Friday, October 15, 2010

Couple decide not to name newborn son ‘Aryan’

Mrs. and Mr.Sunil Poorvath, residents of Annanagar, Chennai, have taken the unusual, imaginative and courageous decision not to name their newborn son ‘Aryan’.

Explaining his stand, Mr.Poorvath said “I don’t know . . . . I just don’t like the name very much. I was thinking something along the lines of Sumit, or Prateek, or maybe even Sankalesh. But I never quite got this whole ‘Aryan’ thing.”

Mr.Poorvath also admitted that he was the guy who always went against trends - he continued to drink Thums Up even after Pepsi and Coke entered the market in the 90s,still insists that Ambassador is the best car for Indian roads, and displays a disturbingly lingering nostalgic affection for Meenakshi Sheshadri. He has also kept several pairs of his old ‘parallel baggies’ and ‘bellbottoms’, just in case they come back into fashion.



Some people attribute the popularity of the name Aryan to Shah Rukh Khan's son, shown here trying valiantly to look sillier than his dad.


A content Mrs.Poorvath told reporters that she was happy to leave the choice of name to her husband. “I’m really okay with anything, except those horrendous ‘one-letter-swap’ variants like Jishnu, Rijay or Prakaf.” she said, shuddering involuntarily at the last option. “Hhhrrrrr . . Prakaf! Yikes!”, she added, looking protectively at her newborn non-Aryan baby boy.

Our investigations into this matter have also revealed that at least eight of Mr.Poorvath’s close friends have secretly breathed sighs of relief, happy in the ill-informed thoughts that their to-be-born kids will now be the only ones named Aryan in their immediate circles.

According to statistics available with the HRD ministry, one in every six male children born in urban India is being named ‘Aryan’ or ‘Arya’ - virtually ensuring that in the coming years, at least some kind of Aryan supremacy will be indeed maintained. The reasons for this trend remain largely unknown, although many attribute it to various reasons such as film star Shah Rukh Khan’s choice of the name for his son, easy pronounceability, and the decreasing fashion value of traditionally popular names such as Shankar, Jayant, Sudheer and Annadhaana-p-pirabu.

“Let’s face it, old fashioned names don’t look quite as nice on a fashion label, cricket scoreboard, or film credit. Can you imagine a fashion range called ‘Casbah - by Pramod’ ? Imagine a cricket scorecard that read ‘Annadhanna-p-pirabu - c Saivignesh b Jignaprasad’ ? We need the Aryans, Rohans and Armaans to make our world fashionably correct.” opined a ridiculous looking fashion designer simply called ‘Ae’.

Meanwhile, the DMK Government in Tamil Nadu has responded by announcing tax benefits to all couples who name their sons ‘Dravid’, causing thousands of guys named David to simultaneously exclaim “Otha, just missed.”

51 comments:

Krish Ashok said...

Otha, just missed. Hahahahahaha

Blogeswari said...

Aniruddh Ammas are getting offended now.How dare you ignore the Aniruddhs?

Arjun Sharma said...

"disturbingly lingering nostalgic affection for Meenakshi Sheshadri."

I thought only that Rajkumar Santoshi guy had this.

Heh, what kind of name is Poorvath anyway? Maybe that's why they don't want their kid to have a silly name.

Anonymous said...

Many '94-,95 girl babies were named Aishwariya in TN.Poor Sushmita lost out because pronouncing Sh is such an ordeal for most Tamilians and the baby would have been calle Susu.

Anonymous said...

Many '94-,95 girl babies were named Aishwariya in TN.Poor Sushmita lost out because pronouncing Sh is such an ordeal for most Tamilians and the baby would have been calle Susu.

Arun said...

ha ha ha :) Aryan Maama is the future Ambi Maama!

Idling in Top Gear said...

Dravid sounds Northie. Dravidar might be more appropriate. Still, no joy for David Davidar.

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

@Blogeswari - Anirudhdh is key. Also Anirudhdha. I knew a guy called Rudhdhi.

@Anon - Yes - susumitha is a name I have heard many times.

@IITG - Hahaha David Davidar us ultimate kvlt.

@KrishAshok - First. Now I have to give you some free gift no?

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

@Arjun - Poorvath is a good name. Like Sankalesh Jimmy.

Spaz Kumari said...

on my blogroll i confused your blog for the onion, for one minute.

this is a bigggg compliment.

thanks for blogging!

hari said...

LOL @ Davidar.

BTW, why leave out Aadittya? (extra A and t added for numerological concerns)?

Anonymous said...

Hari, you mean Aadithhya?

Awesome post Anand - great to see you back on home turf!

Anonymous said...

"disturbingly lingering nostalgic affection for Meenakshi Sheshadri." Hahaha. Also "Otha, just missed."

Would Dravid Dravidar be given an extra tax cut?

Was Poorvath earlier called Poornam Viswanathan?

theblogger said...

Dot.

ashok.madhavan said...

"otha just miss" that was awesome.

Houseowner said...

Evil Twin, it has been ages! Used to blog too /in search/ in the good old, dunno if u remember... Likely not... But hilarious this, we were laughing @ the aryan brand val just this afternoon...LoL! Btw, i think it wd be 'just miss'. Missed is oh-so-grammatical! :)

ramya

Prhea said...

came across a fella called Ballakrishnen. And Audhitthya. And also a Carthic.

Wonder what would happen if westerners started doing the numerology thing - Georrgge, Paull, Rinnggo, Johann... much fun it'd be.

Krouncha Dwaipaayana said...

Also unisex names like dayanidhi ,kalanidhi, nivArana-nidhi, kumAra-mangallam are proving to be attractive names for indians past arakonam (adavdhu north indians)!!!

Ketan said...

Ha Ha ha, nice post. Just to remind you about Wildlife Photographer S.U.Saravanakumar, why have you left him in the last few posts?

Raghavan said...

LOL !!! @ ‘Annadhanna-p-pirabu - c Saivignesh b Jignaprasad’

amalan said...

Nice to see someone willing to stay a cut above. This vedic naming business is not restricted to indians from the northern part, but now a blind rage with non-brahmin indians from the south as well (about time we ditched the northie-southie stuff). Some would say, what's in a name ? free country right ?

Folks from their respective cultural backgrounds do not even bother to do some research (which they would if they are looking for a bride/groom), but go for the fashionable sounding stuff. throw in numerology, u get a cacophony of name sounds. but again, whatever peels their potatoes.

I think the Bengalis deserve noteworthy praise. not only do most of them stick to their cultural backdrop in naming, but names selected sound nice as well. arindam etc. Oh, BTW, my name is Amalan, spouse- Valli (not my decision), son - ilamaaran. we are tamizh.

oh the "otha just missed"...floods the memory gates.

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

@Prhea - hahaha numerology for foreigners is an idea for a post by itself \m/

@Houseowner - Yeah - Just Miss would have been better. I stand corrected.

@Krouncha - LOL at 'north Indians'

@Amalan - Respect

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

Oh - and everyone - thanks for reading Son of Bosey.

Abhishek said...

Delighted you are back !!!! Sankalesh pwns Aryan any day !!!

Deepak Gopalakrishnan said...

Otha, just missed it seems! Hahahahaha! That's your second best last line ever, after the WG Grace being unavailable for comment line.

Damodar said...

And the K..K..KKKiran too..

evilemperorzeb said...

Ae nee rombo azhaga irruke #kvlt

Unknown said...

Other 'kewl' names with nicknames:

Aditya (Adi), Siddharth (Sid), Abhishek (Abhi), Sandeep (Sandy), Abhay (Abby)...

Rohan said...

Dai, what's with the 'Rohan' being a modern name. Hmph.

Lavanya said...

Hahahahaha @ Otha Just Missed :D :D

Also, I hope no one "hates me over" for this.

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

@Rohan - You are modern type ya.

@Coconut Chutney - I'm sure one of your hundreds of auto-suggestion based husbands will feel bad about this.

Arjun Sharma said...

I always thought Sankalesh Jimmy was a made-up person. My apologies.

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

@Arjun - Um . . he is. What made you think otherwise?

Arjun Sharma said...

Heh, I thought he was one of your friends.

Wait, wildlife photographer S. U. Saravanakumar is real, isn't he? Don't bring down the belief systems of entire legions of your fans.

no signal said...

Nice one Bosey's son :P
Few days back I was thinking about the absurdity of namking kids Aryan considering Indian names have meanings.

Nishanth said...

" Otha just missed "
Good one!. tears-in-eyes laughter
Hit Gods Own Country for names like Lijo,Sijo, Rijo, Cujo!?.
Wild Life Photographer Saravana kumar and Sankalesh Jimmy sat out of this one huh.

Jay said...

Redundant, as it may seem from most comments, "Otha, just missed" was brilliant! :-D

"Just miss" would have been apt though, as Ramya suggested.

Am subscribing to your blog.

Unknown said...

Happy to see you back in Son of Bosey !Otherwise just waiting for the 'Medhu Vadai' ( or something sounding like that)column in Yahoo once in 2 weeks was quite painful !

Anonymous said...

ROFL! That was awesome!!! Came here via a link posted on FB. Loved this.

Anonymous said...

Otha just-la miss da....muhahahaha fabulous work anand. kalakkitte.

Smith said...

it's a joy to see you posting again.

Chicky said...

Absolutely brilliant! Was laughing practically all the way through! Ok, definitely chuckling! :p

Lakshmi Rajan said...

"We need the Aryans, Rohans and Armaans to make our world fashionably correct" LOL how true :P I think part of Dhoni's brand success is due to his name ;) Would he get the same brand value if he was just Mahinder Singh :O So lets all name our children fashionably correct for their success in the rat race :P

Anonymous said...

Lovely ending ...

Anoopa Anand said...

Otha, just missed! You are HILARIOUS! I'm coming back here after really long, and I have absolutely no explanation for that. Just read everything you write on Cricinfo and followed the links back. Thanks for writing. You make me temporarily forget that I have a crappy job, which is peachy.

Anonymous said...

wonderful post. Dravidan born in chennai would be good or Dravidaar born in coimbatore. LoL for your article. Way to go. We were wondering the other day that the entire class attendance register will be filled with names starting "A" as Aryan, ayush, aniruddha,
Ashwin, Ayaan etc are rushed to become popular.

Vivek said...

Oh God...You should act in movies man...
Parallel baggies and just missed were ultimate.

Tina said...

At this point, is the parents decision. Let's hope that a decision made my parents, won't affect the child later.

Gina said...

This sounds like a very important decision..

Apu said...

Wait, for females, I have been hearing Anoushka or Anushka...got at least 3 friends, two of whom even know each other, who named their daughters Anushka.

' horrendous ‘one-letter-swap’ variants like Jishnu, Rijay or Prakaf.” '
- Yes...suddenly, names are oh-so-fashionable becuase they look unusual with that one-letter-swap!

Hilarious post.

AS said...

haha! good satire..pple follow celebs mindlessly