Who says “ What’s in a name?”

A longstanding problem might be solved at last. The other day my favorite English daily proclaimed that henceforth disasters would have a name. The natural ones that is. The walking ones have a name each anyway.

I was thrilled at first but a little worried when I thought about the implications a name game will have on us.

I thought over this as I fasted last night after dinner which duly ended with a breakfast this morning . Here are my politically correct and all issues- under –the-sun sensitive suggestions

*First lets stop worrying about mundane issues like warning systems , rescue and relief operations. They are for mundane guys. A high level committee , duly represented by all groups should be formed immediately.and don’t forget that 33% reservation for women in that committee.

*Any parent knows bitter wars are fought in families before deciding a name for babies .In a big joint family like India where demo is a little crazy, what’ll happen if beastly cyclones and nasty tsunamis are not named properly? I don’t know about you, but I personally cannot stand tsunamis with unacceptable names. So we’ll have a list of nice names ready. And now!

*We have to be gender sensitive. So lets give female names to all cyclones churned out by the Bay of Bengal and male names to the ones made by the Arabian sea. Any self respecting, chaddi –clad toddler in coastal India knows more cyclones are churned out by the Bay of Bengal. Much more than we can handle. But there are no known groups fighting for men’s rights [how sad] and we are not likely to have them protesting against gross under-representation.

* We have to have secular names. A certain intellectual who lives at Chennai [ and who was not washed off by the nameless tsunami of last year because she was too lazy to be a beach walker] has compiled a list of wonderful secular and some pecular .. well ..peculiar names. Sample these. Neela Sheela lola shangrila flatella, killa, tabla… the list is endless.

*Each and every one of our official , unofficial and semi official languages have to be represented. Now this could be a little sticky.
Take a classic case in October –November here. We over worked people at chennai fondly hope our low pressure zone which developed near Nagapatnam will flatten Chennai for a day resulting in a well needed holiday. But any school kid knows from experience, that nine out of ten cyclones have this unshakeable habit of moving in a west ,north- westerly direction, meaning they go straight to Andhra pradesh.
As I grew up in Chennai , then , Madras ,I have bitter memories of wayward cyclones which promised to flatten our school building but changed their beastly minds at the last minute to strike Ongole in A. P. instead. So, what do we do?

A Tamil name or a Telugu name?

Name the disasters based on their place of birth. This sounds a little unfair on our neighbors, but they would love their cyclone if it’s named , say, Malar, a nice Tamil name meaning flower.

*If you can avoid it, no non-Tamil name for a regular “Tamil” cyclone. Meaning no Sanskrit or English names , even by accident. There are folks here who’d dab a little tar on any printed or written stuff in any foreign language. They would dab a hell of a lot of bitumen on the cyclone itself but that might anger the environmentalists. So a little
no nonsense cyclone can start a lot of more serious problems. You get my drift.

*Disasters should not be given very attractive names. Else they will come back to check whether Human Community is ready with more attractive Names, On the lines of Katrina followed by Rita

*After all these thoughtful allocations, in a working democracy, there still would be a group, say, the Samosa Samrakshan Association or the all –day- no -work association which feels under represented. We’ll have to tell them we’ll name our volcanoes after them. And who says “ha, ha” there? We all thought tsunami was a Japanese term like origami same time last year. And now it’s a household name. So lets be optimistic.

Any more suggestions are welcome and now its time to end my fasting since breakfast with a hearty lunch. But before signing off I would like you to imagine how nice it would be to be gleefully chased by a tsunami named Neela [a color sensitive name] when all you wanted was a little peace and quiet in the beach.

Subasri Narendran