The art of calling my name in full.

For as long as I can remember, the only person I call by a pet name is my brother. Everyone else, however close they may be to my heart -- and I've been blessed with several good people in my life -- I call them by their given name. My best friend from school is still to get used to it, I think. And I've known her 22 years.

I like to think that a name is more than just a tag to identify a certain body. A name, as far as I am concerned, is deeply linked with who we are and how we identify ourselves. A lot like an email id actually. I notice invariably that teenagers and those who think they're still teenagers stick to pet names and email ids that have personality projections in them. I can take the pet name but the email addresses make me want to never write to them, even though I love them.

For example, my 15 year-old cousin calls herself Joanna Janet in places such as Facebook and email. Or some really odd thing like that. It fits her personality perfectly because she's growing up on High School Musical and Hannah Montana, so her exposure is very obviously Western. I'd have given her an award if she had nicknamed herself Subbulakshmi or Kartiyayani. I totally get her because she is 15.

But I recently ran into a few email addresses that made me realise that I spend far too much time thinking about things that I have no business thinking about. Mosquitoes, world peace and whether global warming is just someone's idea of a joke, for example. I should be thinking about not spending my money so fast that my kids will grow up believing education is for duds and Pink Floyd rocks. I should be thinking about more alternatives for five minutes of peace  than the empty interiors of a parked car. (I swear I did that today. My family trooped out and went home, I just lay in the back seat savouring the closed space, the quiet and the time to actually hear myself think.) I should basically be thinking about more useful things than why a grown person has an email id that says babyfacekid@ihaventgrownup.com.

Yes, yes, call me judgemental but I think after you've crossed 23, you should just have an email id that states your name and get on with life. I realise you might want to or have to throw in an underscore or a dot somewhere and I am mildly tolerant on that front. But I just cannot forgive a 34 year old whose email id is prettybabydoll@seekingattention.com.

But wow, how I've digressed.

Recently, a friend brought it up when I was referring to someone, that I could use that someone's pet name. I know I could but an anglicised little name doesn't have half the charm of a beautiful full name, in this case a Sanskrit one. And all the meaning that is held in the womb of that name is lost when I shorten it. I'd much rather be uncool than called a Pratyusha a Prat or a Ragini a Rags.

And as for me, for as long as I can remember, friends and family have called me pet names. One in particular. Anglicised, shorter and somewhat bimboesque but that's what I am for most my college and school mates, and definitely all of my family. Except my husband. Who has a totally different endearment for me. Something that I hold dear to my heart but something that also makes me laugh because it points to a couple things.
1) The age gap between him and me.
2) The very Malayalee in us.

Of course, when I am in the dog house I get called my full name (ouch) or when I am being introduced to someone. It's the strangest feeling ever. Sometimes when we are out together and he's opening doors for, showing me off and generally being the charmer he is, he tends to call me my name and I don't know then, whether to kiss him or laugh at the awkwardness of it.  Mostly because I insist I get called my beautiful, thoughtout, meaningful Sanskrit name but then feel suddenly very unloved when I get called it in full.
It leads me to think that maybe it is habit that we respond to and not our name. Inflections, tone, length of name is what we respond to. For example, a simple enough name is so different when spoken during roll call in school, at an introduction or in bed. The word is the same but the emotions they arouse in us -- from an indifferent "Present" to a thrill running up your spine.

So when Shakespeare said, "What's in a name", I honestly think he was smoking some rotten stuff and had totally lost the plot. My other theory is that he called his wife by his girlfriend's name and she gave him pure hell.

It's not the bride, it's not the groom...

It is the pictures.

I had two weddings. I would think that that would be more than enough for most people, unless they are Elizabeth Taylor and I hear, even she's getting sick of it these days. But, as I figured recently, I am not most people. Therefore, I want one more wedding, this time to do it all right (groom will be my current husband, FYI, so I can safely concentrate on other things). Which is basically to focus on the wedding and not on the person I am marrying.

This, in fact, is the culprit. It is also my inspiration to go for plan B in case I don't make it as "world famous, renowned" author/super crocheter of the year, every year/fantastic mommy of the decade, till I die. (If you were world famous and renowned, you would be known, wouldn't you? And hence wouldn't need the qualifiers to introduce you.)  I want to be a wedding photographer of his ilk. I may or may not have his exact talent but I want to photograph weddings without everyone at the do knowing they are being photographed. Preeti and I discussed this before our individual babies came along. Maybe it will happen.

At both my weddings, I was dewy-eyed, giddy and ecstatic that I was marrying the man I loved. The first time, well, at that point I honestly, and truly loved him. The second time I married the man of my dreams, and knock on wood, he still is that man. 99 per cent of the time at least.

Both times I did not coordinate the colour of my fake green-eye contacts to the colours in the venue. I did not worry about two guests who hated each other sitting together having a slug fest with the wedding wine. I did not think about classy wedding favours that get lost the minute the guest leaves the do. I did not think about wedding photographers or a designer wedding cake that used orchids whose petals were crushed by underpaid Thai children imported from, well, Thailand. Or a funky pre-wedding party with a Klingon theme. Or an offbeat wow-inspiring venue like the dark side of the moon or deep under water. And, you know, I really am not that old; except for the 20 year olds who come here, I know you'll agree. I just didn't think the wedding was as important as the marriage, fool that I was. And going by my track record, what a pity if I decided it was time to change husbands, right?

These days, I see all these really nice weddings -- I hope the bride and groom will make them loving, lasting marriages - and I see even more gorgeous pictures and it gets me thinking, really, what the hell was I thinking, concentrating on the groom and not on the wedding?! The second time around, stupid as I was, I should have paid more attention, spent more and planned even more. But the nonsense romantic that I am, I thought, hey, it's my second time, I shouldn't spend so much, so lets keep it small and simple. And, mostly, my parents went with that and didn't encourage any pomp and show.

It was only my mad aunt -- the same one whose behaviour greatly disturbs me these days -- who said no, so what if it's your second time? You should celebrate it just as if it were your first. But unfortunately, it was a little late for good, sane advice like that (the eve of my wedding), and I was left feeling, damn! She's so right.

And truly, this was a wedding that should have been celebrated well. Because it is a marriage that gave me my perfect man, a marriage where our lovely, seriously crazy kids happened and a marriage that will never age. And it deserved all the fun, glamour and preceding weightloss that go with a regular wedding.

So the pictures are really crappy and I am cringing thinking of what the kids are going to say when they grow up and see their Mama's hep wedding pictures and my really odd ones. But the wedding, per se? It was perfect. Just perfect.

Small, sweet, fragrant and pure.

That we exchanged vows in Malayalam will always be a shock to me because I cannot pronounce big Malayalam words easily and I wasn't warned (thanks, Mathew!) that I was going to have to say words that had more than three very complicated syllables, holding Mathew's hand*.

I still, to this date, don't know what I vowed to do in the marriage. And I am pretty sure Mathew tricks me, every once in a stubborn while, into doing things by referring to the Vows. "But, but, but...  you promised! In church too." Okay.

Still, I want nice pictures.


*Mathew held my hand and steadily looked into my eyes throughout the exchange of vows, with a soft smile on his lovely face. It still makes me squirm and it still curls my toes.

Notes for today

I came across a fantastic mommy blog. Yes, I used both those words in the same sentence, so imagine how good it would have been. I added the link to my blogroll and voila! it disappeared. When I tried to go back and find it, it said the blog was protected and I  had to log in. I did it a hundred times and still no Mad Momma.

So Mad Momma, mum to the Brat and the Bean, if you ever come to my space, please let me find you.

*****

Today, my domestic help came with a trainee (as she's going away to India for 10 days). The new lady's Sri Lankan and doesn't speak anything other than Sinhalese. And my woman is Mallu and has never been to school. I was wondering how the communicate till I asked Chandra, the Sinhala, how old her kids were. She called to Fatima, my constant, to translate for her. And guess what they spoke in.

Pure, fluent, gorgeous Arabic.

*****
The one big advantage of being a homemaker is that you don't have to make the occasional choice of being faithful. You don't meet enough men to warrant any kind of attraction. So the choice to remain monogamous doesn't have to be reiterated all the time.

Unless you fall in love online or something. Then god help you.

*****

Payday came to me after more than a year now. And, boy, is my list long.
New baby cot because Shyama has outgrown her older one.
New highchair
Tricycle
New carseat
Longines/Omega for my father, in appreciation for all that he is.

Oh-kay then, that was the fastest I've spent my salary, ever.

*****

Yesterday was hilarious with my aunt reverting to her childishness and trying to antagonise me. What a laugh I had. More on her on a later date. But right now, I sincerely hope and pray her mind will reach the ripe old age of 43 that her birth certificate proves her to be.

Who the hell is Eve?

Mumbai Mirror carried this report on a 10-year-old child getting severely hurt when her skirt got caught in the wheel of a car that had 22-year-olds in it, passing lewd comments at her older sister and friend. The car dragged this girl some way and then backed up on her leg and zoomed off. The girl, among many things, suffers two fractured vertibrae.

And MM called it a case of "eve-teasing".

Now, I am not too much of a stickler for PC-ness. I don't think the blind should be called visually impaired or retarded be called differently abled. Such crock makes me sick. (I should know;I have a delightful 24-year-old sister in law who is severely retarded and the family much prefers we accept that and use the specific term for it.)

But 'eve teasing' annoys me to no bloody end. Firstly, the word teasing. It gets me going like nothing else does. Teasing - implying a little fun, some harmlessness, a little masti. None of that is present in a case of molestation/harassment when a dirty lech grabs your breast or some sick frustrated creature rubs his crotch against your butt or hand in a crowded place. There is no fun, no harmlessness - no teasing there. What there is is dirty, naked perversity, humiliation and sheer rage.

My next bone of contention is 'eve'. I have NO explanations for it. I just don't bloody understand it. What eve? Who eve? What bloody nonsense!

The way I see it, it's plain harassment of women and not eve-teasing or whatever euphemism MCPs would like to call it.

And as for 10-year-old Asma, I'll be praying for recovery. And I hope they get the bloody bastards who did this to her. I hope they get them real good.

*****

It would be so nice to have a good news page in a newspaper. We wake up every day to things like those poor, poor boys in an Iraq "orphanage" or some geeky techies being beaten up in Bangalore for being techies (I found that quite funny, actually) or that scary thing called global warming. So much unfairness, greed, pain, misery. It's enough to send you into gloom even if things are going 'swimmingly well' in your own life.
I think every newspaper should have at least one space dedicated to good news. Now on, though I am not a newspaper, I'm going to carry at least one good piece of news -mine own or about the world. (I am going to sound like a version of the Bible :)!!)

Good News: One Sunni man drove 30 minutes through the dangerous streets of Baghdad to watch the football game with his Shiite friends whom he had not seen in months.
This is what people are about, no? Warmth, friendship, tears and football, yeah!

Find it here.