Naming the Grandparents

All of us have names you know, mostly chosen by our parents, unless you belong to the older Palakkad generation, where you basically had no choice, you got your grandfather's or grandmother's name. Of course, this would mean you have a rather long drawn name like Suriyanarayanan or Vaidhyanathan or Balambal or Thailambal (yep, that's my grandma's name). I think it is this factor that makes all the Palakkad grandmas never want to be called the standard "Paati". Come to think of it, most Iyer households have weird pet names for their grannies. While the poor grandpas get stuck with the geographical area they live in, grandmas are more innovative with their names. They manage to manipulate the grandkids into having some cool granny nicknames!

My paternal grandmother was "Jemmai". Derived from "Jayamani's Ammai", it somehow manage to become "Jemmai" by the time we got there. If she had lived any longer, the great grandkids would have definitely made her "Jems". My grandpa got "Jempa" (a change, but of course, he had no choice in the matter).

My maternal grandmother was lucky in a way. She got labelled "Manni" (meaning Bhabhi), thanks to her brothers in law and stayed that way for life. Even the great grandkids called her Manni. We did try to remodel it in between, but then found there's really no remodelling the word Manni, unless of course you put an accent to it and make it sound like the very Italian "Maanny". My grandfather is still Santacruz Thatha, even though he has long moved out of Santacruz and is now based in Goregoan since the past 10 years.

But the ass kicker is my mom's Chitti. She was called Andheri Chitti first, till her grandchildren came along. The first lot made it "Jaya-amma", shortened to "Jayama". Then came the NRI grandkid, who turned it to "Jammie". By then, Lot. No.1 of grandkids had hit college. Then they thought "Jammie" is too childish (the UK boy is all grown up, all of 9 yrs old now and he thinks the same way too.. go figure!!) and now she's the uber cool "JAMS"!!!!!

In the meanwhile, my mom has stuck to the more tame "Ammamma", though my niece has an accent so it sounds cool... my daughter doesn't call anyone by their tags, instead she uses pet names like "Chinku", "Laddoo", "Tinku", "Pappu" etc.. especially when she wants something done.. This generation of grandmother's seems to be sticking to the more traditional "Ammammma", "Thathi" or "Thatha", with the location tags though.. So, my nephews have names their grandfathers Bombay Thatha, Ghatkopar Thatha etc etc.

Anyone having more interesting grandparent names? I would love to hear from you about them on this blog....

Well, its adieu for now... and to all my fans, apologise for the massive delay in posting another blog.