Skip to main content

Hunky dory

Sounds like a cheesy Hindi Movie Title.  Something to signify a strong rope.  Or a dude with a pet name like Hunky with a BFF called Dori.  But it is one of many curious and select words of a lexicon spoken only in SE Asia specifically India.

'Pet name' is another such set of words found only in India.  It is not literally meant to be the name of your pet which state side is construed largely in the category of four legged mammals with a tail.  Rather in India it is a name that members of your household will use to refer to you.

A 'household' is also a strangely Indian phrase wherein the size of it can vary depending on the geographic location of it.  In rural India a household could literally mean a village full of relatives that may appear at a moment's notice (or without one) and gab all day long since there is nothing better to do.

It is odd given there are (or I should say were) not many things to do that there can be things to talk about.  Most tend to be on the 'family front'.  These days with Facebook and many other electronic channels available to the sundry there is perhaps a lot of gab worthy content floating around.

'Family fronts' are also not to be heard of in the US.  This is also a peculiar Indian phenomenon - sometimes heard of in the Indian diaspora floating in the US.  What is the association of a family with a front (short for frontier) is not clear to me.

Most families were sedentary so their frontier has never shifted from the town they were born in much like families in Akron, Ohio or Vance, Alabama.  But I do not hear of frontiersmen other than those that actually went to war with the neighborhood hillbillies.

Or in another frame of reference if a family front had something to be discussed why was there no mention of the family rear?  What was going on there?  Everything hunky dory?



Comments

  1. from time to time it rears its ugly head..back to the front?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A few good books

 On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...

Costa Rica

 Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry.   Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while.  Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...