The year that was!

Difficulty Level: Very Easy

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India 2010

What's in a name?

Namesake:

It is final and binding. If you are a resident of America, you cannot have first names that are more than six characters long just like you cannot have passwords that are more than twelve characters long. I came this conclusion thanks in no small part to the organisation that I work for. Being a part of the great Indian software and 'foren' dream, I came across quite a few NRIs (Non-Resident Indians), RIRAs (Resident Indians Residing in America) and INRIs (Indians Never Resided in India) who had made a fortune for themselves abroad. Something that did puzzle me then was the abridgement of the first names in proportion to the weight of his/her bank balance. I have heard of three different persons by the names of Sri, Vats and Son, all originally Srivatson and observed that there was a pattern to it. Basically, all first names are of the form ABCDEF where one and only one of B,C,D and E must be a vowel and at most just one of A and E can be a vowel. To put it simply, all first names must be less than or equal to six characters comprising just two vowels and that too only if one of the first or the last letters is a vowel. The preferred methodology is pretty simple: take out the first two syllables from your actual name and append a vowel if your name sounds very cheesy otherwise. Thus, Venkataraman becomes Venky, Kashiram becomes Kash and Samrath becomes Sam. I do feel for all those Fakruddins and Khsitijs who are in the U.S.A . I am also indebted to my parents for having shown tremendous foresight in this matter.

The question is popped:

Recently, I had one of those nightmarish visits to one of those very distant relatives. One of the problems with visiting such folks (accentuated in Tam Bram families) is that the host professes to have known you all his/her life so much so that you would almost think that he/she had been living with you all along. To make matters worse, you have no option but to nod with a sheepish grin knowing only too well that even the slightest revolt would invite censure. This was a visit to one of those X'S Y's Z where X could stand for any one of uncle, aunt, grandfather or grandmother, where Y could for one of nephew or niece and where Z, for the sake of simplicity, is always brother or sister. I must confess that I remember just the X in this case and that is probably due to the fact that X was accompanying me that day. Being the closely knit unit that we are, I had to repeat the sheepish grin with nod ritual in front of all of Z1, Z2, Z3....Zn, where Zi belonged to the immediate family of Z. One of thos Zs, say Ze, had to embarass me with this peach, "kalyanam kazhinjittu ethra samayamayachu" (How long have you been married?). Now, folks who know me well would already be in splits at the very thought of somebody even contemplating the idea of yours truly being married.For the information of others, I am odd-on favourite at 59:1 to get married last when it comes to my colege batch, and only a marginally better 1:3 when it comes to getting married at all. However, that question did bring me to life and make me sit up straight and my facial expression at that point of time must have made for a good tableau for Ze tried to make peace by admitting that the subject in question looked too young to be married. Mention of my vitality made me smile wryly as I helped myself to some halwa with filter coffee in hand. Another problem with visiting these Zs is that they invariably invoke some other distant relative of theirs who might have had a very vague facial resemblance to yours and do a very thorough juxtaposition. To copound the misery, all Zs but for Zi have to support Zi's observation. I felt that the halwa was too sweet and that the coffee had little sugar and restored both to their rightful positions.