City Boy » desi

“What’s in a name?” my ass

Amortya Ray — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 02:22:33 +0000

Swatiji and Mr. D are the cutest couple ever. Like EVER. And Swatiji is majorly preggers at the moment. So I’m thinking that she should definitely name her first born after me. Because I’m all sorts of awesome. So the other day, I make a little drawing for her on a paper napkin and leave it in her desk drawer. It’s a shame that Swatiji decided not to know the sex of the child beforehand. So with a heavy heart, I had to bring N into the plan to assist with the female names. N, who is also responsible for some of the most scandalous and baller statements ever made in the history of scandalous and baller statements, has recently graduated from coworker status to good friend status. So I wasn’t really upset about bringing her onboard, except for the part when she stabbed me in the back. YES SHE DID. I give you exhibit A.

Exhibit A: Baby names synonymous with awesome

If you look carefully at the image above, you will notice the rather obvious water stains on the writing. And very conveniently, the water appears to have found its way more to “my side” of the page. And if that wasn’t enough, she went ahead and completely blotted my name out. As though I didn’t exist. You make me sick N.

N, THIS MEANS WAR! And Swatiji, I’m really sorry to drag you into this mess, but I present to you the top 5 reasons why you should name your child after me.

I was named after Amartya Sen, who was named by the fabulous Rabindranath Tagore himself. That’s quite an amazing legacy inherited just by virtue of the name. Tagore, obviously, needs no introduction, and Sen, a world famous economist and Harvard professor.
Both Tagore and Sen have won the Nobel Prize in Literature and Economics, respectively. It doesn’t get bigger than that. To quote a friend, that’s a life contrasted by creativity and science. And who knows what shenanigans I pull in my life.
With Obama as President, I reckon that day isn’t too far when we see a brown dude in the White House. I’d rather that the first President of the United States of Indian origin have a classy, majestic sounding name like Amortya/Amartya. And it means immortal. The POTUS which by itself it supremely badass job title and as we all know is a path strewn with life threatening situations. Hence, a name that quite literally translates to immortal would definitely bode better than a name that means love or rain. Politics is not a joke. As leader of the free world, the POTUS needs a name that inspires people to hope for a better future and strikes fear into the hearts of the bad guys. Sadly, “Neha” just doesn’t do it for me (no pun intended).
Swatiji, surely you’re worried how a name like Amortya would work if it’s a girl? I would be too. I should inform you that back in college, for an entire semester, my engineering drawing professor called me Amruta/Amrita. Hence, these are acceptable variations of my name, and I would not be offended if you chose these names for the munchkin. I hate to bring it up, but a name like Neha doesn’t have any President-worthy variations. Just saying.
I’m an amazing namesake to have. I’m kind, charming and a wonderful person. I was more than willing to include N’s suggestions in my list. That was before my trust was betrayed. My trust AND yours. Surely you don’t want your first born to be named after a backstabber like that? Tell tell?

So Swatiji, I rest my case. The ball is now in your court.

As I step out of CSIA

Amortya Ray — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:13:06 +0000

And turn on my iPhone, I am welcomed to my motherland with this wonderful text message.

$20/MB- thanks, but I'll pass!

Boss, Andheri kaunse side pe aayega?

Amortya Ray — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:23:20 +0000

For the clueless, the title of this post refers to the ubiquitous line every train traveler in Bombay should have uttered at least once in their lifetime. Roughly translated it means, “Dude, on what side of the train is the platform gonna be?”.

Yes, I’m visiting my parents, sister and grandmum in Bombay, India after nearly 2 years. And the experience has been, well, mixed. As I exited the airport after haggling with the customs officer, a ferocious blast of heat hits me. Ah! The advantages of living in a tropical country. I went from subzero temperatures to absolute sweltering heat. On the bright side, I had some delicious butter chicken awaiting me as I got home! Yum!

A few thoughts on my first day in the motherland.

A massive infrastructure project in the city has pretty much resulted in all of the suburb roads being dug up. Yes, ALL OF IT! A direct consequence of it is that it quadruples the time taken to travel any distance. The ride from my parents’ home to the train station, which typically takes less than half an hour, yesterday, took over an hour.
Which brings me to my second observation. Whoever thought that it was a brilliant idea to put LCD screens in the mass transit buses, needs to be strung up upside down and flogged to death. I was holding my throbbing head to stop the unbearable pain. And the producer who came up with the ridiculous programs/commercials that are aired, needs to be buried. Alive.
The general population seems to have a complete disregard for any kind of nasal hygiene. People simply stuck their index fingers into their noses and shagged it with the joy akin to jerking off.
I also visited the home of my most favorite person in the whole world. My drama teacher from when I was a kid. Unfortunately, she was out. So I had to contend with leaving a hastily scribbled note with my Mum’s telephone number, because as ridiculous as it sounds, I couldn’t remember my own phone number.
I have also started immunizing my body with a variety of scrumptious delicacies from the streets of Bombay. Nimbu pani, chicken frankie, samosa, vada pav, dabeli, roadside chinese food, topped with maaza. Slurp!

This was just day 1. Stay tuned for more of my India shenanigans.

Fobby Mommy

Amortya Ray — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:35:48 +0000

If my Mum was an immigrant to the US, she’d be the biggest FOB you’ll ever know. I speak to her once in about 2-3 weeks usually over chat. Now there are times when her lack of technology-awareness saves my ass and times when it makes me pull my hair out. God alone knows the number of times I’ve forgotten to clear history before logging out after surfing the back alleys of the Internets. Now you might ask- why not set the browser to clear the cache/history each time it opens? Because my Mum would go crazy when she discovers that Google no longer shows up in her address bar’s drop down list. I’d be accused of breaking her computer, not knowing what I’m doing (YES! This after having two degrees in Computer Science), be this close to being disowned, disavowed and disinherited.

Now those times when I’m chatting with my Mum, I find it rather amusing to find her invent her own quirky dialect for the web. Its a hybrid between the IM acronyms and texting, with its own distinct flavor of fobbiness. Over the past 3 years, since I moved to the US, I’ve noticed how my Mum’s chat language has evolved. A peculiarity I must mention is her ability to drop random letters from words, and expect me to fully understand her acronyms. Bking htl rms, cking dnr, eatng out, rdng email, lkng gifts, byng tkts and prprng dnr.

Indian parents also have a rather strange habit of dropping nouns, verbs and articles from sentences as they please. Not to mention asking the most random questions ever. My darling mother is no exception.

(My Google Talk status message is set to a sad smiley) Mum: Agni, what is that mess.? Change it. It looks like a sad face.

Mum: Don’t take too much coffee. I have heard too much cocaine is not good.

Mum: Hi Agni. Me: Hi. Mum: Where are you? Are you home? Me: Umm.. yeah?

Mum: Hi Agni. Are you thr? Me: (Not responding because I don’t want to talk) Mum: Helllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Mum: Can you cum on mic? She means login on Skype.

Mum: My cellphone you send is gsm as well as cdma compatible? Me: I don’t know. Mum: Ok. It is written WCDMA.

Mum: something happened in our comp….skype icon has vanished!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having said all of that, I must add that my Mum makes the meanest Biryani and Butter Chicken in all of the Indian Subcontinent. Regardless of how fobby she is, I love her.