Saturday, June 18, 2011

Being Varghese

'War geese' sounds as close to quack-quack as 'war horse' does to a brave compliment. That quackish word dear friends, is one of the many colorful ways in which the butt-end of my name gets pronounced. Achtung!: This is an egopost. Please exit now if allergic.


And I'm not alone :). Varghese/ Verghese/ Vergis/ Vargis including its close siblings Varkey/ Verkey/ and Geevarghese are very popular christian names in malluland.


Free Mallu-gyan: We Keralites have an interesting mutation in our genes that makes us migrate to the gulf ('gelf') and the US of A ('stayits'). Those who get the lazier strands (like me) end up somewhere in between (the distance from malluland being inversely proportional to the laziness of that particular gene). So, mathematically, those with the laziest variety of that gene remain in Gods own Country ('goads own cundree') where the national passion is to wake up every election term and switch the ruling govt. from the Left to Right or vice-versa and then go back to zzz.. 

Well, the point I was trying to make is that thanks to that gene, Vargheses could be found scattered across the planet. See?
Two authors have recently tried to protagonize Varghese. Sidin Vadukut through Dork and Mathew Vincent Menachery through Arrack in the Afternoon. I've read both of 'em curious to know how they twisted their Vargheses. Both are funny and don't claim to be literary masterpieces or anything. One thing they both did manage to portray was a mysterious attraction that their protagonist Vargheses had to the spirits in the bottle.


More Free Mallu-gyan:  Rotund mallus vie for the 'highest consumption of alcohol in india' spot and usually win against the state of Punjab with all those burly warriors!
(Dude: On the rocks?

Strange-Mallu: Yes, Coke please.
Dude: 'You're a mallu and you don't drink!!! Stupefying, petrifying, terrifying!')


As any normal netizen would; I typed in varghese and hit the search button. Earlier it used to tell me 'did you mean vargas' or something like that which gave it an Italian twist, but nowadays it points to a blog post by another Varghese who ("
Not Italian" he says and definitely nothing to do with the Borghese family. Sigh!) places V's origins closer to 'geese', quack-quack - Turkey to be precise. It seems folks there have/ have had Geewargis as their names. Hmm... but that sounds american to me: "gee! war-geese!". Anyways; if you dig further down the roots, you'll apparently find a George down there! Excavate a bit more? you'd find Greek! - γεωργος = 'Georgos' which means earth-worker (aka- farmer). Dig any further and I suspect you'll reach the molten core.


Enlightenment! So George, Geese, Turkey, Varghese, Geewargis, Greeks, farmers and the molten core are all connected! That noted and having killed your otherwise productive time, this is Varghese signing off. Light headed.


PS: Unlike what the search engine would like you to believe, 'Mallu' NOT = sleaze. 'Mallu' = native of a land where Malayalam is the language spoken... atleast that's what it used to be when Apple was just a fruit and gay was happy!

Monday, June 13, 2011

West is West

"OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..." - Rudyard Kipling.


Well, they just did on celluloid! Sunday evening, I watched the movie West is West, the sequel to East is East and I quite liked it!


Strangely, while East is East was set in the west, West is West is set in the east: a village in Pakistan. Rudyard Kipling's classic -Kim also makes a entree in the movie. What I liked was its non-judgemental portrayal of difficult relationships, coming of age, accepting and finding acceptance. The wry wit intrinsically woven into the characters and the plot was also charming. Om Puri as Jehangir 'George' and the rest of the cast play their parts pretty well. While there was something that felt slightly fairy tale-ish... I wouldn't dream complaining. Well, whats a movie without some twists, eh!


If I were in the business of giving stars, I'd give West is West 4 out of 5.


Interesting Links: 
1. The Ballad of East and West, Rudyard Kipling
2. Free e-Book, Kim, on Project Gutenberg