1. The name should start with an “A”.  The more As, the better. Why bother turning the pages of that baby name book all the way to “S” or even “G”.  There must be thousands of names to wade through.  Who has the time or energy to decide?  Just stop with “A”.   Pick any name, as long as it starts with “A”.  In fact, don’t even bother going to “Ab”.  You can stop at “Aa”.  The more “A”s the better.

So Aakash or Aarti or Aashna are better than a mere Ajay or Aditya.  If you can pack in even more As into the name, even better.   Like Aarav -  just one long A garnished with a few consonants.

2. Let the Gods (and Goddesses) come to your rescue. You may have never been inside a temple for years, but now is the time to show your Hindu faith by naming your baby after the 1000 names of Vishnu/Lakshmi/ Durga/ Shiva or any other deity.

3. Ancient texts are baby name books too. What better use for all those ancient texts than as baby name books? Here is a great way to choose a secular name that shows off your knowledge of India’s culture.  Select names that are either Vedic in  origin (Advait, Vedant), or those that  belong to lesser known characters from mythological texts (Ahalya, Uttara) – lesser-known is key, for everyone knows who Kausalya and Dhruva were.  Then there are characters from ancient classic literature (Manimekalai, Kannagi).  Whatever you do, just make sure to steer clear of the villains.  Even if you did think Duryodhan was a great guy who was just misunderstood, please do not name your son Duryodhan.

4.  Choose a winning combination of the parents. What better way to name the baby but by combining the parents’ names? If the father’s name is Mahesh and the mother’s name is Jaya, then the baby should be called Maya, or Jayesh.  Of course, if the father’s name is Harish and the mother is Diksha, one hopes they wouldn’t name their baby Hardik.  But you see, they will.

5. Follow the latest trend. If everyone is naming their baby Aryan, then so should you.   What are last names for except to differentiate?  And when his class ends up with 5 Aryan Sharmas, well, you can still rename him to the current fashion then.  This way, his name will always be the “latest”.

6. Is it Americanized enough? Do you think he/she will work in a call center, or an MNC?  Then you better choose an Americanizable name.  “Samanth” will become “Sam” later, while Siddhanth and Siddharth have been “Sid” for years now.  Meghna could become “Meg” and so on.  But don’t worry, your kid will find a way to Americanize any name you give him/ her – after all, even a Chakravarthy can become Chuck and a Kannan can become Conan.

7.  Numerology is key. In thirty years’ time, your kid is going to consult a numerologist and add a bunch of  As, Es and Hs to his/ her name.  But that would be thirty years of being numerologically disadvantaged, so it’s best if you consult a numerologist right away.  Your kid might have to go through life with a name like Narmmadaa or Shobhaa, but it’s a small price for a bright future, right?

8. Go Global. We are Global Indians now. Our names should be equally global. There are the time-honored names like Maya,  Anita or Tara that work everywhere. But these are so common now that you should be considering names like Ansa (Finnish) or  Freya (Nordic).  In fact, names like Freya and Diana also satisfy rule #2 and show how much we love Gods and Goddesses, irrespective of which culture they belong to.

9. Use Mother Nature. This is not a new trend, naming babies after cute animals (deer, swan, peacocks), mountains, snow, the sun and the moon has been the norm for ages.   To be different, therefore, you should choose a global variation.  So instead of naming your daughter Chandra or Poonam after the moon, you should name her Celina or Cynthia.   Instead of naming her Ganga or Kaveri, you should call her Jhanvi, or choose a lesser-known river like Kshipra, or  go global and name her Volga or Lena.

10. Go Ethnic. Why do most names have to be Sanskrit based?  Why not base them on other Indian languages? You can call your daughter Alli (Tamil for Waterlily), for instance, which would also satisfy rules #6, #8 and #9. This last one is something of a very niche trend, unfortunately.  Sadly, we Indians would nearly always prefer to use a French or a German name rather than a Tamil word for a baby name, and this is true for many Tamil speakers too. (Replace Tamil with any other Indian language and it would still be true).

None of these examples are fictional, a quick search on the net (Google/Linkedin/Facebook et al)  is all you need to convince yourself that there are real Indians with these names.

Which brings us to the question you are, no doubt, asking yourself – what did I name our baby?  We had a few simple criteria – the name should be short, just 2-3 syllables, be easy and intuitive to pronounce and spell.  After years of enduring people mispronounce my name every third time and butcher R’s every single time, we wanted something that was easy on even untrained tongues.

But we did end up following one of these rules.  I am just not saying which.

“Men will be required to wear a dark-colored suit, a white shirt and a red tie, and women a female equivalent of this,” Mr. Kern said. The dress code is still under review, he added.

This sounds much more reasonable than that original dress code (the English translation of which is here), which is full of gems.  There is the blatant sexism, such as in directives regarding hair coloring.

For men, it says :

Colored hair or bits prove unconvincing when the artificial color contrast with excessively the target age of your skin. Similarly, a gray beard or white, can clash with the color of your hair retouched.

For women, on the other hand,

A suitable hairstyle is essential to please others and itself and also contributes to determining your well-being. Studies have shown that hair neat and stylish and impeccable cut dramatically increase Capital sympathy and allow individuals to set their personalities.

and

.• If you have a color, you must ensure that your roots are always impeccable.

Pic: Flickr/Matt512

The directives for women are of course, the most detailed, talking about everything from what color nail polish you should use to how your eye glasses frame should match your jewelry (no, seriously).  Other gems include:

• Wear underwear flesh-colored below white blouses. In addition, we recommend thepossible, not to conceal the neck. Traces make-up on collars are bad effect.

• In general, a blouse is worn with a jacket. When it very hot, and after confirmation of your supervisor,you can not wear that shirt with the pants or skirt.  (I am trying to imagine how this conversation with the supervisor will go.)

• Never wear shoes that are too small for you:there’s nothing worse than a twisted smile.

Men probably have it easier.  There is the lecture about how your tie should depend on your waistline.  ” A thin node provides a rate disproportionate in an individual corpulent.”  But read the full document, if you haven’t already.  It is hilarious in the extreme.

UBS is not the only company with such a detailed dress code, although it is probably a little more extreme than others.  But I’ve heard of other banks with such “rules”.  One of R’s former employers (also a bank) had a dress code which said, among other things, “Women should always wear underwear”.  (No, there was nothing specified about men.)

At some point, even the most well-intentioned dress code starts to become sexist and micromanaging, not to mention insulting everyone’s intelligence.  You wonder who spends so much time composing and approving these things.

All of which brings me to the point – do we really need such explicit dress codes?  Does it really reflect on the employer if an individual turns up to work in tight shoes, or with a small tie knot, or with powder on her shirt collar?

Granted, employers do not want employees dressed in mini skirts or shorts, and new college graduates may not always understand the difference between “Business casual” and “Business formal”.  But this can be easily addressed at the interview stage itself, or during orientation.  Surely, if you trust someone with shouldering their work responsibilities in your company and interacting with clients etc, you should trust them to dress appropriately?

So why do companies come up with these manuals?  Is it a control issue, or is there really an explosion of badly dressed people at work?

I am also curious about the situation in India.  Time was when women used to wear either sarees or salwars, and men used to wear a shirt, and sometimes a tie.  I’m sure things have changed now.  Do the new crop of companies have explicit, written dress codes?  Are these companies where only Western wear is allowed? (No salwars, sarees)?  What would be the rationale for such rules, if any?

1. Sarah Palin writes beautifully.  She writes much better than how she speaks or twitters.  Sample this (and all this in just page 2):

A robin’s egg sky arced overhead, the brisk kick in the air hinting at winter’s approach. Like a family conga line, we wound our way among the vendors and exhibits: from pork chops on a stick to kettle corn, veggie weigh-ins, and livestock competitions. A local dance troupe took to the stage and music blared, competing with the constant hum of generators and squealing kids on rides.

All right, the language may be a little over the top,but compare this with a few recent tweets:

Who hijacked term:”feminist”?A cackle of rads who want 2 crucify other women w/whom they disagree on a singular issue; it’s ironic (& passé3)

Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice,America.

Dr.Laura:don’t retreat…reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence”isn’t American,not fair”)

Clearly, her speeches and tweets are written by incompetent ghostwriters.  She should fire them immediately.

2.  It’s not surprising that Sarah Palin writes well, considering what a prolific reader she has been since childhood :  (page 27)

From The Pearl to Jonathan Livingston Seagull to Animal Farm and anything by C.S. Lewis, I would put down one book just long enough to pick up another. The library on Main Street was one of my summer hideaways. I wandered through the stacks, thumbing through the smalish collection as though it were a secret treasure.

3.   See that, Katie Couric?  Actually, do you know that Sarah Palin only agreed to be interviewed by Ms. Couric out of pity? (page 256)

“Katie wants people to like her,” Nicolle said. “She wants you to like her.”

Hearing all that, I almost started to feel sorry for her. Katie had tried to make a bold move from lively morning gal to serious anchor, but the new assignment wasn’t going very well.

4.  And as for the part about Putin rearing his head over Alaska?  Again, we misunderstand.  All she wanted to do was give us a geography lesson.  (page 274):

Lower 48ers grow up seeing our state tucked with Hawaii in a little square off the coast of Mexico on the nightly news weather map. So I began by trying to squeeze a geographical primer into a ten-second sound bite, explaining that only a narrow maritime border separates Alaska from Russia, that  we’re near the Pacific rim countries, and that we’re bordered by Canada.

But Katie interrupted and I did not complete my answer. I wish now I had stopped her and said, “Here’s the geographical context. Now may I answer your question?”

5.   OK, but what would she have said instead?

There was much Katie appeared not to know, or care to hear about. For instance, that Alaska’s geographic position makes our relations with Pacific Rim countries of great strategic import, and that we’re the air crossroads of the world.  That Russian bombers often play cat-and-mouse with our Air Force near Alaska’s airspace.

Indeed.

There is a lot more, and this is surely a fascinating work of fiction biography autobiography (there, I finally got that right!)

When you consider that you are getting an insight into the thinking of someone who might well become a future US  President/ Vice-President/ some kind of kingmaker, it makes for a kind of riveting reading.

Do read this book if you can get hold of it. If you can’t find it under “Non-Fiction”, try “Fiction” or “Horror”.   (Blame the book-reading, dorky, liberal librarian for misfiling it).

But perhaps women needn’t have bothered fighting for pants.  At the speed at which some of them are going, they have left pants far behind.   Perhaps the decline started a few years ago, when some women started wearing skorts to work (and everywhere else).  Skorts, of course, were  skirt+ shorts.   They didn’t look much like skirts in most cases; they were really a sneaky way of wearing shorts to work.  Some companies allow shorts to work too. Here in the midwest, I know at least one company which actually allows employees to wear shorts to work, no need to hide them as skorts.

Clearly, pant hemlines have been rising in the last several years.  But it looks like they may have risen even further now.

The harbinger of this trend must surely be Venus Williams’ outfit at the ongoing U.S. Open:

A pantless Venus Williams (Pic courtesy: Washington Post)

Clearly, fashion now dictates that both pants and skirts are obsolete.  All you need is a nightshirt.

You could dismiss this as a case of one sportswoman dressing badly.   Of course women aren’t all going to dress like that.   Of course this won’t be a trend.

But I got a little worried when the Wall Street Journal, published this rather interesting fashion forecast for the fall season :

Here are a few predictions, based on interviews and previews of collections I’ve had lately:

Dressy shorts, in.

Suits – blazers that can be mixed and matched separately with skirts, pants and shorts – also in.

Yes, they did say “shorts”, and just in case you have any doubts about how short those shorts are, here is the picture they printed with the article :

Fashion forecast by WSJ (Pic courtesy : WSJ/ Dolce & Gabbana Fall 2010)

Do you remember that belief about falling hemlines (longer skirts – and pants?) predicting a recession and rising hemlines (shorter skirts and pants) predicting a recovery?  Well, going by that, we must be in the biggest boom of all time, because I can’t see hemlines rising any further.

This fascination with fairy tale weddings is perhaps not surprising, after all, we are brought up on stories of such weddings – right from Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty to any number of princesses who kissed frogs / lived in drafty, leaky turrets / made their suitors slay dragons.

Unfortunately all our fairy tales end with the wedding.   Why is that? Is it because the story doesn’t sound anything like a fairy tale after the wedding?

Is that when the Prince discovers that Sleeping Beauty is always sleepy because she has sleep apnea and she snores?

Does Cinderella find herself firing every maid in the palace because none of them do as good a job as she used to?

Does the famously nitpicky Goldilocks get irritated every morning because her husband does not leave his toothbrush in exactly the right way in the bathroom? (Does she fire her cook because the salt in the porridge is never just right?)

Do Rapunzel and her Prince have a fight when she decides she really likes a short bob rather than those high-maintenance long tresses? Does she call him a male chauvinist and say he is worse than the Witch?

I’m trying to think of other fairy tales and how they would have really ended, if only people told the whole story.

Any other fairytale story suggestions ?

I wanted to tell him that some people would say that the lawn actually belonged to me, not to him.  I could have told him that I did have a piece of paper saying so, and that I pay an enormous sum in mortgage every month for the privilege of mowing this lawn and removing every last weed.  But I didn’t tell him anything.  For one thing, he would have probably asked me how any land can belong to an individual, a deeply philosophical question for which I have no answer.  For another, he does not understand English.  Neither do I  understand his language, which, for want of a better word, I shall call red-winged blackbirdese.

The male red-winged blackbird is a beautiful creature – those orange-red  epaulettes are especially striking (and he knows that, for he takes care to fluff them up every once in a while). He is as vain as any male model would be, and he is territorial and aggressive.  He also a hoarse cry that makes you wonder if he has chronic laryngitis.

Red winged blackbird in my garden

There was a time, not long after we built this house, when I lamented the lack of any birds in my garden.  There was just a bland green lawn in the backyard, and a few young trees here and there.  Not too many plants, certainly no butterflies, and no birds.  A few years later, the butterflies are still not too common, although there are plenty of bumblebees, honey bees, dragonflies and those pretty blue damselflies that make you wish you had your camera with you.

In time the birds have come.  The pond has its resident mallard ducks (with visiting geese, hooded mergansers, gulls and egrets).  The garden too, has its admirers -  the deep-blue necked grackles and the orange-breasted robins, there are the occasional goldfinches,  pheasants, starlings and hummingbirds. I’ve heard barred owls hoot at night and more rarely, heard a barn owl or two. But the birds I am guaranteed to see every time I step into my backyard are the red-winged blackbirds – specifically, the male blackbirds.

The females look like overgrown sparrows and if you see them at all, it’s when they are timidly hopping on the very bottom of the backyard lawn, right by the rushes, never venturing too far.  The males, though, will come right up to a  few feet away from you and pretend nonchalance.  As self-appointed sentries of our garden, they like to sit at the very top of our young, 20 foot-tall maple trees and screech at anyone who passes close to them.  Sometimes, they will even fly down to the nearest tree beside us and let us know that we are trespassing on their property.

You can see why they would write a rhyme saying “Down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose” – these blackbirds do look like they would peck my nose one day.  Still, don’t you think that nursery rhyme was unnecessarily cruel? Where was PETA and SPCA when you needed them?  They baked 420 blackbirds in a pie?  I’m only glad the birds could fly out and peck people.

We now have at least three families of blackbirds residing in our garden, none of whom, I assure you, came from any pie.  (Any pies I may make will only have blackberries, not blackbirds.)  But I still worry – only now, I worry that the blackbirds are driving away all the other birds.  In hindsight, I think when I wished for birds in my garden, perhaps I should have been a little more specific.

This week, I summoned up some outrage and went to speak to the blackbird.  “Seeyee, Conkaree“, I said in a poor imitation of its call.  “This is my lawn and I am going to weed here now.”

“Seeyee”, the blackbird replied. “You are living in my land and you don’t even bother to learn my language properly.”

At least that’s what I think he said.

They are all spam comments (of course, what else can I expect?).  Akismet correctly recognizes them nearly all the time, but occasionally, it lets a few slip by.  Maybe it knows how much I like readers’ comments (and how few of them I get).  Here’s a sample of the spam love I get, and note the .in web addresses of the authors.

Sample of Spam Love

So I wasn’t too surprised to read this article in the Hindu about how India is the second top spam generating country in the world.  This is based on a study by Sophos, and you can see the list on their website here.

Over at SpamHaus, they have a list of the top 10 worst spammers, and who do you think makes it all the way to #3?  Someone called Herbal King from India.

Pic: Spamhaus

You cannot imagine how happy it makes me to see Indians succeeding in one more IT related area.

Has any of you also noticed a sudden increase in spam-comment love on your blogs from .in websites?

My schedule  for the last few days has  looked like this:

Day 1:  Attend 1st death anniversary of uncle (it’s a kind of remembrance event which felt like a family get-together).  Meet all relatives, dine on six course feast.

Day 2:  Morning – Death anniversary ceremony of R’s grandma.  More family get-togethers,  six-course meals.  Evening:  Wedding reception of cousin’s cousin.

Day 3:  Morning- Wedding of cousin’s cousin.  Evening – Cousin’s Engagement.

I am not sure what has been planned for Day 4.   I’m sure, though, that someone is naming their new baby/ moving into a new house/celebrating their kids graduating second grade  or whatever it is they throw six-course feasts here for.

These events, though, come with their moments of peril.  Or should I say, pure hilarity.

There was, for instance, this old man who walked up to my mother in law and began a conversation.

“Are there any unmarried daughters in your house?” he asked her.  This, as we all know, is the standard manner of greeting strangers at a wedding or any other social gathering.

“No,” said my mother in law baldly.

He ignored this.  Clearly, she was bluffing.  Perhaps, he thought she was blowing him off.

“It’s not just any match,” he assured her. “I am talking about a very good guy. He works in TCS. “  He paused for effect.  “He is an MBA.  They are very seriously looking for a match for him.”

I was standiing nearby, not paying much attention.  Typical Indian scene, right?  Get three people together and soon they start discussing wedding proposals.

And then my mother in law turned to me and silently mouthed “He is talking about you.”

Oh.  A marriage proposal for me?  This was getting very interesting.

I decided to pay more attention now.  He was going on about how wonderfully good natured the guy was.  But here is what is interesting – “works abroad” never came up.  Once upon a time, you could not say “TCS” without adding “has visited US several times”.  As if what you are really looking for in a husband would be the ability to push mountains of suitcases through customs.

These days, clearly, working abroad is not that desirable ?  Or perhaps not even worth mentioning and taken for granted?

But anyway,  TCS, MBA.. sounds terrific, right?  I think I will call R tonight and ask him what he thinks of the match

Pic: Jason MacArthur

It’s always nice to read a $0 bill, and it’s too bad more companies don’t send me bills like that.  Perhaps every service I have already paid for for online should send me a $0 paper bill?  It would make my day, and certainly the USPS’s – those poor souls drive through snow and rain to deliver mostly junk marketing mails.  Delivering junk bills must count as an improvement.  There is also the advantage of reducing those pesky, CO2 emitting trees that we seem to be infested with.

But there was more to the bill – a last date to pay the $0 by, and even more considerately,  an enclosed envelope for me to send them the $0.

It was when I looked at the envelope that I felt a little disappointment – shouldn’t it have been prepaid ?