of bands would continue to exist. Oh, Did I hear someone say “Boy Bands?”

…a brand new day, brand new job. I’m just settling in and getting connected — everything seems fun and looks promising.

So, last week was spent on eating good stuff, really good stuff. I just realised, festival season is for eating REAL lots, while, the other days you end up eating lots — OMG, I’ve never had so much to eat, of course, I was never married for any diwali before this. Bombay was smiliar to what Lakshmi had described bout Pune. I think everything’s done UPSIZED up North (anything above karnataka), when compared to the South. Lot of gifts got exchanged during the last one week, it was nice.

Apparently, the rain gods have been super generous to the state I come from. We were holidaying at Mahabalipuram during the weekend, and, it was pouring out there. But, it was amazing fun — the place, the pool, the beach, food et al, we just loved it.

Sometimes, I just love the holidays.