Don't be that guy either

Continued from: http://gtoosphere.blogspot.com/2013/05/dont-be-that-guy.html

Don’t be that guy: Deodorant Commercial Guy

Men (most of them) like women. All men like looking at beautiful women. Women also like looking at beautiful women. Beautiful women are nice to look at. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong, however, is the way men look at women.

Do we really have to give that aggressive, lecherous, leering stare that involves a 180 degree sweep, full body scan, mental undressing and lusty ogling every time a women passes by? I am not talking about the eve teasers and other assorted jerks near the bus stop. Everyone from class VIII kids to 50 year old happily married uncles in this country stare like they are starring in a deodorant advertisement.

I am not asking you to stop looking at women completely. It is okay to subtly steal a glance once in a while but don’t make them feel uncomfortable. And don’t think even for a second that women like that sort of attention. They do not. I have the inside information. Women do NOT enjoy being stared at like that under any circumstance. Not even a little bit… even if you are Ryan Gosling or whoever that Hollywood Mahesh Babu is.

Don’t be that guy: Dr. U. Salaha

Some people are so very knowledgeable about health, beauty, healthy living and life in general that they feel that it is their duty to educate other people about it, even if they are complete strangers. It doesn’t matter if you have just met and are doing some polite small talk. They have to slip in a piece of totally unsolicited medical, beauty or diet related best practices based advice.

These Dr. Salahas (Salaha = advice) don’t just randomly throw advice. They do a preliminary diagnosis by scanning you from top to bottom, identify some obvious flaws (that you are already conscious about), point them out in public and then offer free solutions.

 
If you are a little patient, the conversation will eventually steer towards natural, herbal remedies chiefly propagated by Eenadu paper’s Vasundhara supplement.

The more you entertain their advice, the more incredulous it gets.

If you’re not fully convinced about the magical properties of everyday ingredients, they present relevant peer reviewed empirical evidence

And if you endure long enough, they get carried away and might even refer you to their favorite doctor. (This happened to me)

How do we deal with these uncles? 

Don't be that guy: The unofficial Brand Manager

Don’t be that guy who corrects people when they pronounce Volkswagen with a V instead of ‘Fau’. I know it is pronounced Folks-wagon. I just don’t give a shit about the correct pronunciation.

Don't be that guy: The Tip Nazi

Notice how some people are extremely fussy about restaurant service, especially when they are dining at posh restaurants?

They complain about everything. The list goes on and on. They have to complain about everything. People who normally don’t bother washing their hands after peepee demand hand sanitizers after touching a shiny brass door knob. These are some of the profound consequences of our “paisa vasool” mentality.

Then there are Tip Nazis. Tip Nazis are not just fussy about the service. They take it one step further and take it out on the waiters.

When you tell them to relax and calm down, they have a self-righteous tone about it, “It’s their job. I am not asking them anything out of the world. I am just asking them to do their job properly”

Sometimes the “issue” with the waiter “escalates” and the manager has to step in. The manager being experienced in these matters offers a fake smile, an empty apology and a complementary milkshake and Tip Nazi feels like Che Guevara who stood up and showed it to the system. Don't be that guy.

I understand that you’re paying for the ambience, the service and the experience blah blah blah but you’re paying the restaurant, not the waiter! The waiter gets 8000 a month for taking shit from people like you. If you really have the balls, refuse to pay the 14% service tax to the restaurant and tell them you’ll pay when they hire well trained and better paid waiters.

Don't be that guy: The Wedding Uploader

What is the deal with people who spend the first three days of their married life uploading wedding photos on Facebook? Why are they nostalgic about something that happened day before yesterday? And what is with that grand stage, the diamond ring, the kneeling down, and the cheesy proposal during the engagement in front of your parents? Do you have any idea how lame that is?

And people in the audience, why are you saying “aww” in a chorus even though deep down you know that it is an arranged marriage and they are acting out some weird Bollywood dream sequence? Don’t encourage such unoriginal behavior. It is not good for society.

Even more to come...

Yet another Gult movie

What are you doing in the kitchen? Are you eating my roommate's Maggi again?

What else am I supposed to do? It’s been an hour and a half since I ate something. I even sneaked into your neighbor’s kitchen but I hate the cold, tasteless tetra pack milk you humans drink these days…

One of these days, one of my roommates is going to kick you out of the house. Don’t blame me if that happens

What’s with the grouchy mood?

I just came back from a Gult movie

How was it? Wait… Let me guess, it sucked and it was the worst three hours of your life.

Yes, the usual but this movie made me think. Why is it that Gult people HAVE to watch every movie that is cleared by the censor board without any bias, discretion or standards?

Are you talking about Telugu Cine fans?

Why single out the “fans”? Everyone is like that. Sometime in the last ten years, an entire generation of Telugu people has been convinced that every movie that hits the theaters ought to be watched in the theater. I don’t know how that happened but it did – Ritualistic movie going

It’s a part of your culture now

It is our culture. Thursday evenings: Eleven pradakshanams at Sai Baba temple. Friday evenings: New movie at Prasad’s multiplex – That’s the time table.

The thing that really baffles me is that people aren't tired of it. I mean it’s the same movie over and over again. Every hero in a mainstream production is essentially the same misogynistic, boorish, less talented knock off of yesteryear Chiranjeevi but with an unlimited SMS pack on his cellphone. He keeps fighting the same villain – a power hungry businessman-feudal lord with a daughter of marriageable age. The music is a pile of shit and the lyrics are the stink that emanate from it as it rots.

The romance is the same outdated, self-repeating, boring-as-a-block-of-wood Neanderthal mythology where the damsel in distress falls for the eve teasing asshole because he is probably a “nice guy” at heart.

People basically have been watching the same potboiler for the last 15 years. These are the same people who will shout if their mom cooks the same vegetable twice in a week!

Well, your people have always been a little fanatic about movies

Yes but it happens at a totally different scale now. It used to be that people went to the theater only if they were sure that it is worth three hours of their time and read some movie gossip once in a while from the Sitara magazine stocked in the barber’s shop but now it’s crazy.

Movies are the only thing on TV, on radio, on the internet, in the newspapers, on social media, at weddings, gatherings, schools, colleges, trains, buses, hospital waiting rooms…

Yes, that is really irritating

And people passionately follow everything too. They follow the movie right from its announcement, to the press release, the launch muhoortham, the first look, photo stills, audio preview, audio release function (live), controversies, gossip, platinum disk function, movie teaser, ‘official’ trailer, second trailer, item number, and after all this hype, the three hours of old shit on new toilet paper is met with obvious disappointment and then their fans go through the five stages of grief!

Wow, your generation spends ALL its free time, energy, resources, ability, thought and surplus on the Telugu Film Industry complex. That’s a little weird given how bad they are these days

Let’s not even talk about quality. We are living through the dark ages for Telugu movies as an art form – the range of themes, the writing, the acting, the music, the lyrics, the portrayal of women, the portrayal of men – all of them are on an all-time low

Except the profits!

That’s the tragedy…. bad movies go unpunished. In fact they do good business because we will watch anything

But hey, the comedy is still pretty good… most people at least claim that.

Yeah, you can say that but comedy has always been consistently amazing in Telugu culture. We are a people with a great sense of humor. So we’re not doing anything exceptional in the comedy department either. We’re just managing thanks to the amazing comedians and individuals like Brahmi, Kota, Tanikella Bharani, Ali, M.S Narayana, Dharmavarapu Subramanyam etc.

Yeah Brahmanandam’s 20 minute track pretty much decides whether a movie is a hit or a flop

What worries me is that we don’t have a next generation of funny people and Jandhyala’s generation is not getting any younger. The humor itself is moving towards a loud, loaded with on-your-face insults, innuendos, and slapstick moments compared to the subtle idiosyncrasies and clever wordplay

Yes, and Brahmi is getting beaten up way too often. Every bonehead hero with a 50 paisa face wants to trash him and put it on his resume. And that Ali fellow should stop wearing that female costume. Ugh!

He’s the only woman character that stands out if you notice. There are no women in our movies anymore, just cleavage and a navel with Sunitha’s voice. And she is there for the hero to cook for him, dance with him, stalked by him and finally saved by him.

How come Gult girls don’t complain?

They do sometimes. Those who feel strongly about such things have stopped watching Telugu movies altogether. Some have accepted that it is not going to change anytime soon, so they cringe and watch anyway. It helps that none of the heroines look Telugu. But those who grew up watching only these movies are totally desensitized. They even aspire to be cute, helpless and borderline retarded.

"Haha… Hasini" There’s this thing called a Bechdel test which is used to identify gender bias in fiction. Did you know about that?

To pass the test, a movie should satisfy three simple criteria. It should have (1) at least two women (2) who talk to each other (3) about something other than a man

All those posh tests our gult movies wont pass babu. It is “out of syllabus”

Most of the Hollywood movies also fail that simple test. The movie industry is like that.

Don’t blame the Telugu Film Industry for any of this. The industry is doing very well for itself. It has bigger houses, better cars, and hotter chicks, plenty of money, media support, more political power, rave parties, and a generation of obedient fans willing to watch anything.

The industry is fine. The people are fucked.

Ouch!

Take any train/flight/bus from anywhere in the world to Andhra Pradesh, the most common sight is a Gulti sitting in the seat and looking into his laptop/smartphone/tablet screen.

We don’t know of any other hobbies. We have no personal interests. This is what we do with our free time. We plug in our ear phones, shut down our minds, and stare at a screen that is playing ‘Dookudu’ for the nineteenth time.

Without getting bored… that is the amazing part

I don’t know if sociologists are studying us, they totally should. It’s an amazing bubble we live in where young people’s identities are so closely tied to what kind of bad movies they prefer, which hero they worship. And everyone has to worship someone. They even have their own “isms”.

Like the unemployed members of the Morampudi Mega-Power Youth Association?

No, I am talking about the educated, brand conscious, cappuccino-sipping, Android-loving, dowry-demanding software engineers (and soon-to-be software engineers) with good educational background and on-site experience sitting in office and having passionate “our caste heroes are better your caste heroes” fights on the internet!

Haha… Yo hero so fat that his belt is the size of the Equator!

We even have strategies to sit through bad movies. When I say I didn’t like a particular movie people say, “No, you’re not watching it correctly” as if there is a right way to watch a movie and a wrong way

Don’t you know? To fully enjoy a movie, we have to turn off our common sense, intelligence, sensibilities, music sense, respect for women, teachers, law and order, society, the environment, and life on earth in general.

And people do it. They are happy to leave their brains outside the theater. Their commitment is amazing. We should release a postage stamp commemorative of the Gulti Movie-goer or something.

I am not very surprised by all this. It is all consistent with what is happening in the state

Yeah, we’re the first Post-reading Generation.

This is a generation that stopped reading. Not just “general” reading like literature, science, biographies, history etc. This is a generation that has never read its own school text books. We only have printed sheets of “important questions” with answers which are to be memorized and puked in the exam hall. That is how everyone earns their degrees!

So it is not surprising that we have this culture where millions of “educated” people in their 20s are proud to have not read a single book their whole lives; a culture that ridicules and alienates those who have; a culture where education is a transaction in which parents mortgage their ancestral property for an “MS from US”; a culture where success means immigrating into a mediocre job in a developed country; a culture that lacks self-respect and confidence in the face of globalization and consequently, a reactionary “we’re like that only” pride in our mediocrity.

Gultisthan Zindabad!

We don’t have to specially shut down our brains while watching movies. We have shut them down a long time back!

Co-authored by Flawsophy

Gulti as Charged

It has come to my attention that some Telugu people do not like being referred to as “gults”

Why?

I don’t know. I am just stating the popular feeling. They seem to be angry about it. Not exactly angry, maybe they find it distasteful.

Go on...

Some people also find it a little insulting. A few even go as far as raising an objection to the use of the word while others merely disapprove of it.

Thankfully no one found it to be “controversial” yet, none of the “sentiments were hurt” by the “insensitive” word and you are lucky that no one took "offense"

I still don't see what the big deal is. It’s just a silly word. Gult/Gulti (originally Golti) is a word invented by Tamilians to (sometimes condescendingly) refer to Telugu people. I learned the word in my first year of college and we have all been using it ever since.

Your foul-mouthed College is different from society. You are part of "Jana Jeevana Sravanti" now

Now, I understand why some people don’t like the G-word. I have personally seen it being used in a very insulting and disdainful way but what is the point of attacking the word? If you replace the word ‘gult’ with the word ‘splork’, it would still be equally offensive!

Yes, but still...

Words by themselves are harmless be it gult, rape, nigger or whatever. It is always the context that makes them offensive. If people have the time, they should be attacking the narrow-minded, chauvinistic, cow-belt supremacist asshole who uses the word with such contempt

Okay, if it is not a big deal then why are you so hell bent on using it?

I am not hell bent or anything. It’s just that I like the word. Gult is such a nice word. It’s a beautiful word. It has only two syllables, ends with a vowel sound, naturally fits into the English grammar, we can use it to universally refer to any Telugu speaking fellow from Srikakulam to San Fransisco and it rhymes with cult. What more do you want from a word?

Give me a worthy replacement and I’ll stop using the G-word

Why don’t you use the normal word for Telugu people?

What "normal" word for Telugu people? There are words like Mallu, Tamilian, Bengali, Gujarati, and Marathi etc for those linguistic groups. Even Kannada people have a nice word like Kannadiga going for them but there is no word for Telugu people as a whole.

How about Telugus?

It's not a very convenient word. It's like referring to North Indians as Hindis or Bihari Muslims as Urdus - doesn't make much sense. If we start calling ourselves Telugus, then Amits will start pronouncing it tel-goose (तेलगूस ) which sounds like something you'd order in an expensive Gourmet restaurant.

Example: I would like to have a Roasted Tel-goose with chickpeas and cider gravy please.

Haha... making fun of North Indian accents should be more mainstream. "People from Bhimavaram are Tel-goose from 'waste' Godavari district!"

Besides, the word is not at all compatible for use with the English language. Suppose I want to mention that a particular gult fellow speaks horrible Telugu, I have to say something like,

"This Telugu's Telugu is horrible" -- the first Telugu refers to the person and the Telugu following it refers to the language. See it is ambiguous and confusing as opposed to "This gult's Telugu is horrible" which is simple, clear and direct.

G-word: 1 – 0: Telugus

Okay, how about Andhraites? People from Chennai are called Chennaites. I don’t know if they like the word but given that Bal Thackeray has ruined the word Madrasi for everybody, we’re not left with many options.

Nah! The word Andhraite is geographically binding. What about Telugu people who do not belong to the state of Andhra Pradesh, those settled in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Orissa etc. for generations? Should we call them Andhraites too, even if they have nothing to do Andhra?

It's just a convention that people can adopt

Let's assume all the gults from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, New Delhi, New Jersey, Atlanta, Texas, California, West Indies, Fiji islands and Zambia adopt the word Andhraites, Telangana people are still going object to it. Why would they let you call them Andhraites when they are Telanganites?

These T party fellows...

If a separate Telangana happens, we'll have to use two words then -- Andhraites and Telanganites. This is going to cause mayhem among the Non-Resident Gult community that they will insist on calling Avakai-Americans on the lines of African-Americans just to avoid the confusion!

Your ability to see the worst in everything continues to amaze me.

Thank you. Even if Telanganites and Avakai-Americans wholeheartedly accept the word Andhraite, I’d still refuse to use it for the simple reason that Andhraite sounds like some cheap Aluminium ore, something Vedanta Inc. would want to dig! For example, "Southern Orissa has a lot of Andhraites while the northern districts are rich in Bauxite".

Some people in Bangalore sometimes use the word Telgite which I think is even worse!

Haemetite, Magnetite, Andhraite, Bauxite, Cryolite, Telgite, Araldite, Pidilite... *purr*

Okay, that's enough!

What about the Last Syllable Nomenclature your father uses?

Yes he has developed his own system of stereotyping people. He calls Gults as Gu-bacchas. North Indians as Di-bacchas, and Americans as Ish-bacchas etc. But that doesn't go well with English. It is meant for non-serious conversations in Telugu/Bengali only.

Another common way of naming linguistic groups is by suffixing the noun with –ese like Chinese, Japanese etc. That would make you Telugese.

Seriously? Are we still doing this?

Sigh... there is no universal word for the Telugu speaking diaspora!

No, there is a word -- The G-word. Whether you like it or not, Gulti is the best word we have to universally refer to the Telugu speaking diaspora.

To be honest, I am little disappointed that you people are still arguing about these silly words. I mean, how can we have Gultisthan without the Gulti?

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 

Inventions S1E03: The Great Nation of Gultisthan!

Friends, Gultis and Countrymen,

I have had enough of these demands for a separate Telangana, a separate Rayalaseema, a separate Sreekakulam etc. I cannot stand to see my gult brothers fighting amongst themselves dividing our motherland using anything other than caste.

It is time to think big. Great leaders sometimes have to take harsh decisions. Here is mine. Pro-Telangana people, I have decided to expel you from our state. You can have your Telangana. Just take it and go. You can even go ahead, take Northern Karnataka and Vidharbha too and form a “Brotherhood of fucked up provinces under the erstwhile Nizam” for all I care but let me be very clear about this. You did not fight and “win” your separate state. You got it because we gave it!

Fellow gults, do not worry about the loss of Telangana. Consider them as the prodigal brother who will come back to us once he realizes how difficult life is. In the meantime, let us continue thinking big. 

Remember Madras Presidency? Boy those were the days when there were no autos in Chennai, Chennai was Madras and everyone in Madras spoke Telugu! We should aim for that kind of domination instead of wasting time fighting these petty bifurcating and trifurcating battles. Yes gults, it is time we fight for The Great Nation of Gultisthan! Spelt with an ‘h’! (Dear every country from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, I’m sorry to tell you but you don’t know how to spell your countries. Love, Gultisthan.)

Geography

With the expulsion of Telangana, we have to let go of Hyderabad. We’ll need a new capital. Let’s take Chennai back!

Historically, we built the city together and then they (the Tamils) took over and named everything after Anna! It is time for us to reclaim Madras. Let us revive the “Madras Manade” movement. (Remember the M&M Revolution™©®?) Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Madras Manade 

In 1953, Telugu speakers of Madras Presidency wanted Madras as the capital of Andhra state including the famous slogan Madras Manade (Madras is ours) before Tirupati was included in AP. Madras, at that time was an indivisible mixture of Tamil and Telugu cultures. It was difficult to determine who should possess it. 

Panagal Raja, Chief Minister of the Madras Presidency in the early 1920s said that the Cooum River should be kept as a boundary, giving the northern portion to the Andhras and the southern portion to the Tamils. In 1928, Sir C. Sankaran Nair sent a report to the Central Council discussing why Madras does not belong to the Tamils. Historically and geographically it was a part of the Andhra region. It was Damerla Venkatadri Nayakudu of Recherla Velama caste was provincial governor in 1639 from whom the English sought to take permission to set up a factory. 

The increasing political dominance of the Tamils from early 1920s at both Central and State level politics caused Madras to remain in the Tamil region. According to the JPC report (Jawahar Lal Nehru, Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya, C. Rajagopalachari) Telugu people should leave Madras for Tamils if they want a new state.

And that is how they took our Madras away. It is time to win Madras back and change the name to Medrasu because how is that we roll.

We will also lose considerable amount of land after expelling Telangana. My plan is to take a part of Karnataka to make up for it. Besides we can use some Iron Ore and Bangalore!

The Great Nation of Gultisthan

Oriya people may want to join us. They have a lot of cultural relations and natural resources but with the poverty and Maoist problems, they come with a lot of extra baggage. We’ll take a decision about the fate of Oriya people at a later date.

Economy

With the annexure of Medrasu (formerly: Chennai, formerly-formerly: Madras) and Bengaluru, we’ll have a naval base, a strategic port, the whole IT sector, two IPL teams, R. Ashwin and Deepika Padukone. So our economy is in safe hands.

The Revolution

The process of annexing these territories has already started. Bellary, Tumkur and Raichur are already ruled by gults for all practical purposes. Our soft power tactics are working wonderfully in and around Bangalore where the cultural domination is quite mature too. Gultis are being arrested almost everyday for scams in Karnataka. If that is not domination, I ask you, what is?

More than 25% of Bangalore speaks Telugu. There are an estimated 1.35 crore Telugu speakers in Karnataka, so it is only fair we have some of their land too! People of Karnataka might get a little upset about this but they are nice people. I am sure they will understand and look at this as an opportunity to bring Mysore back to its past glory.

While the Tams are busy making fun of their brahms, trying to answer age old philosophical questions like “Why this kolaveri di?”, and giving war hero like welcomes to their politicians returning from the conquest of Tihar, our people are infiltrating their territory by the thousands to take Madras from the inside.

Tamil People, do you guys seriously believe that all those gult engineering students on Mahabalipuram Road are there to study engineering? Do you have any idea how many engineering colleges we have? They are the future #OccupyMadras protesters.

Mark my words people, mark them well. The process has already started. The clock is ticking. Fates are changing. The wheels are in motion. History is being rewritten. Things are happening as we speak. The revolution is just a matter of time. Gult Greatness shall soon be realized. 

Gultisthan Zindabad!

My latest project -- Gultrage

For quite sometime now, (for reasons I shall elaborate in a series of posts sometime in the future) I have been mad at Telugu people and then came Tambrahmrage which opened a wonderful opportunity for me to use the rage meme as a cathartic tool and thus gultrage is born!

Yenjaay -- http://gultrage.tumblr.com and remember, I am most serious when I am joking!  

Part 2 of Baverse/Bewars - A complete History and Etymology

Satwik Continues...

Actor Ravi Teja from the movie Venky
where he plays a character that is often
looked  upon as a  personification of the
word bewars in Telugu pop-culture!

A lot of you have followed the part 1 of this article with great zest and enthusiasm. I should thank you for that. The response from Telugu people in the form of comments however, has been only average which reinforces my belief that Telugu people are too “bewars” to even care about it :p

In the previous article, however funny it might be, we were forced to rule out the possibility of bewars having an English origin. We were sort of lost in the wilderness for a short while after that but then, my aforementioned cousin g2 found some interesting evidence of the word having an Urdu origin in the Telugu Wikipedia in an article named “List of Urdu words adopted into the Telugu language.”

Urdu or Kannada?

Among a number of Telugu words that were adopted from Urdu is a word బేవారసు “Bevaarasu”. None of us had a Telugu dictionary that enabled us learn the meaning of this word. Upon further read-through, I found that the word Bewarsi was Kannada for Bastard along with the word Boli Maga. I intimated this information to my cousin without delay.

My cousin g2, a more conscientious person no doubt, was at this point continuing his search. He replied informing me that in some parts of Andhra, the word in use was indeed bewarsi! The reader would do well to know that Andhra and Karnataka have shared very close ties since the time of the Vijayanagar Dynasty’s rule from the early 15th century AD. My shrewd readers would have obviously observed that this development indicated the fallibility of Wikipedia since it had indicated that the word’s origins lay in Urdu and this proof of Kannada origin! This is a huge blow for Wiki-worshippers like me!

No Wiki No Wiki No!

Blasphemy! How can wiki be wrong? I was thinking to myself. Slowly, I came out of denial to find everything I believed in crashing down in a matter of minutes just because one stupid word! I started to hate the word bewars, my new job, everything around me, my life and my very existence. I was like a dumb American kid who just realized Santa does not exist! I was contemplating suicide but I decided to check my mail one last time before taking the extreme step and there was mail from g2 which, I hate to admit, saved my life.

The mail read as follows:

The Mail

Dear esteemed cousin,

Congratulations on finding the Kannada root for our dear Telugu word, Bewars. Although the Kannada root essentially answers all the sneaking doubts we have had over the last two days, I must tell you, I was not convinced about it. With the limited evidence we have, we cannot rule out the possibility of that both Kannada and Telugu words have a common Urdu origin because a significant part of Karnataka was under the Nizam’s influence too.

My friend, Sharjeel Imam.
(A pipe would have looked
more intellectual but we'll
settle for a Cuban :p)

So I could not help but cogitate at one level further. And I am happy to announce that I have satisfactorily and rightfully arrived at the complete etymology of the word and for this I must thank my esteemed friend, Mr. Sharjeel Imam who patiently guided me with his thorough knowledge of Urdu, Persian and Arabic languages even though it is of little personal interest to him.

I am outlining the complete etymology that I have arrived at through the series of steps.

1. Waaris in both Arabic and Persian means the rightful heir of property. (The Telugu word “varasudu” also came from the same Arabic root!)

2. A word in Arabic can be negated by adding the prefix La-

3. So, Lawaaris in Arabic would mean one who does not have a rightful heir i.e. stray. A lawaaris kid would mean "a bastard". It is interesting to note that lawaaris in Hindi means bastard! (an indication that we are on the right track)

4. In Persian, a root word can be negated by adding the prefix be- (examples bebas, bekaar etc.)

5. So in Persian, a word for bastard would be Bewaaris (which is also an Urdu word for bastard).

6. So the Urdu word Bewaaris became bevarsi in Kannada and bewars in Telugu.

7. So technically the word bewars in Telugu means bastard!

Thus I presenting my findings marking the end of an excellent and fruitful journey. It has been an honor researching with you. I hope to be a part of more such wonderful endeavors.

--

Your brilliant friend and cousin,

Jayanth Tadinada alias g2 (of gtoosphere fame)

We had assumed that the word, due to its regional popularity and brilliant sonic capabilities had its origins in Urdu. And Lo! That is the answer! Wikipedia was right… Our faith is restored! Dear God, please thank g2 on my behalf for he saved my life – yet again!

Epilogue

My friends, thus with great enthusiasm, I thus announce the etymological roots of Bewars! It has been a short and arduous journey, but a fruitful one nonetheless! This brilliant word, my dear readers, offers another mystery. While most words borrowed from other languages are subject to hyper standardization; for instance, In German, the word ‘uber’ means super, but in English we use it as a superlative to ‘super’; The word Bewars upon entry into Telugu has been subject to a slight sobriety that has undermined its offensive nature rendering itself to the wonderful and varied usage that we see around ourselves today! (Or in other words, it is very PG-13 unlike the Urdu word it comes from!)

I shall sign off in the words of the inimitable Arthur Conan Doyle, as spoken by Sherlock Holmes, no less: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".

Signed,
Satwik Gade

P.S: Fellow Telugu people, now that you know the etymology of this historical word; it is your moral duty to Share, tweet, re-share, re-tweet until every Telugu person on the face of this planet knows!

P.P.S: @Satwik, you asked me to "feel free" to edit the post. So technically it's your fault that you're suicidal :p -- g2

Note: We urge our Telugu readers to suggest more such intriguing words so we can find out their etymologies in a similar fashion :)

Baverse/ Bewars - A complete History and Etymology: part 1

Spoiler Alert

If you are from or lived briefly in Andhra Pradesh (or Karnataka) or at least slightly acquainted with Telugu (or Kannada) language you’ll find this very funny and informative. If not, you’ll find it very amusing!

What is Baverse?

A lot many people who don’t speak Telugu ask me the meaning of the word baverse all the time! Well it is not easy to explain a word like baverse because for me, it is not just a word. It’s an idea; it’s a way of life! Even as a kid, I have always been curious about its etymology. But no one knew where the word came from. I googled a lot but I just couldn’t find it anywhere!

The tipping point came a few days back when my cousin Satwik put his gtalk status message as Satwik Gade is a Certfied bewars! I suggested him that we do some research to find out the etymology of the word. I am proud to say we have cracked it and the results of our research will be published in this blog over the next two entries. The story of how the research unfolded in Satwik’s words:

Satwik Says...

“In spite of being the only two Telugu boys in NIFT, New Delhi, Anirudh Rao and I had very few conversations in our Native tongue. Our conversations comprised English sentences with throwaway references to all things Telugu uttered in the appropriate slang. On one such occasion, although I now forget the context, Rao exclaimed, “If we do that, they will surely know we are completely Bewars.” Now, being a person with an acute interest in etymologies – I own about six copies of The Dictionary of Word Origins in both Telugu and English at various stages of updation - I asked him if he might know where the word Bewars comes from.

If you are Telugu or have lived in Andhra you would surely have heard this word from your friends or not very well wishers at a very nascent stage of mental maturity and would have grasped it and used it and reused it time and again (the way the word feels against your tongue is just short of orgasmic) without once thinking about its origin. Being a man of the above description, Rao of course had no idea and being a senior he made humorous reference of bad taste about my nerdiness and left it at that.

Three years later, I posted a message on Buzz, updating my status to a ‘Certified Bewars’. g2, my friend and cousin suggested that the word bewars have a wiki page of its own. Being in complete agreement with him, I started to research the word bewars and this article is the result of this work in progress.

Initial Leads

The word’s popularity seems to be centered in no particular area in Andhra. However, it is used with particular zest in Hyderabad, so I had been, on earlier occasions, quick to assume that its origin lay in the Urdu language, not least because all Urdu words sit beautifully on the tongue and sound equally enchanting. But I soon found out upon, appropriate research in Lucknow and Allahabad; that the word does not belong in Urdu. Similar searches ruled out most of North India altogether. So once again, I returned to the point of origin which is Hyderabad.

In my Hyderabad office, on a lean day, work-wise, I sat at my desk and decided to take the cyber route to end this mystery. The reader might be thrilled to know that BEWARS is the abbreviation of the British Excavation and Archeological Research Society. Here, I received a bit of encourage when my brain allowed me to assume that the word might have had origins in the Indian opinion of British Archaeology. Of course this was all conjecture and thus I had to persist. So, the reader will, then, come across a few casual references to the word by various Telugu gentlemen around the world. Most of them are in appropriately bad taste and a few are worse where the respectful author deems it fit to call a colleague of mere acquaintance, a Bewars Lanja!

Upon still further search, I realized that it is a popular surname in Britain and America. Now, it is probable that a person of a distinguishable personality is seen often to lend his nomenclature to the personality itself. A proper noun example being: “That teacher is a Hitler” or “Stop monkeying around!” I decided to leave no stone unturned and check if any member of the Bevars/Bewars family had any connection, dubious or otherwise with India.

Dead End

Firstly, the answer is unfortunately, no. Secondly, the earliest reference to this name lies in the website www.ancestry.co.uk wherein I found that in 1820, a British couple, Antonie and Mary Bewars left for New York on a ship from a port in Germany. Upon further search I found http://boards.ancestry.com/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=1&p=surnames.bevars where members of the Bevars family are attempting to contact other members of the Bevars family. A few excerpts from the page are given below for the amusements of readers who fully understand the meaning of bewars.

Juilee134: There are a few Bevars in the Lawrence county, in cemeteries.
L. J Clark: Hi, did you know there are very few bevars? We might be family.
Julie: Thank you, I am real bad at this stuff, but I keep trying. At one time my Bevars was Beavers, and then nothing.

Ad Bevars: "I don’t really know too much about my family history, other than (that) I was always told that the family was black foot Native American. It’s just so exciting to find more bevars people out there. We are few and far in between!"

Clearly Ad Bevars has never been to Andhra! Also another interesting person worth mentioning at this juncture is one Mr. Duffer Bevars ( the reader might be interested to know that an appropriate cyber slang here would be ROTFLMAO) who conducts his profession in matters relating to software engineering.

New Leads

After much amusement and online grave digging across of England and New York, we were forced to abandon the theory that the word is of British origin. Just when we have almost given up hope, a quick look into the urban dictionary has given us a new lead, that the word Bevarsi (which is very close to Bewars) is a Kannada slang word used by slum people in Karnataka. And at the same time g2 dug into the Telugu Wikipedia to find an article which listed all the Urdu words borrowed into the Telugu language and found another exciting lead there. With the two possible leads in less than an hour’s time, both of us initially came to the conclusion that the word is of Kannada origin but destiny had different plans with a new twist...!”

To be continued... in the mean time, share this with your Telugu friends :)