Name change politics for dummies…

A few months ago the Indian government passed a constitutional amendment to rename the state of Orissa to Odisha and its language Oriya to Odisha. It may sound like a profound change but there have been many such name changes in India. It is a popular stunt to gain political mileage. Yesterday I found the secret, yet unpublished edition of “Indian politics for dummies” book and here I present to you an extract on City/State name alteration for dummies:

(If your city name has c in it, simply replace c with k and start from step 3)

STEP 1:

Find an obscure but Indian sounding name which a very small (0.0001%) minority of Indians and no foreigner will be able to properly pronounce.

TIP: Make it sound like the final word on spelling bee show.

Sir Sagar Godbole

“In the grandest ever ceremony held last night, Sagar Godbole  was knighted for his invaluable service to mankind in taking the very noble art of cracking extremely inappropriate and  mistimed lame jokes to far greater heights and shall henceforth be called Sir Sagar Godbole.”

Well, hold your horses, don’t start buying me those expensive congratulatory gifts just yet. This is just a hypothetical scenario as of now because owing to their usual lethargy, Her Majesty’s Government hasn’t yet recognised my valuable services (and also because iPad 2 isn’t in the market yet… hehe)

I began wondering about the issue of titles when I registered for an UCAS id. While most forms have the usual Mr/Ms/Mrs/Dr options for “title”, UCAS not only has a dropdown list but also so many options that is scrollable! Take a look at the screenshot below…

Apart from the those visible in the screenshot the list also includes titles like Baron, Baroness, Duke, Duchess, Viscount and various military ranks.

In getting rid of our colonial rulers we also have also gotten rid of this wonderful system of titles and peerages. I am not denying that medieval Dukes and Barons were the 1600s version of today’s Kim Jong Il and that hereditary peerages are extremely unfair because they give you a title because of parents. My point is “who cares about what happened in middle ages?”. Today all the peerages knighthoods (the right to call yourself Sir/Dame Something Something) granted are life-peerages which cannot be inherited and Furthermore, the Queen only symbolically confers the title. The recipients are selected by the democratically elected incumbent government. Hence, today these are no different than civilian honours awarded by other governments, just a lot cooler.

It is incontrovertible that despite whatever alleged negative historical connotations the British honours might have they still sound a lot cooler than the honours awarded by other countries, be it ‘Bharat Ratna’ in India or ‘Order of Temasek’ (Darjah Utama Temasek) in Singapore primarily because these honours do not confer any title.

While these honours do give a monetary award to the recipient, by not conferring a title, they fail in their stated aim of providing recognition for the person for his/her service to the community or nation. Hardly anybody knows that Sunderlal Bahuguna has won the second highest civilian honour in India. It is a telling sign that while most teenagers in India and Singapore do not know who has been conferred national honours in their own countries, they are very well aware that an arrogant scotsman has been knighted for his services to football.

Hence, while I do not advocate returning to the British honours system, I do think that titles should be included with all national honours because only a title and its regular use by the media can bring true “recognition” for the person being honoured. I am sure that medieval India had a lot of titles too. I suggest let us bring out nawab, sardar, mansabdar as life peerages, just without any land grants this time. Nawab Sagar Godbole sounds awesome too, doesn’t it?

The end … the beginning…

Today was the last day of A levels, the last day of Junior College. As much as it is a joyous occasion, it marks the end of certainty and the beginning of a longish period of uncertainty. I wore a school uniform for the last time today. For the last four years I atleast knew whats up next. Today, I have no idea where will I be this time next year or what will I be doing. Friends who are family right now will almost certainly be several time zones away, across the proverbial seven seas. It shall be almost an entirely new life in university...

However, before that lie the holidays and that is where a blog comes in. I have decided to join the ranks of the self-declared pundits with the license to unleash upon the world comeletely unsolicited opinions and social commentary on absolutely anything and everything, real or imagined. Once I go back to India, I shall have slightly more free time over the holidays and so I plan to blog at least twice a week. I have heard a range of opinions on blogging, from "Go ahead and good luck!" to "Sad to see you join the ranks of attention seeking self-obsessed idiots." I shall just blog about what I feel and what I think about what is happening to me and around me, and see what kind of blog it turns out to be. Feel free to read and comment viciously to criticise or flatter me. I plan to sync this to FB Notes as well so you can also comment there if you so wish.

As for today, I am just happy to be bidding adieu to the torturous A level syllabi. Life is now going to be sane again. I shall now-

1. go back to thinking that "attack of nucleophiles" is a sci-fi movie.
2. again associate the word "curves" with attractive figure rather than monstrosities like asymptotes, tangents, stationary points, normals etc. (By the way, I think calling something 'normal' is a cunning math teacher's attempt at humanising their inexplicable abnormal subject)
3. define a wave the kindergarten way - moving left to right an outstretched palm as a greeting or good bye! (screw you de broglie!)
4. forget all the difficult to pronounce and spell, quantum and nuclear physicists like de Broglie, Shrodinger and Heisenburg or was it Hiesenberg ... (forgetting already, YAY!)

Thats that... The first post is up! More shall follow…   :-)