Smiling at Strangers

When I am in strange places I am a shy person. I just dont talk and if possible dont move either. I wait counting seconds that will let me be home. When I go about on my photographic pursuits this deficiency ensures I lose out on good portraits. I usually hide my camera when someone notices I'm taking photographs of inanimate objects. My Flickr photostream is proof enough that I dont take snaps of people at all.

The Chennai Photowalk has been an eye-opener of sorts. Chandrachoodan, a splendid photographer himself, has been successful in attracting some of the best photographers in Chennai once every month at designated locations. And then all of them go in pursuit of photographs. Some guys are just amazing when it comes to striking instant relations with strangers. They easily persuade people to pose for photographs. Like some one said there, a photographer needs good "people skills".


In one of my reticent moods at one of these photowalks, I clicked an aged lady sitting in a cycle-rickshaw. And she caught me clicking! I thought she would get angry and start a harangue of insults on the youth of the country. But she just smiled. I smiled back and she asked "Nalla vandirukka?" (Has it come out well?). I replied "Aama rombo nalla irukka" (Yes! It looks good). She blessed me "Nalla irru" (Be good!).

Her good gesture filled me up with delight. The shyness disappeared... atleast for a while. I kept smiling at people passing me by. If I liked the moment, I sometimes took pictures. I was the papparazzi!

The electric smile
In another of my sullen moods, I perched myself on my bike in the corner of a road waiting for mom. Some people walked sadly brooding over their life. Some carried tension from their work. Others simply were enraged with Life as a whole. That's when I saw her. She carried a tiny bag with books in it. She walked merrily, almost like she were dancing. She probably was singing too I dont remember. All of 5 years old she was... I just couldn't help but smile at her. She shot back a smile so electrifying that my heart just leapt. Merrily she walked towards her home. She even waved back at me like she was saying "Goodbye". I turned around and there were others too who were smiling seeing her. It helped me realise how contagious happiness can really be. No words spoken, no touch, just a moment of goodwill and the girl spread happiness to everyone on her path.

Selfishness?
The moment left me thinking. All I need to feel happy is to extract it from someone who is happy. And the medium is just a smile. I wonder if the motive is pure selfishness on my part. From then on, I've been experimenting on the streets. I select random people and smile at them. Most think that I'm stupid. But the kids never fail me. They always smile back. I see the traffic cop hard at work and show him the thumbs-up to say he's doing a good job. He smiles back. Most aged people are equally good as the kids. It is the ones in the middle that are truly miserable. Recently, I read about Where the Hell is Matt?, the BadDancer guy who is making everyone over the world smile by dancing with them. Maybe I should carry my camera and take snaps of the people who smile back at me. And then I could document the various types of smiles. And yeah, the girls, if they just sneer at me, I'll click their scorny reactions too!

The Name is Sudhamshu

XYZ: "Thank you for calling Vodafone helpline, this is XYZ speaking, how may I be of assistance?"
I: "I have a problem."
XYZ: "Surely I will provide you assistance, but before that can I confirm your name, number, address and Billing information?"
(He spoke so fast, I paused wondering if I was speaking to a machine!)
XYZ: "Hello, sir?"
I: "Oh! It is a person! Yeah, I am Sudhamshu speaking and my number is ..."
XYZ: "Shriram aa?"
I: "S-U-D-H-A-M-S-H-U" (I spelled out the letters)
XYZ: "Ok Mr. Shoe, How can I help you?"
I: "Its Sudhamshu."
XYZ: "Yes I got that Mr. Shoe. How can I help you?"
I: "Its a single word. My surname is not Shu."
XYZ: "Do you have a problem if I call you Shoe, Mr.Shoe?"

Dumbfounded!

There are certain advantages of having an uncommon name.
1. It is a good conversation starter as people are interested in knowing what it means.
2. You get to choose your name as a User ID in most websites. No weird numbers, underscores that you will forget later!
3. Search engines will point directly to your content every time you do an Ego search.

But as was evident in the conversation above, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages! In every telephonic conversation, I end up spelling out my name. Even then I'm not certain if people will pronounce it properly.
People in Chennai hear my name and say "Oh! You are from from the Naartha? It is a Naarthie name". People from North say "Oh! you are a Madraasi, haan?". Then I have to go through the drill my parents taught me the moment I started speaking.

SUDHA (सुधा) - means Amrit (अमृत) or Nectar. Elixir is rather a closer synonym.
AMSHA (अंशः) - means Part.
So Sudha + AMSHAH = (SUDHAMSHU)
(सुधा) + (अंशः) = सुधांशु
I'm a part of Nectar / Elixir.

People with a knowledge of Sanskrit immediately shower praises on the person who christened this tiny part of Elixir. People speaking Hindi start arguing that it should be SUDHA-N-SHU and not SUDHA-M-SHU. (I think Google too speaks Hindi. If I type Sudhamshu in its search box, it prompts Did you mean: Sudhanshu)
In Devanagari the dot on top of a (अं) would come closest to a 'ma' than a half 'na'. People still dont agree until I throw the weight of my father's Ph.D in Hindi!

The worst comes when people write your uncommon name. I've already told about the SATHAMSHI episode. Here are a few examples from my bank statements.

• SUDBAMRHU


• SUDHARUSHU


• SUDHNISHU


• SUDBANSHU


• SUDHARASHU


• SUDAMSU


• SHIVRAMSHU

Moral of the Story:
Parents select beautiful names for their kids and enjoy all the praises. While the name bearer has to endure a lifelong travail! And they say, "Whats in a name?".

Quirky scientists

I hated learning Biology. Despised it utterly because I had to remember the extremely complex binomial nomenclature of species. Family, Genus, sub-species... ugh. If calling a Tiger, Tiger was not sufficient, we had to call its family Panthera Tigris. The Bengal Tiger was Panthera Tigris Tigris whereas the Siberian Tiger was Panther Tigris Altaica. A Frog was called Rana Pipiens! I always wondered why the scientists were so tasteless when it came to naming conventions.

Quirky Quarks
Physicists on the other hand are very different. Their concepts are difficult to grasp but their naming is quite relevant. Probably they too were victims of biological naming memorisation. When some physicists theorised about the smallest fundamental particle they named it Quark. 6 types of quarks form all other smaller particles like electron, positron, neutron, protons etc. These 6 types of quarks were called Up, Down, Top, Bottom, Charm and Strange!! No relation to the properties of the quarks!

Oh! Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me!
I was recently reading about astro-photography and came across a debate about the "Real" colours of galaxies. One of the scientists said that they calibrated their cameras to known G2V stars and then took images. G2V, because our Sun is also a G2V star. Not having understood anything I came across a website that taught about Star Classification. Depending on the temperature of a Star they are classified into the categories O, B, A, F, G, K and M. And how do these guys remember these 7 categories? "Oh! Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me"!. And you thought that all these scientists were just spectacled nerds!