What is in a name? Well, I don’t know but I can tell you what’s in a number.
A long time back, someone once told me that my shoe size and my IQ are the same. Since at that time I didn’t know much about the IQ scale, I thought she was complementing me and I graciously replied, “Oh thank you and yes, I do wear a big shoe. Thank u for noticing!!!” J
Later when I became a bit more worldly wise, I unwittingly realized that these two numbers, head and toe apart, does not really amount to a complement when said in the same breath.
Again on numbers, I work in a number crunching job so I have frequent mental battles on a daily basis in converting billions into crores and vice versa. And some times, the results are revolutionary. I’m not alone with this talent- in my office, there’s another dude who holds the unenviable distinction of changing billion dollar companies into million dollar ones and vice versa in his reports (which are coincidently not too well received J). And the outcomes of my mathematical background (or rather, the lack of) are not exactly, very career friendly. And after some career defining moves of such nature, I have come to realize that there is a big deal in numbers – those extra zeros at the end does somehow seem to add up to something.
So back to the main topic - what about a name? Well as we all know, Shakespeare doesn’t seem to have an issue with it – according to his famous ‘Rose’ theory, a dead fish is equally dead in any other language and would smell just as bad.
Of late, a lot of thought, time and, talk have been spent with people asking me why my blog is named so. The good people that they are, they think there is some life altering reason why I named it the way I did. And I so very wish that I had a deep, touching and moving account of why I named it so - the irony of it all is that there really isn’t any- I just named it just like that (think I was even sober at the time, for a change J ).
I have friends refer to my blog as the ‘wo fuck waala blog’, ‘the fuck blog’ (no relations to India’s other literary erotic export) and various other derivations that bring out the versatility of the f-word ( on another note, its sometimes very inspiring to know that the f-word has been used as a verb, noun, adjective, adverb, exclamation, as a subject, object… in their humble description of my blog..rather than banning this word in school, I think it should be hailed and celebrated as the most versatile word in the Queen’s language).
Even fellow bloggers have said that there’s something shady about my blog judging the blog by its name. I keep reassuring them that beside the title, the blog is actually rather tame – hell, I even write on social topics J. Some blogger colleagues at office are afraid to open my blog in office in the fear that the obvious profanity in the name may alert my company’s ever vigilant web security patrol.
BlogAdda refuses to call my blog by what it is and refers to it as ‘Flove’. I wrote to them that this amounts to moral policing and is very unbecoming of a site of their repute and requested to leave the censorship to me and humbly asked them to change the name to what it really is. I wrote 11 mails and they still have not replied. It’s been two months (so much for the freedom of expression).
The high point of it all was recently when my dad got a facebook profile. After I unassumingly and proudly accepted his friend request (of course, I privacy protected all my pics :P), he called me up the next day and asked me why the hell did I name a blog like that. He said that we are all respectable people and well regarded in society and a name like this is very cheap and asked me to change it immediately. He also warned me that I will never get a bride because of my blog and ended the argument with “What will your colleagues’ think?”. I think my last thought was “Wow, more traffic”. J
So what is in a name? My take is “Everything”. You can’t put down a name like this and I have noticed that people get amused, slightly shocked, interested and even curious when I tell them the name of my blog. It’s easier to remember than a ‘Raj’s view on life’ or ‘A social experiment called Raj’ or whatever . It is a conversation starter, sometimes a conversation ender and it is backed by some amazingly written blogs (Modesty be damned! J). I remember spending a whole night to perfect my profile write up and I’m glad it came out the way it has. I remember picking and pruning parts of my life to write the Love Story. ‘Rain’ denotes the search in me to find the ‘me’ in life. ‘You go girl’ is my admiration to the women folk, especially of my company. ‘Hazare’ and ‘Daughters’ touched me. And here I attempt to capture the blood, toil, sweat, tears and views of my life, pickled and peppered with cheerful irreverence, with these words of mine. And what do I name thee? fucklove.
And fucklove it is – a blog on ‘life’ and other popular four letter words…..now playing at a website near you J.
I remember someone saying that when tigers die, they leave behind their skins; but when people die, they leave behind their names. Since ‘raj’ is easily the most maligned Indian name on the planet , I need another legacy - who knows, it might just be ‘fucklove’.
J
