Auto - Complete

Never has an option in Google been so human than Auto- Complete. Just like we humans are prejudiced and harbor extreme views about stuffs we have never experienced in reality , Auto-complete can be taken as a sign of prejudice in virtual world. 

For all readers , who wonder what is Auto-Complete, it is a part of Google Instant which completes the query once you start typing the search term.

It was so much fun and surprising for it gave out dominant views as well as stuffs which caught me completely off-guard at certain places. 

So first , as a Cinema crazed Indian , I gave a query of 

" Bollywood is a / Bollywood is " and it completed it as 

Joke , Derogatory bastardization of Hollywood , Copy Cat , Crap , Corrupting Indian Youth , Stupid , Bullshit . 

These are answers which catches anyone completely off-guard , for Bollywood is being promoted as Soft power of India and also as a reflection of Indian Culture. Truly Hilarious indeed . 

So now I wanted to know how Google completes questions about Indian States like " Maharashtra is a / Maharashtra is " 

Maharashtra : Is in North or South ( A classic question that many Maharashtrians face when they are posed a question of whether they are South Indian or North Indian ) .

Punjab : Is a rich state ( Hmm ...not bad ). Thank God it didn't complete the search as drugged state as Rahul Gandhi proclaimed in his speech. Courtesy : His classic analytical skills. 

West Bengal : Is a hotbed of dharnas ( Here I really appreciated Google ) .

Gujarat : Is a dry state , Is a red hot economy ( Wow !!! ) 

Tamil Nadu : Is a separate country ( What the hell moment for a person who is in Chennai for more than 20 years ) 

Bihar : Is a backward state why ? ( A Good question to be answered ) .

Arunachal Pradesh : Is a part of India or China ( A question of International importance ) 

Kerala : Is a state with 100 % literacy ( Hats off !!! ) but the next one was surprising , Is a lunatic Asylum ( A LOL moment , but on careful analysis, it was a reference by Swami Vivekananda seeing the Casteism in Princely states of Kerala ).

Now coming to the Wannabe state

Telengana : Is a mistake ( Only time can answer it ) , Is a state ( forward thinking !! ) , Is a reality ( Yeah it is !! ). 

Then I searched for questions like " Tamils are " , " Bengalis are "

Tamils : Smart ( that's comforting ), Ugly , Bad , Racists ( Not sure what to say ). 

Bengalis : Most Intelligent , Lazy , Cowards , Ugly ( Really ? ) 

Here, search results about Maharashtrians, Punjabis , Biharis are not added for I just don't want to get beaten up . Then it did make me wonder about the biased content on websites and the pattern of search that is going on because the answers of Auto-complete option is just a reflection of above. 

So to sum this game off , I wanted to make one truly inevitable search. In current times when a film with cultural caricatures like Chennai Express amass 100 crores in a matter of week , my search was about the perpetual North- South divide . 

" South Indians are " , " North Indians are " .

South Indians : Are from Africa ( People, no need to get pumped up for it talks about Evolution and Human Migration ) , next was a dominant view which even many South Indians accuse themselves off . That is ' Dark ' . 

North Indians : White ( An another misconception ) , Rude ( yet another misconception ). 

So I ended up the search with " Chennai Express is a " and the answer was , " Chennai Express is a remake of which movie / South Indian movie ". 

This was hilarious for it ripped off multiple scenes straight off without credits , when it was touted as a Tribute . 

May be this movie is Bollywood's Idea of bridging North- South divide. 

See you in Auto-Search 2.0 . 

Happy Googling !!!


Link :

Rahul Gandhi on Punjab's drug problem : http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1752259/report-punjab-minister-slams-rahul-gandhi-for-drug-remarks

Psychology, Stalin and Surnames

Psychology, Stalin and Surname may seem unrelated to the untrained eye (pun intended, for it's me putting the funda and not you, the reader ). 

But they do share some common grounds and here am starting off by showcasing 3 pictures of great importance in the World History. 

Am sure, you would have guessed the commonality , with the last being the iconic image of the century, Pulling down of Berlin Wall. 

So here are the answers. The last was pulling down of Berlin Wall .The second image is the Head of Statue of Stalin on the streets of Budapest just after the October Revolution of 1950's in Hungary. And the first is pulling down of Statue of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Interestingly the first operation is categorized as PSYOPS (Psychological Operations (United States) ) 

Yes indeed, these images and actions have transformed a whole generation for they questioned or shattered the prevailing ideologies or beliefs or conditioning that a population had received.

Now coming back to the surname problem, Government of Tamil Nadu ( A state in India ) has a clearly defined policy of discouraging usage of surnames in names of roads, streets and public utilities. In fact there are three generation of people from 1950's who stayed away from having a surname in their name. And thus now a population of nearly 70 million has done away with the prevailing practice of having surnames. 

You may ask, who is going to benefit, by removing surnames from everything that roads, streets etc. The answer is the Society itself. Here let me explain , with a bit of History.

Dravidian parties, which rose during 1940's were of opinion that having caste based and social status based surnames are a vestige of the past and hence were hell bent on removing that practice, for it propagated discrimination. This action was part of the empowerment of Backward castes which had lesser opportunities in Education and work due to the discrimination which was meted out. 

They questioned the then existing set up of top down control of society by elite set of people , used this plank to forward social equality and to mobilize masses for their cause from 1940's. They had Aryan - Dravidian theory in their hand to elicit empathy among the masses who were anguished by the caste system which propagated discrimination and conditioned people mentally about their abilities to empower themselves.

So when they came to power in 1960's , a mandate was passed to remove surnames from roads/Streets and Public Utilities. In fact they went a step ahead and discouraged use of surnames in Names too , for in Tamil Nadu, Surnames are closely linked to the Caste they belong to. 

You may ask, what's the use of such an action on part of government. My view is people get conditioned and may develop a sort of complex when they see names with surnames for public utilities. And with most of the utilities named after people from economically and educationally forward set of people, it may impede people imagination by thinking that only people of certain set can reach hallowed status. It also eliminates chest thumping by people who claim superior status just because they inherit a certain surname. 

So you can call this action as a defiance of established authority. It is similar to bringing down Stalin statues in Communist states once USSR was broken down. Similar to bringing down Berlin Wall. Though a simple act of demolition , it has a huge psychological significance.

Understanding of  socio-economic situation in Tamil Nadu during  pre-independence era and post Dravidian parties take over would be helpful in appreciating the impact of this action.

And in  villages of Tamil Nadu, every major caste have their own street. So to eliminate that practice which promotes social stratification, such an action was needed in first place. Elimination of century old habits needs much time and it certainly needs actions like these to start a churn.

So in short, you can call this action as a Psychological Operation or Psychological Operations (United States) ( as in terminologies of U.S. ) to question the prevailing mentality , usher confidence and bring about a society of Equality and Social Justice.

Curious Case of 'NO' surnames - Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - a state in India where three things differ from main stream India.

1. We don't acknowledge Hindi , as National language ( An easiest way to annoy your Tamil friends is to quote , " Don't you know Hindi, it's your National language ".

2. We receive rains in October and November , when rest of India drenches itself during June to August.

3. And the final one is , we don't use our surnames in regular Indian sense of showing off the caste we belong to.

And here comes the curious case of no surnames.

We, Tamilians ( People who believe that their ancestry is Tamil Nadu ) often receive 'shock' as a reaction when we tell our name to a Non-Tamilian. 

The first question would be " Surname nahin hae kyaa ? " ( Don't you have a surname ). Their shock is understandable for rest of India has an ingrained thought process which uses surnames to profile people's capabilities and seek allegiance. 

And usually I reply them with a smile for I can't explain the long history of Dravidian Politics, socio-economic situation of Tamil Nadu during 1900's and the counter-social revolution which emerged in response to the dominant Hindi majority which all played a major role in why nearly 70 million Tamilians don't have a surname.

By the way, for people who want to know my surname or last name , it is Karunanithi.

Here, let me elaborate. 

Am born in an Indian State , Tamil Nadu and we have an entirely different naming convention , thanks to the Dravidian parties that had ruled our state for more than 40 years and still ruling.

The naming syntax encouraged by them is [Given Name] [ Father's name] in place of [Native Village] [Father Name] [Given Name] [Caste Name/Title associated with the Caste you belong/ Title that Signifies your Social Status] and the order may vary . 

But there is a catch. Acquiring such fancy long names require social status in the feudal society which was prevalent . 

Coming back , my Official name is Jeyan Nathann Karunanithiwhere Jeyan Nathann is my given name and Karunanithi is my Father's name. So we usually write our name as [First letter of your last Name] . [Your given Name]. So my name now becomes K.Jeyan Nathann.

My given name , 'Jeyan Nathann' , generally confuses people for it is very SriLankan sounding. Srilankans have this love affair with the name 'Jeya-' and some popular names include Jeyawardane , Jeyasooriya , Jeyasinghe , Jayamina, Jayamini . And here, let me clarify that my ancestral place is Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu , which was the seat of Chola Empire , Thanjavur Nayaks and Thanjavur Marathas at various points in a long timeline.

Jeyan - Means Victor and Nathan means 'Son of God' in both Hebrew and Sanskrit so that technically makes me , Son of God who is a Victor .

Karunanithi - has a root word 'Karuna-' which means compassion in Sanskrit . So the meaning comes as , He who has compassion and kind heart.

Pillai - points that am a man from landed gentry

If I were born before 1930's , my name would have been Jeyan Nathann Karunanithi Pillai . Here Pillai refers to the title that my family has and it is loosely related to the caste I am from.

Pillai is a title which is generally taken by people who were land owning gentry in the feudal system that existed then and its usage as a last name is spread across quite a few castes in Tamil Nadu. In Kerala, it is used by Nair community. And as time progressed, many started to adopt surnames at their will as they became  upwardly mobile both socially and economically. 

Castes and Tribes of Southern India by Edgar Thurston and works by Andre Béteille  reveal on how the caste titles were adopted at people's will and hence doesn't signify the supposed status that they claim to profess by having one . 

Dravidian parties, which rose during 1940's were of opinion that having caste based and social status based surnames are a vestige of the past and hence were hell bent on removing that practice, for it propagated discrimination. This action was part of the empowerment of Backward castes which had lesser opportunities in Education and work due to the discrimination which was meted out. 

And hence forth people who were born after 1950's effectively didn't have caste based titles as last names and adopted the current style of [Given Name][Father's Name]. 

This also reflects the changed political and social environment inTamil Nadu , which has always been at odds in comparison to rest of India.

And the best part is even roads and streets in  Tamil Nadu is surname-neutral . 

So hail Equality and Social Justice .

http://www.quora.com/Survey-Ques...

Be it conflicting or appreciatory, would love to have views from you - To the Random reader .

http://thusspokechola.quora.com/Curious-case-of-No-surnames-Tamil-Nadu