The Importance of Being Hari Sadu
Not so long ago, Circa April 1983 AD, something happened that changed the course of my life forever.
I was born.
As is an obvious ritual among most Hindu families, there was a naming ceremony held for the then-new born kid, whose parents were hoping that he'd be the apple of their eye. The apple, it turned out, had lots of maggots in it, and parts of it were rotten.
The kid was named twelve days after he was born, after his paternal grandfather's brother. This summary ritual was followed by the ear-piercing that made the child holler uncontrollably, though he was able to use these piercings later on in life as footage to put on ear-rings for being 'hep' and to unsuccessfully impress 'womans' and all that.
Technically, he was supposed to have been named after his grampaw (Dad's dad), but if his father had followed the rule, then everyone in the immediate family would have had a torrid time differentiating between kids that had the same name or some permutation or combination or modification of that particular name. Plus, it (the name, I mean) had been taken already.
Prudence followed.
The kid's father then decided on naming the child after his father's brother because he (the kid's paternal grandpa's brother) did not have any children of his own.
Some people would consider it unfortunate that he did not have any children, because he was and his wife (my favourite grandma) still is among the most awesome examples of human beings to have walked on this earth.
An optimistic school of thought, propounded by a wise boy led to a statement being made about how it is disastrous to even attempt to improve on perfection, and hence the matter of their not having children was summarily laid to rest once and for all.
For those still bewildered, that kid being spoken about is yours truly.
Having a name that is quite a mouthful was something I had been accustomed to forever. Plus the fact that its not a straightforward common name (when seen in full) led to a lot of mispronunciations, some of them quite outrageously funny, including one which made me sound like an explosive, and one more which made it sound like my name was directly derived from the scientific name of the common mulberry-leaf-munching silkworm.
There has also been an instance of a school teacher attempting to commit Hari-kiri....oops, I mean Harakiri with my name, leading to entertaining verbal jousting between her and me, and the emergence of my insolent side , and consequent low marks in my Hindi tests and exams.
After giving up on numerous attempts that a lot of inquisitive people have had regarding the origin of my name, and telling people that I am not a Bong or an Oriya person, and having to explain my roots, I finally gave in to temptation and have been cooking up stories about where I come from ever since.
If you've guessed where I come from, you're right. 100 percent. I assure you.
Cut to 2005 AD when Naukri dot com comes up with this advertisement ridiculing the name Hari. They could've picked up pretty much every other name, and an obvious choice would have been Raj or Vijay, given Bollywood's propensity towards naming heroes with such names.
Seriously, its going to be a frigging cold day in hell before the leading people in Bollywood will all, without exception have names that are more unusual like Ajatashatru or Dheerendra or Ramanujam and all that. Bollywood names must be popular north-Indian types names with a maximum of two syllables.
In any case, the ad that was out was funny, it did two things. It catapulted naukri dot com's recall status to a very high level, and a lot of people were talking about that ad for a long time. The second thing was that the advertisement had long-term serious repercussions on a varied host of people most of them named Hari, and some of these outcomes have been quite funny.
I am not sure if this is an urban legend or not, but some school kid apparently sued the job site for having made him the butt of jokes in school, and the teachers did not spare him either. So our poor other Hari sends a court petition and the entire IT industry, that already frequents the jobsite and knows the site layout like their intranet portal, if not better, chance upon this email forward and it does the rounds all over the place.
As one can imagine, I got this forward sent many times over, with me too being invited to join the defamation suit bandwagon and ride on their gravy train.
One of the other really funny outcomes of the ad was my old man actually saving my name as Hari Sadu on his cellphone. Yup, its true. I've not been a good kid, apparently.
Sometimes I thank my lucky stars for not having been born 10 years later, or else the kid might have been me. I have seen and heard enough not-so-nice things being said about me to know that everyone else is screwed in the head and that I am as normal as normal can be. Low self esteem is a myth dispelled by two years of work in the IT industry. Things might have been different had I been 12 or 13 years old instead.
The ad has been so powerful in giving me footage as well. A day trip to the Namdroling and Sera monastries in Bylakuppe led me to this Tibetan restaurant called Olive. The proprietor of the place was a nice chap named Tsering, who chanced upon us in a talkative mood and rambled on, entertaining us with tales of trekking and Dharmasald and all. After settling the bill, when we were about to leave, we traded visiting cards, and our man looked at my visiting card and started off, 'H for.., A for....' . It still is quite funny.
Instant recall in Bylakuppe guaranteed if I ever want to thulp the best fried momos south of Dharmasala, thanks to the naukri ad.
Orkut (if you don't know what this is, congratulations. I swear.) has this community that I was invited to join, which was called 'all Haris of world', where every other donkey named Hari who was on the site was probably present.
They have these absurd community posts such as 'Hari's favourite colour', 'Hari's favourite actress', 'Hari's most compatible sun-sign', 'Hari's favourite ballet dancer', 'Hari's preferred brand of underwear', 'Hari's favourite position from the Kamasutra' and all that jazz.
Not being a part of the community, I am not sure what havoc that ad might have caused among those morons that I have been unfortunate to have shared my name with, but it will be excruciatingly funny to follow up on, nevertheless.
For all its worth it, I think the ad is a brilliant one. Instant recall and powerful message.
All the people in the world with access to this ad, put up your hands and shout out......H for.....
What the hell, as comments, come out with your own versions. I am sure you're quite the budding creative geniuses.
Be bold, post anonymously :)
I was born.
As is an obvious ritual among most Hindu families, there was a naming ceremony held for the then-new born kid, whose parents were hoping that he'd be the apple of their eye. The apple, it turned out, had lots of maggots in it, and parts of it were rotten.
The kid was named twelve days after he was born, after his paternal grandfather's brother. This summary ritual was followed by the ear-piercing that made the child holler uncontrollably, though he was able to use these piercings later on in life as footage to put on ear-rings for being 'hep' and to unsuccessfully impress 'womans' and all that.
Technically, he was supposed to have been named after his grampaw (Dad's dad), but if his father had followed the rule, then everyone in the immediate family would have had a torrid time differentiating between kids that had the same name or some permutation or combination or modification of that particular name. Plus, it (the name, I mean) had been taken already.
Prudence followed.
The kid's father then decided on naming the child after his father's brother because he (the kid's paternal grandpa's brother) did not have any children of his own.
Some people would consider it unfortunate that he did not have any children, because he was and his wife (my favourite grandma) still is among the most awesome examples of human beings to have walked on this earth.
An optimistic school of thought, propounded by a wise boy led to a statement being made about how it is disastrous to even attempt to improve on perfection, and hence the matter of their not having children was summarily laid to rest once and for all.
For those still bewildered, that kid being spoken about is yours truly.
Having a name that is quite a mouthful was something I had been accustomed to forever. Plus the fact that its not a straightforward common name (when seen in full) led to a lot of mispronunciations, some of them quite outrageously funny, including one which made me sound like an explosive, and one more which made it sound like my name was directly derived from the scientific name of the common mulberry-leaf-munching silkworm.
There has also been an instance of a school teacher attempting to commit Hari-kiri....oops, I mean Harakiri with my name, leading to entertaining verbal jousting between her and me, and the emergence of my insolent side , and consequent low marks in my Hindi tests and exams.
After giving up on numerous attempts that a lot of inquisitive people have had regarding the origin of my name, and telling people that I am not a Bong or an Oriya person, and having to explain my roots, I finally gave in to temptation and have been cooking up stories about where I come from ever since.
If you've guessed where I come from, you're right. 100 percent. I assure you.
Cut to 2005 AD when Naukri dot com comes up with this advertisement ridiculing the name Hari. They could've picked up pretty much every other name, and an obvious choice would have been Raj or Vijay, given Bollywood's propensity towards naming heroes with such names.
Seriously, its going to be a frigging cold day in hell before the leading people in Bollywood will all, without exception have names that are more unusual like Ajatashatru or Dheerendra or Ramanujam and all that. Bollywood names must be popular north-Indian types names with a maximum of two syllables.
In any case, the ad that was out was funny, it did two things. It catapulted naukri dot com's recall status to a very high level, and a lot of people were talking about that ad for a long time. The second thing was that the advertisement had long-term serious repercussions on a varied host of people most of them named Hari, and some of these outcomes have been quite funny.
I am not sure if this is an urban legend or not, but some school kid apparently sued the job site for having made him the butt of jokes in school, and the teachers did not spare him either. So our poor other Hari sends a court petition and the entire IT industry, that already frequents the jobsite and knows the site layout like their intranet portal, if not better, chance upon this email forward and it does the rounds all over the place.
As one can imagine, I got this forward sent many times over, with me too being invited to join the defamation suit bandwagon and ride on their gravy train.
One of the other really funny outcomes of the ad was my old man actually saving my name as Hari Sadu on his cellphone. Yup, its true. I've not been a good kid, apparently.
Sometimes I thank my lucky stars for not having been born 10 years later, or else the kid might have been me. I have seen and heard enough not-so-nice things being said about me to know that everyone else is screwed in the head and that I am as normal as normal can be. Low self esteem is a myth dispelled by two years of work in the IT industry. Things might have been different had I been 12 or 13 years old instead.
The ad has been so powerful in giving me footage as well. A day trip to the Namdroling and Sera monastries in Bylakuppe led me to this Tibetan restaurant called Olive. The proprietor of the place was a nice chap named Tsering, who chanced upon us in a talkative mood and rambled on, entertaining us with tales of trekking and Dharmasald and all. After settling the bill, when we were about to leave, we traded visiting cards, and our man looked at my visiting card and started off, 'H for.., A for....' . It still is quite funny.
Instant recall in Bylakuppe guaranteed if I ever want to thulp the best fried momos south of Dharmasala, thanks to the naukri ad.
Orkut (if you don't know what this is, congratulations. I swear.) has this community that I was invited to join, which was called 'all Haris of world', where every other donkey named Hari who was on the site was probably present.
They have these absurd community posts such as 'Hari's favourite colour', 'Hari's favourite actress', 'Hari's most compatible sun-sign', 'Hari's favourite ballet dancer', 'Hari's preferred brand of underwear', 'Hari's favourite position from the Kamasutra' and all that jazz.
Not being a part of the community, I am not sure what havoc that ad might have caused among those morons that I have been unfortunate to have shared my name with, but it will be excruciatingly funny to follow up on, nevertheless.
For all its worth it, I think the ad is a brilliant one. Instant recall and powerful message.
All the people in the world with access to this ad, put up your hands and shout out......H for.....
What the hell, as comments, come out with your own versions. I am sure you're quite the budding creative geniuses.
Be bold, post anonymously :)
posted by Hari Shenoy @ 11:54 PM
5 Comments:
Oh. No.
I don't believe this.
My sister calls you Hari Sadu every time you're online :)
That said, I will now proceed to peruse the actual post...
It should read "kid's father's father's brother", Oh shenoy.
Or even "kid's father's father's brother".
I'm not particular...
That said, I must say I never thought about this at all, though I have had ample proof of the instant recall value through the means of my sister. (and I know two Haris. for shame)
My sincerest sympathies :)
hey hari, nice post.. have never seen the AD you are referring to.. thnks to the inaccessability to the IDIOT Box.. but my collegues say its a nice one.. cant wait to chk it out.. :)
me no have televison.me so cool.popular culture no longer applies to me.up yours.
its better than having the commonest frigging possible name!when i wrote my board exams there was an entire classroom who shared my name.life sucks!
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