Gotcha? Dont worry, I'm not into poetry now. Nor am I babbling about the golden old song. That was the name of an apartment complex in Bangalore...! Not finished; here are some more 'wonderful' improvised names the same company invented for their other housing projects: ''Green is the colour" , "Windmills of your mind" , "Reach for the sky" and many more!
I guess this is what they meant by "the difference" in their website..lol..
To be honest I've come across even more ridiculous names in the Kerala house-building scenario, not to mention the names of individuals themselves. Yours truly is a classic example. When my mother filled out my name in the Registration form she thought it would be a good idea to include both her name as well as my dad's name as initials.. So I ended up with my dad in the middle & her name as my last name.
The embarrassment started when I reached Europe, where your last name is considered to be the official name. So I'm now Mr. + my mom's name...The local Europeans doesn't have a clue about the joke of it, thank God, but it is a real torture in Airports and places with fellow mallus, when I'm addressed that way.
I didn't hide my anger and frustration at my poor mummy, and she seems more upset now..Imagine a man being called Mr. Philomena or Mr. Ambujakshi....well, thats what it is for me now. Poor me...:(
Not a lone tale ok, this is the case with many Kerala boys... heheheee some joy atlast, seeing more people in trouble..:)
Another common naming joke was a meiosis of the parent's names..Say for eg Lalitha & Murali will have their son named Lamu...and daughter? Check yourself...
But there are miraculous exceptions too. The best illustration is my own sweetheart. Her name is a chemistry between the first 3 atoms of each of her parent's names. But it is one of the most beautiful names you can come across...it can mean 'love' or 'music'.
Back to apartments, when I was on a shopping spree for my piece of moon, one of the conditions I had(secretly) was the name of my apartment complex. May be my ego, born out of the knowledge that I will be receiving an already christened home, but I wanted my apartment to bear a decent name. And some of the builders seemed to be on a competition to vulgarize their own projects.
Some of the efforts remind me of an old Priyadarshan movie, narrating the hero Mohanlal's toils to open a biscuit company in his mother's name...ie Dakshayani Biscuits. The movie ends with the opening of the factory but we could guess very well how many biscuits he would've sold. Selling milk in the brandname 'Cockroach' made more sense...
When one builder in Delhi named their project 'Utopia', another one retaliated by announcing their apartment 'Thuglak'! By the name of God, didn't someone tell them what Thuglakistan represents?
Another major Bangalore builder found the British city names so attractive that they adorned all the blocks of their township project after English towns & counties.
Well, Keralites at least seemed to know how to name an apartment. The traditional mile long family names like 'Valiyapeedikayil' , 'Marathakkaraveettil' et al which have created a tongue-twister effect all over the globe,(except Kerala) are slowly starting to fade away with the advent of apartment culture. Those highrise havens proudly bear some strongly anglicized names, for instance Riviera Retreat(for the rhyme lovers), Willow Heights, Alpine Terrain and some posh posh names...
Nothing but a tactic to lure poor open-mouthed localites and NRIs, who will think those foreign names mean something biiiiiiiiiig...and posh...That's the impact!
There are also a few 'traditionalists' who come up with sweet aesthetic names like 'Anugraha', 'Indradhanus', 'Tejas' and 'Sooryaprabha'. It appears as if the name must yield many clues about the project, like its location, quality and so on... Apartments around Technopark in Trivandrum & Infopark in Cochin seem to be all in the Cyberspace. You have 'Cyber Palms', 'Silicon Valley', 'Blue Chip', 'Info-City' and even 'Abacus' all around these Tech parks. Waterfront projects also seem easy to identify with a 'water' tag accompanying them...like 'Waterscapes' , 'Blue Lagoon' , 'Lakeview' and 'Aqua Gardens'. So far so good...
The builder I zoomed in had a very judicious idea. He named his six-block apartment project after the world famous elite universities in the US. I actually doesn't fancy the Western names, but Ivy League now appears a stately enough name for the township and 'Sylvania' cute enough for the block.(Kudos! They had the common sense to edit out the únnecessary part from 'Pennysylvania University'!)
Skyline Ivy League
Well, whats in a name, you may ask. But I don't think you will be a happy man calling your house 'Thuglak'.
PS: A word about my own web pseudonym; scorpiogenius. Thanks to my wife who suggested a combi...after many failed attempts to procure an e-name. After discarding 'scorpioboy' & 'scorpioman', she suggested the present name. Me the 'scorpio' and herself the 'genius'! well...no comments...bcoz she reads my posts. She has also landed in blogosphere, recently, so I must act the good boy.
