Thursday, October 2, 2008
What’s in a last name?
A lot, of course. In India, last name signifies religion, caste, community, place of birth, place of ancestors, hometown, occupation, and more. Among people of my generation, last name is largely irrelevant, along with any differences and preconceived notions that go along with it. That is, telling first name in introducing yourself informally is acceptable and last name is not demanded. Not so in dealing with adults outside globalized corporate world. I am constantly asked to complete my name when I introduce myself as Ashish to others, say to, government officials, shop keepers, colleagues of my dad, etc. My inability to do so in the first place and reaction of surprise show how different that idea is to world which I typically inhabit, and how important is to people outside. Not that all those demand last name are biased, yet it is important to them to completely place a face and personality to a name.
Book Review - Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy (2003)
I can say, with some modesty, that I am familiar with the subject of mathematics more than an average person is. Despite that I hadn’t ever ...
-
One of the option on Orkut for describing your looks is "mirror cracking material". I always wondered if it's extreme on posi...
-
How do you fight an enemy who is not afraid of dying and instead covets death? How do you yield or reason with with enemy whose only deman...
-
There is an old saying which goes something like this: great people discuss ideas, good people discuss incidents, ordinary people discuss pe...