The Jaffa Post

Shortly after the roaring success of gtoosphere’s research on the complete history and etymology of the word ‘Bavarse’, we (@satwikg and I) have embarked upon the ambitious project of identifying similar PG-13 Telugu words to research their history and etymology. We started making a list of curse words you can say on Television and get away with it. The first word that came to my mind was ‘Jaffa’.

Jaffa is a beautiful word that is poetic to the lips and mellifluous to the ear. And it is versatile too – you can use it as a greeting (నిన్నేరా జఫ్ఫా!), you can stretch it (Jaffaaaaa...), you can stress on it (Jafffffffa), you can bend it, you can twist it, you can conjoin with other words (పెద్ద లఫూట్-జఫ్ఫా గాడిలా ఉన్నాడు!) or you can just add gibberish to it and it would still make sense to you (జఫ్ఫా నా డఫ్ఫా!)

Whatever you do, however you change it, it carries its profound essence everywhere. That is magic of Jaffa. When you say “Jaffa na Daffa!”, it instantly appeals to the masses. If you’re in a five star hotel and you want to use it in a classy way, say it in a French accent, Je ffa. Now how many words can boast of such malleability?

I am sure anyone who is even remotely gult is aware of the the beauty, the simplicity and the many forms of Jaffa. I am sure all your Facebook walls are inundated with a lot of Jaffa based humor. However, I have noticed a few instances where the word Jaffa is misused or overused, often in the wrong context. This made me realize that my gult brethren seem to be confused about its real meaning and usage. So I have taken the responsibility of educating you all.

Chapter 1: జగమంతా జఫ్ఫామయం || Jagamantha Jaffamayam

Jaffa may sound like a Telugu word but the word is well known and used across four continents in more than a dozen countries around the world. Here are some of the occurrences of the word Jaffa in other languages and contexts. (Most of the images are cropped screen shots with original sources linked somewhere in the vicinity) 

1. Jaffa is a Rich Technology

The URL says it all: http://jaffa.sourceforge.net/

Jaffa 2.1 already released anta... crazy technology yaar!

"వీడెవడో తెలీదు కానీ, పెద్ద జఫ్ఫా టు పాయింట్ వన్ డాట్ జార్ లా ఉన్నాడు" -- తిట్టు బాగుంది కదూ? ;)

2. Jaffa is a Historical City: 

Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah. It is now part of Tel Aviv in modern day Israel. It was also mentioned in The Bible:

Biblical Jaffa anta... Wikipedia kooda manchi comedy chesthundi appudappudu :)

3. The Battle of Jaffa
The Battle of Jaffa took place during the Crusades in 1192, as one of a series of campaigns between Saladin's army and the forces of King Richard the Lionheart. It was the final battle of the Third Crusade, after which Saladin and King Richard were able to negotiate a truce and the Treaty of Jaffa was signed. Read more on Wikipedia...

4. Jaffa is an Orange
The Jaffa orange is a sweet, almost seedless orange variety. Originally developed by Arab farmers in the mid-19th century, it takes its name from the city of Jaffa where it was first produced for export.

5. Jaffa Cola:
From Wikipedia again:

6. Cricket Jaffa
Apparently Jaffa is also a cricket term. Found this entry in the Glossary of Cricket Terms:

7. Jaffa Cakes
These Jaffa oranges are apparently awesome. Jaffa Orange flavored cakes, biscuits and other forms of confectionery are hugely popular across the world. Jaffa cakes are the most popular of them all. The company that makes these cakes interestingly won a court case after proving in a court that Jaffa cakes are indeed biscuits!

8. Jaffa Cafe
There is a popular Jaffa Cafe in California taking the profound presence of Jaffa across the Atlantic as well.

9. Jaffa (film)
The Telugu movie wouldn't be the first movie titled 'Jaffa' Here is an ABSORBING and TOUCHING love story with an IMDB rating of 7.0

10. Jaffaavataraalu (జఫ్ఫావతారాలు)
Eeyanevaro Sir Max Jaffa anta

And finally, Professor Jaffa

11. Bonus Jaffa
Jaffa is a slang term (usually pejorative) for a resident of Auckland, New Zealand. It is the acronym for Just Another Fuckwit from Aucklander and is used as an insult to Aucklanders. Auckland is also sometimes referred to as Jaffisthan!

As we have seen, Jaffa as a word has been in use for thousands of years across all civilizations, cultures, countries and products. So what does it actually mean? How did this come up in Telugu? So what does it mean when one person calls another Jaffa? (ivanni chadavandi chinna break taravata :P)

Chapter 2: But what does it mean?

To find out the real truth, I moved beyond the safety of Wikipedia and ventured into the shadier corners of Urban Dictionary and even hostile foreign territories like the third page of Google search results. You can take it from me that the most accurate definition seems to be:

Jaffa: (noun) A person with "seedless" sperm i.e. a person who "fires blanks" or having "no lead in his pencil" i.e. “Pooja ki paniki raani puvvu”

Apparently it is a fairly popular street slang in the UK and Ireland, especially in the docks. It makes sense in a lot of ways. Now that I think of it, the word Jaffa even sounds a little impotent (not to be confused with the word 'important' which our English teacher in Sri Chaitanya used to pronounce as 'impotent'. Example: "impotent koschens raaskondamma")

The origin of the slang lays in Jaffa the Orange. The Jaffa orange has very small seeds, so small that it is considered to be the first seedless orange when it was developed by Arab farmers in the mid nineteenth century. This term in this context either gained prominence from or was invented for the British TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses in the 1990s.

And that is how, I am guessing, it made its way into the Telugu vocabulary.

Chapter 3: Future Work

Only five years back, the word Jaffa didn’t even exist in the minds of Telugu people. Clearly, it caught on only because of the movies. The great Brahmanandam deserves a lot of credit for the immense popularity of the word.

The earliest recorded use of this word from my memory was in the 2008 movie “Gamyam” in which Allari Naresh casually says something like, “Jaffa na jafada”. My knowledge of Telugu movies is nothing to boast of and I would like the readers to suggest any occurrences of this word at an earlier date.

Chapter 4: Epilogue

So here we have, a Telugu swear word that has its origins in Hebrew! How cool is that? Researching on the meaning and etymology of this word has been a really fun trip for me and the Hebrew roots really took me by surprise, just like the Persian roots of the word “Bavarse” did!

I hope you have all understood the history, the essence and the meaning of this beautiful word. I urge all fellow gults to use it wisely, in the right context and more importantly to not over-use it. Remember, words are only tools to create humor. A funny idea is the real meat.

Gultisthan Zindabad!

[Edit: @emailkran says that the word first used in the 2005 movie 'Party' starring Allari Naresh, Brahmanandam, Ravibabu etc.]

Bike

In case you have trouble visualizing Newton's argument, this is what Newton meant by "hands acting as a natural suspension drastically reducing the contact area"

P.S:
Aristotle and Plato sketch by delboysb91
Newton's caricature taken from http://bit.ly/9ZscX
The Telugu comic by Bnim: http://www.telugucartoon.com/bnim.php 

Jihadi Chess

Chess has been around for like forever. The earliest form of Chess that resembles modern Chess was found during the Gupta period. Like most things in history, the Persians picked it up from us, then the Moors kicked some Persian ass and learned Chess from them. The Moors then kicked the Spaniards and taught them Chess. And like that it spread across all civilizations.

The Sanskrit word for Chess “Chaturanga” represents the four major divisions of the ancient and medieval armies -- Elephants, Chariots, Horsemen and Foot Soldiers. The problem with Chess is, our armies are nothing like that. We have come a long way from slaying people with a sword while riding on a horse. That time has passed.

Most big Armies today along with the Navy and the Air Force are ready and capable to fight a two ocean war with a major power. But which two major countries are on the brink of a two ocean war? Iceland and Ivory Coast? That time has passed too. It’s over. The mechanism for world domination has changed and with that, the nature of war too. 

The war of the future is terrorism. It is and it will be a small group of dissidents who, perhaps, unbeknownst to their own governments plot to bomb public places, kill innocent civilians and hurt the country’s economy to make a political point. As an Indian whose ancestors have invented the game of Chess, I feel it is my duty to post modernize the beautiful intellectual game to reflect the current war scenario.

Highlights from a few games...

Over the last two months, I have managed to convince three or four people (it's really hard) to play a few games of Jihadi Chess with me and I have seen some interesting variations in strategy. The beginning of the game was quite normal. The fun begins when a player loses the queen. 

On most occasions, the players who lost the queen tended to use the rooks quite recklessly (may be because of the eagerness to wage Jihad) and players who still had the queen tended to become a little paranoid and often went on killing pawns  as if they were cockroaches meant to be squashed with a high heeled shoe putting more important pieces at great risk in the process. There was also one instant where a player sacrificed his rook just to prevent the other player from waging Jihad. 

One obvious rule not explicitly written down is that blowing up the pawn should not result in a check for the Jihadi side. This is not that easy to pull off especially after your King has seen some action. The most interesting development in this format is that the winning player is forced to think twice about getting his pieces forward during the endgame which turned out to be a huge advantage for the losing side. (which is good for me since I usually am on the losing side!) 

If you have nothing to do (which is evident from the fact that you're reading this) and if you have Chess board, I urge you to try Jihadi Chess. If you do, do not forget to leave some highlights/insights on this version so that we can make it better. Also if anyone is interested in collaborating with me to make a simple flash application so that people can play online, mail me at this address and we'll try to build something :)

Whatever you do, do not write off Jihadi Chess like you have written off 300 Chess!

Image taken from www.pichaus.com 

Anna and the logic behind hunger strikes

As a kid, whenever I sat down to do my homework, it felt like I was doing someone a big favor. The only thing I ever got in return was for all the trouble was “no punishment”. Now what kind of an incentive is “no punishment”? I knew right away, that life isn’t fair but luckily I found a way around.

I realized saying things like “I won’t eat till I get a new pencil box to complete my math homework” or “I won’t eat unless you let me watch TV for half an hour” usually gets good returns. And it worked for the first few times. When I was eight years old, I started a similar hunger strike but my Mom shot back saying “Fine, sleep hungry and get punished at school tomorrow!” That was the moment I was convinced that "not-eating" is not a good strategy to get things done in the adult world! Clearly, I am not cut out for Indian politics!

Notes on Anna

Unlike a lot of young people in India, I did not get all worked up about my support for Anna Hazare’s successful fast-unto-death. By the time I found time to do some research and pick a side, it was all over...

I am absolutely convinced about Anna Hazare’s good intentions but a little disillusioned with the solutions he proposed. Let’s not delve into details. I can't help but notice that hunger strikes still remain the most potent weapon in Indian politics. It is probably the most important legacy of Gandhi after the hundreds of M.G Roads with potholes and tons of black money with his face printed on it!

Question

A professional hunger-striker?

Why are hunger strikes considered to be peaceful? Isn’t it an insanely passive aggressive thing to do? You are threatening to kill yourself for heaven’s sake! By what stretch of imagination is threatening to kill a person peaceful? I agree it is better than threatening to kill other people but that makes it only “relatively peaceful” or put it in a better way “peaceful only when quoted out of context!” Why do we omit the relative part of it?

Although Anna’s fast was ‘Gandhian’ in every sense of the term and not even a window pane was broken as a consequence of his fast, it is not the case for most of the hunger strikes that happen. For most politicians it is just a wonderful way to get a lot of attention, re-energize their bases and pump some enthusiasm into their party workers and basically kick some political ass!

Hunger Strikes as a Choreographed Media Event

Hunger strikes (especially when politicians do it) are always accompanied by enforced bandhs. Enforced bandhs as we all know makes traffic worse. Plus, there is always a chance for sporadic violence and ‘stuff’ burning activities where stuff begins with an effigy and ends with a fresh fleet of Volvo buses! If you play it safe and stay at home, you have to live with the News anchors on TV going frenzy and blazing live visuals of ugly-looking politicians sitting under a tree and not eating while better looking Bollywood celebs voice their support to the cause!

We see at least one major league politician go on a hunger strike every two or three months. Isn’t it vaguely suspicious that politicians never die in one of these fast-unto-deaths? Isn’t there enough evidence to suggest that not eating will lead to death? I decided to do some research on hunger strikes and I have some interesting results.

An Illustrated History of Hunger Strikes

Given that hundreds of people have got themselves into fasts-unto-death and that not all of them are successful, one wonders why the over all number of deaths is surprisingly low at four!

Why are politicians not dying of hunger?

Whenever a politician goes on a fast – his colleagues and the media are instantly worried about his health. Just after a couple of days, the docs shift him to a hospital and “force” feed him intravenously. Now that’s cheating isn’t it?

The whole point of a fast is to degenerate the body slowly by denying all nutrition. By injecting glucose water (with all the essential proteins and vitamins) into the bloodstream, they’re not denying nutrition to the body. They’re just cutting out the middleman (i.e. the digestive system) from the nutrition cycle! Technically it’s just dieting!

You see, fasting is a relatively simple game. There is only one rule: “Do not eat!” but with the saline bottles and the injections, it has been reduced to “You may eat but not with your hands!” making it very easy to pull off political stunts with choreographed media coverage which sometimes may involve the channels flashing the hunger-striker’s blood pressure and blood glucose levels live on TV!

P.S: I have written most of this post way back in December and have been waiting for someone to go on an indefinite hunger-strike. What can I say, I am like that!