In the news

The first step to get noticed is to get mentioned. And that's exactly what's happened today.

After 23 months, 65 published posts and two dozen unpublished/rejected drafts www.scorpiogenius.com managed to make itself printed on India's national newspaper.

The Hindu, Metro Plus, Trivandrum, 22/10/2009

Such blogs, however, are notoriously difficult to write and considered quite boring by many netizens. Not to mention they have to be as accurate as possible. Anish Sahadevan, a male nurse who blogs as ‘scorpiogenius,’ opines that blogs still speak a hypophonic tone in India, unlike in the United States where they are parallel to mainstream media and as powerful and influential as the traditional press. “Most development blogs appear a tad dull for the majority. A small example is in my blog itself. According to my Google Analytics the most read articles on my blog are the three posts I wrote about films and movie stars! It takes considerable time and effort to draft posts like the Vizhinjam project but it still hasn’t got half the clicks the article on Mohanlal got. Still there is a surge in the interest generated by development blogs and forums, a sure sign of a change in the attitude of the populace.” he says.

Featuring on The Hindu, even if it was on a regional supplement  is a great shot in the arm for a simple human being like me, a wild-card entrant to the social blogosphere. This is a sure encouragement to go the extra mile when drafting new posts, oh but surely I don't possess any delusions of grandiosity. More commitment to blogging? Yes, the last thing now you want is to go down like a lead balloon after getting  first hand evidence that blogs and social forums could actually make a difference (in a big way at least in the future).

Now isn't this what I've always been hoping for?

Proud and delighted to find myself  amidst fellow bloggers from different corners of the world but possessing a common factor, Trivandrum. To Nikhil Narayanan (Bangalore), Brahmaprakash Narayanan (USA), Nishanth Nair (Australia) and the one-and-only Ajay Prasad, with special thanks to Nita Satyendran, Sub-Editor, The Hindu, Trivandrum.

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Trivandrum, please

How many of you have an idea about how Kerala capital Thiruvananthapuram a.k.a Trivandrum is being abused the world over? You can shrug, you can frown, you can whinge, you can rofl, or you can do a bit of all these but just go through my experience about the 'international' abuse of my hometown taking place every single day, every single minute on every single continent in the sphere.

image courtesy Rajith Mohan

The tale started with my receiving of my IATA flight ticket where it was printed that I'm travelling from Dublin to Thiruvananthapu... Yes, to Thiruvananthapu, ending in a 'pu' as in Pappu. I think there was also a hyphen (-) after the 'pu', possibly to indicate that the name extends furthur into the outer space.

The name grew a tad more to 'Thiruvananthapura' on my printed ticket I received through e-mail. Not so bad, 'pura' more or less deploys the same meaning. But something tells me that I'm missing something again.

After landing on the swanky new Terminal in Abu Dhabi I started scanning the information screens to locate my Gate for the Trivandrum flight. And here goes! Gate 11 for the 2245 flight to Thiruvananthapu... Again! Anyway the boarding pass was not so irritating as they chose the easier method, AUH to TRV. Simple enough. No torture there.

The real ill-treatment occured in the air when the First Officer was briefing about the flight details. The apparently Eastern European gentleman had no idea where he was flying and was consistently addressing Trivandrum in as many ways as he liked. During the flight the Captain took over and it was even more hilarious, the suave lady carried on announcing that they had now initiated descent into Trivandrapuram! Classical Anglo-mallu name for my city and the first time I'm coming across this.

Whatever, I dont intend to ridicule her. She knew what she was saying better than the lad beside her who was absolutely in the middle of the Pacific. Still both would fail the Std I  fill-in-the-blank test for "Capital of Kerala" question.

I don't know who is to blame here but lets for easy-sake blame it on the Karunakaran Govt who decided to do away with the anglicized names for Kerala locales. A sudden upsurge of patriotism I believe, but is the Govt recognizing the way the world is screwing our place-names? At least the Brits saved the slaughter of my hometown for half-a-century from these travel personnel and tourists.

Leave the foreigners, our own Northie countrymen have their own ways when dealing with Trivandrum. I've seen it spelled Trivendrum many many times and pronounced Thrivendhrum. So those who have a compulsive habit of making mistakes will find a way to commit them, either way.

I fail to see the sense of purpose behind such a move especially because mostly it is the Govt Departments and establishments that name the place as they fancy. I bet you still can find Trivandrum being typed on GoK official documents. Technopark likes to go with Trivandrum, even on their official website. In TIA or Trivandrum Int'l Airport you can easily find both names inside and outside the Terminal. The Indian Railways too indulge in this name-hop. They have huge boards screaming Thiruvananthapuram Central while their LCD Display TVs welcome you to Trivandrum. Many trains also carry the Trivandrum (and sometimes Trivendrum)tags  on coaches in an as-when-comfortable basis.

I'm one among the many millions of Keralaites who think Trivandrum is much more suited for the recognition of our city on a global platform. It may appear childish and trivial, but these small things do count. Even our MP Dr. Shashi Tharoor thinks so, look at the snapshot of his Tweet a few months back. Personally I don't gel with Ananthapuri, but Dr. Tharoor's idea is right on track.  We don't want to see our city screwed left, right, center and on the air by every passing Dick, do we?

I did a bit of research about the longest placenames in the world and voila! Look whoz appearing! Our own Thiruvananthapuram, right up there among the 13 elite places in the world with a hyper-extended nameboard! You happy, or?

Check out this Wikipedia link if you don't believe me. 


Still T-h-i-r-u-v-a-n-a-n-t-h-a-p-u-r-a-m stands pretty when compared to some of the tongue-freezing Polish place names I came acorss. How about Krzeczkowo Szepielaki? A village in  Ostrow Mazowiecki district in Poland! You think it's the worst? Then try Szczedrohoszcze and Zienowszczyzna.

But thank heavens my home is not in Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu, the official record holder for such interminable names. Hold on, the name above is actually a shorter version for the original name 
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatah! 

Well oh well, lets go home now...

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