Saturday, December 26, 2009

Acts of appreciation

People will always try to do their job, but knowing that they are appreciated helps them enjoy doing it. I could see their faces light up when I thanked people for working on Christmas day.

Sometimes even a simple act of smiling at a stranger can lift up his/her spirit. Who knows what was going on in their lives that day that seeing you smile gave them hope.

Go ahead, make someones day :).

Happy New Year people.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I grew a little

I attribute it to two very different things that happened in the last three weeks.

Each in their own way taught me not to ride on habits.  Habits stagnate your mind.

As some may know, this is my second year at a First Responder at my local Rescue Squad.  So far, none of the patients have died under my care, nor did they have serious conditions or injuries. Maybe I had assumed what I needed was to provide the care required at the moment, and then get them to the hospital as quickly as possible.  Then everything would be alright.  That had worked up until three weeks ago when I had a patient coughing up blood when I got there, and then she coughed up some lung tissue en route.  I got her to the hospital in record time, and felt that I had done all the right things in taking care of her.

She had had lung cancer and had been in remission until that sunny spring day.  I probably knew it all along, but a day later, I finally realized that she is not alright, and when I was taking care of her, she would have had this realization.  This hemoptysis meant the cancer was back.  I now feel that I could have done better, that in a certain way I was not present for her at a critical time. 

The second experience was very different but no less revealing.  I played paint ball for the first time two weeks ago.  It is a fast paced, light hearted sport that we played in the woods.  Two teams face off against each other, and one has to eliminate the other within a set time.  Simple enough.

I got "killed" in almost all the games which is not surprising, most of us did.  But towards the end of the day, I decided to play the game as if it were real: "I could die if I got shot".  I got so into it that when the shots were fired at me, I really felt my life was threatened. What rattled me, was that I could not see where the shots were coming from, and there was no way I could retaliate.  All I knew was there were two guys shooting at me and I HAD to get out.  And I could not see how.  Fortunately, my teammates took them out.

Still in the game, I moved on, but for the life of me, I could not spot anybody.  Everything looked lifeless in the shadows.  What if this were real, I thought to myself, "If I have to do this everyday, for sure would go crazy".

In my hyper alert state, I turned at the sound of a twig, and opened fire.  The white band on his arm told me I had taken out one of my own.

I realized what soldiers live with and what they have to give of themselves.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Birds eye view

The feeling of soaring in the air with silence around you and the world beneath is something I cannot express. One has to go through the emotion to understand what I mean. No offense to sky divers, but apart from the rush you get at the moment you jump head first, the feeling was not the same throughout.

It was a cool October morning when I took off. The moment you take off in itself is a feeling to savour. You can literally see, hear and feel the ground being left behind. We were towed to 2500 ft by a ultralight aircraft and let go. The aircraft dives back for the next tow as soon as the line is cut so you go from noisy to silent ambiance in a moment. As far as the flight goes, you are constantly gliding back down and mostly what you can do is turn left, right or dive, unless, and this happened to us, you catch a thermal, which took us up to 4000 ft very quickly. It felt like the wind was telling me, let me take you up there, the view is much better.

If you liked what you just read, believe me it only gets better.

 
  
P.S:  The camera is attached to the wing and is controlled by a lever near the pilot. Comments on my head gear are welcome.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Between CardeROCK and a ...

It was perfect weather last Saturday. I wasnt sure where my skill levels had fallen to since I hadnt climbed all winter, but this climb put my mind to rest.

P.S: Sorry about the chatter in the background. I am also not that fat as I appear in the video. In fact now theres proof, cameras do add 10 pounds.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Misnomer

I was talking to my mom this morning and during the course of conversation she mentioned how her "Aadu Sadhai" was hurting. I quickly corrected her saying it was her"Kannukutti Sadhai" not "Aadu Sadhai", since it is her "calf muscle" not "goat muscle".

Anybody agree/disagree/agree to disagree ?

Sunday, April 12, 2009

What do you do when the mob comes after you

I got into a fight last Saturday with a bunch of people. I would say about 100 of'em. Fortunately, I had a weapon handy.





It was world pillow fight day. I came out with a shiner around my left eye. I had so much fun that evening, felt so good to beat people up. I am kidding of course, but seriously...

Saturday, April 4, 2009

This does not mean you don't have to work today


Me and another colleague decided that enough is enough and turned one of colleagues office by 180 deg. I was standing at the entrance when I took this picture. Every little detail has been rotated 180 deg. If you can make out, the screen is upside down and mouse left handed (I forgot to move it to the left side but it's a left handed mouse).

Unfortunately, I wasn't in early enough to see her reaction, but she was mad for sure. She sat in front of her computer unable to do anything until I got in. I waited for a hour pretending to be busy before setting it right.

Well, I did buy her lunch to make up for this.

The prank just happened to occur on April fool's day.

Friday, April 3, 2009

It only took me 17 years

But I finally understood one of my English lessons from 5th std(grade) maybe. It was called "Stone Soup", heres the wikipedia link(don't go there just yet). Just to be clear, I googled the link only after I figured it all out by myself.

My lesson was a little different than the one in Wikipedia. It goes about like this. A waylaid traveller, hungry and tired, knocks on the door of this miserly woman's house on a cold, dark and rainy night. He asks for food which she denies, so he asks if he can just cook some stone soup for himself. Now, she is curious, since she can save a lot of money by drinking this instead, so she lets him in.

He starts boiling a pot of water, and then puts the stone in it. He keeps her engaged during this time, the topic, I cant recollect. Anyway, he pretends to taste the soup, then says, "mmm..tasty, but if I had some carrots and some other vegetables, it will make it even better". The lady hands him some vegetables. A little while later, he tastes the soup again and says, "Wow, amazing, if only I had some lamb chops(or something), it would be delicious".

Well, you get the point. In the end, the man drinks his soup and goes his way.

I never quite understood the meaning behind this story during class. I just nodded when the rest of the class did. I never did quite well in English(thats a whole another story), but I don't think I did miserably in the test either.

Fast forward to two days back. It was about 2 a.m, I was at the squad, just about to fall asleep. I have no clue as to why, but this story flashed in my head and I had my own Eureka moment. Now, I can claim I have fully understood what the story is all about.

For the less gifted(people who take more than 17 years to get a story), the reason is that the man was trying to get some free food but ended up eating his stone.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Further evidence of our ancestry.

I was watching one of Planet Earth episodes about life in the tropics when they showed the Macacque monkeys in Indonesia swimming underwater which apparently was just for fun. At one point one the playful ones surfaced near the shore and started scratching under his chin with his hind leg. There was a certain quirkiness in the way it went about it, funny at times. Suddenly a thought came out of nowhere and I wanted to see if I can scratch my chin with my feet too.

Well, it took a little effort, but now I can proudly say to the macaques, Aha. Now, if only I can dive underwater like them, I could probably pass for one of them.

I know, I know, I am an idiot.


On a seperate note, I ran a 5k race this morning. I completed it in 24:15 min. I had been gearing up for this for the past month, mostly by running on the treadmill. I learned that if your shin bone hurts when you run, its not because you are low on calcium but your feet have pronation(they don't land right). I bought running shoes which fixed the problem.

Update: Heres a link that gives you a lot of good information on shin splints and how to deal with it.

Anyway, I noticed something interesting happen during the race. Just past the 2 Km mark when I started to get tired, I was suddenly overcome with emotion, almost to the point that I wanted to cry. It would go and after a few minutes I would have the same thing happen to me again. I figured it out eventually, it was the endorphins. The lazy bastards, instead of making me happy, they tried to take the easy way out. Fortunately, my superior intellect prevailed and sanity reigned. By the way, I finished 183rd in the race and 3rd in my team.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Hey, atleast we now know kryptonite's a good brand


Other titles that might be approriate:

- I guess you could call this recycling.
- Wonder how long it took to get to this.
- Boy, that's one careful owner.


I remember a bike that was locked outside NIH, and everyday when I ride home past it, one more part would have been stripped. Two weeks later, I saw a cut lock lying by the post. Whoever did that really took his time.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Karaoke



Makes me wonder what I sound like when I am singing at the top of my voice in the shower.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Didnt know Superman starts with a H

Apparently the real reason why Superman kept his secret was because he had promised his mother.

This video reminds me of my mom dancing to telugu and kannada songs when chitramala was on every Saturday night. The steps were always so easy. 1 anda 2 anda, pretty much like they taught us in kinder garden.


Signs

I found this really cool short movie. Reminds me of "Paesum Padam" or "Pushpak". Its a sweet movie, hope you enjoy it.


Monday, March 9, 2009

Now this is ridiculous

I was coming back home this evening when I witnessed a spectacle. My stupid phone ran out of juice so don't have a picture to prove it.

What would you call a person who walks their pet rabbit? With a collar, leash et all. At first, all I noticed was a tiny black and white creature, I stopped, got off and went close to it just out of curiosity. It hopped a couple of times, so I can definitely confirm that it was a rabbit indeed.

I couldn't myself and broke into a smile. I almost wanted to ask if she ever had a pet hamster and how she took care of it.

I saw this one, but I wonder what other pets get walked.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

All work and no play

We had our first outdoor annual winter retreat at work last week. Whitetail was pretty much ours since there were hardly anybody else on the slopes that day.

Its strange how same people act differently when you are outside the office. This was such a great idea and hopefully I have stressed it enough for these outings to happen more often.


The day did not end for me at the mountain. I went Go-Karting that evening and boy I had a blast. I was so high on adrenalin that my pulse was racing(pun intended) a hour after I got back home. Well, there were two teams racing and I was watching them when my eyes caught the results screen. Thats when I started paying attention to her. Theres no way for me to put it in words how she drove around the track, but lets just say that she could have very well been the another obstacle in the course. The picture below says it all. You will find her lap times at the bottom of the screen.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

My Will

I was reading news this morning when one of the headlines caught my eye. That's a great way to be useful even after you are dead.

I hereby declare that it is my wish to donate my bodily remains to science. I really hope someone who reads this will remember.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Now, that idea really went down the drain

I do agree, the title is punny, but do give me a break. Its 1:00am and cant go to sleep. That's the best I can come up with.

I was trying to organise my photos when I stumbled upon this one. I took it in Amsterdam last summer. I hope people dont find it disgusting. If they do, I apologise

 
At first it might look like a picture of an urinal, but look closer(if you click on the picture, it opens up bigger in a new window). I even read about it a long time ago. In order to reduce the "splash" around the urinal, the designers came up with this simple idea of strategically placing a picture of a fly.

Now, I can pretty much say this for every guy in this planet that when we pee, we always aim at something. If we spot something out of place, we have to dislodge it and send it down the drain. Don't ask me why, I dont know, but that's the way it is. Ladies, I know what you are thinking, that  this doesn't make any sense. Again, I dont have the answer, its just the way we are.

Apparently this little fly thingie is doing the job it is intended to do. I knew the whole story behind this but still couldnt help myself. Must..clean..that..spot. Have..to..save..the..planet

P.S: Thats not the one I took a leak in.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Now this is cool!

One of my friends sent me this link. It provides driving directions in the city of Bengaluru. Driving directions, literally. You will soon see what I mean.

Here's something you can try. Put an address in, for example pizza hut, Brigade Road. Click Directions to or Directions from the list of suggestions. Now put Cantonment Railway Station for the End Address and click Go Vid.

Now comes the best part, though you might have to wait for a little bit. On the right side of the screen you will see the map that tells you how to get from the start  to the destination, but on the left side you can picture yourself driving it!

My favourite part is when the guy says "Please Go Straight".

Monday, February 16, 2009

A Little bit wiser, ignorant nonetheless

I watched CNBC's "House of Cards" tonight. It ran for 2 hours and was aimed at explaining away the recession that the we find ourselves in.

If you filter the melodramatic exclamations the host makes after each and every sentence, you get the picture how this whole sub-prime mortgage led to the current situation(I didn't even know what that meant until today). Now I can throw terms like MBS and CDO too. Unfortunately that's about all I know about finance.

I had learned my lesson about greed when I was about 7 or 8 I think. I can still clearly remember that night. I was staying at my uncles place that day. They had left me with their kids while they had to go on an errand. We were mostly watching cartoons and playing. They came home about 7pm and brought dinner with them. It was my favourite, Puri and Kazhangu(Puri's the smaller version of Batura and Kazhangu is a gravy made from potato, onion and some other stuff). Writing about it makes my mouth water. :). Anyway, I was being selfish and not leaving enough for my cousins. My aunt got really mad and of course, I started crying. She started to explain how everything feels better when you share it with others. She then made me give food back to my cousins and (I can still picture my cousins faces) and made my cousins thank me. As she had said, it felt pretty good. From then on, it became a habit.

She's coming to America this summer for her son's graduation. I should ask her to give that talk to the Wall Street big shots.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Current State of Affairs

Based on what I have become recently, I hereby decided to call myself Lazee Kamakazee.


The name seems like a perfect fit. A lazy kamakaze is of no good to anybody.  So, until I change my ways, this is what I should be called. 

Update:
I know within the reclining body watching TV there lurks someone with the speed of lightning.  If only I could master the art of getting off the couch, what a better place I could make the world become.

I urge you all to please oblige.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Haiiiiiyaaaaa

Last Thursday, Sensei Teruyuku Okazaki came to teach a class.  Master Gichin Funakoshi founded Shotokan style in 1936.

At the end of the class we bow to a picture of Master Funakoshi(He founded Shotokan in 1936), Sensei Okazaki turned around and said, "Ah! My father's picture". I was not aware of the history, so I was like, this is too cool, our Master's own son teaching me. Well, Sensei just calls him that, but that's enough for me. :)

It was amazing how flexible he was, even at his age. You can learn a lot from a master, even if you only did spend a little time with him.

 
Well, after all this, I had to take a picture with him.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Feedback on tutorial

I got some good feedback on my tutorial.

- Split the article into 2 parts, one with the introduction and the other teaching how to use the readers.
- Categorise material into sections.

They are great adivices and I will definitely incorporate them in my future tutorials.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Snowboarding...

Since none of my friends snow-board, I signed up for this meetup group for DC snowboarders. I was a little apprehensive, first since I had to get up at 6am, I am sporting an injured elbow from 2 weeks ago(took a fall snowboarding) and I didn't know anybody in this group.

We went to Whitetail this Saturday. Generally the slopes around here are pretty bad, so wasn't expecting very much. But what a day it turned out to be. I had a great group with me, the weather was perfect and the slopes had enough powder to enjoy going down it. There was this one dude in this group who boarded with left arm in a cast. He had broken in last week doing you know what. We started at 10:00 and went on till 5:00. I wanted to, but couldn't stay longer(see, you cant have these conditions in DC that often) since my ride wanted to go home.

I came home at 7:00 and the next thing I remember is day light. Gotta love that waking up feeling all beat up.

Here are some pictures.

P.S: that's not a macho pose :), I am goofy(I have my right leg forward when snowboarding), so I had to turn that way. That cabin is on top of one of the slopes and I think the layers of snow are formed by the snow-making equipment.

Tom Sims and Sherman Poppen, thank you.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

How to read and keep track of blogs, news, the web in general

I realized that a lot of people read blogs every once in a while then forget about it. When they remember, they find a lot of new posts have been made.

There are many disadvantages to getting fresh content this way. With blogs, one, you miss the chance to comment on the blog (about which I will talk later) when it is fresh and have people involved and talk about it. Two, you might forget for a while and when you get back there might be one too many articles to read. Compound this with some more blogs, and you got yourself a lot of missed articles.

The same thing with news. Most of us go to our favourite news site and read the headlines. We scan through headlines page after page, section after section, and if we find it interesting, we proceed to read the article. All this takes a lot of time, which is why we are forced to stay with one or maybe a few news site.

Tada, there has been something thats been conjured just for your. Syndication. The technology available to us are various implementations. e.g. RSS, Atom. Instead of me explaining it, I found a video made by commoncraft called RSS in plain english. I highly recommend checking it out.




Now you may ask what do I use, RSS or Atom? Both are ok, but if you are given a choice choose Atom. Atom is an open standard whereas RSS is not and has begun stagnating. Moreoever Atom is fast gaining popularity. But for most cases Feed readers support both so you don't have to worry about choosing one or the other.

 Ok, now that you know about RSS/Atom feeds, how do I get them, and after I get them, how do I read them. There are many ways to get them. Some are explained in the video below. It also explains how to use Google Reader which is what I use for reading feeds. Its also by far the most popular. You need an account with google for which you will be offered an option. There will also be a link "Take a tour", I encourage you to check it out too.



Once you have subscribed to the feeds you want to read, you can organise them into folders by clicking "Manage Subscriptions" in the bottom left. Its just like putting your mail in different folders. Just go to http://reader.google.com to start using it.

So lets say you come across a new blog or a news website and you want to add it to your Google Reader. If you use Firefox, then in the right corner of your adress bar you will see a orange icon.


If you see that icon that means that site has a RSS/Atom Feed. Click on it, and you will see either "Subscribe to RSS feed" or "Subscribe to Atom feed" or both. click on Atom feed. You will be redirected to another page. I use Linux, so I dont have a description of how Internet Explorer 7, or Safari will behave. I presume they do something similar. Anyway, copy the link from the address bar. In your Google Reader or any other reader, click Add Subscription and paste that link and click Add or Ok or whatever. If you are using Google Reader, it fetches recent content from the site and will present it to you in the right pane. You can assign this new feed to a folder by selecting one of the folders from the "Folder Settings". Also, you can view the articles either as a list or expanded. You can change it by choosing one(above the right pane on the right side).

I think you are all set. One word of advice, initially you will feel overwhelmed at the amount of content presented to you. Dont worry, its normal, and believe me you will get used to it. What I did was, used the "list" view, and would do a quick scan of the headlines, if I find it interesting, then I click on it to read the synopsis, if I am still interested I click the title which opens the article in a new window.

For those who are interested, you will find my Google Reader's shared items in the Links section on the right hand side. It is a feed. You can add it to your reader and you can read what I find interesting. If you have one already, please feel free to share.

Also if you are not interested in this whole reading feeds and feel it is a tad too much, I have a "Subscribe by email" link on the right hand side. Most other blogs and news sites have it too. What it does it will send you an email everyday, only if there are new posts.

This is my first attempt at writing a tutorial. Let me know if you have any comments on how I can improve.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

You can probably try this if your two wheeler runs out of gas

I want to share a fond memory(from about 7-8 years ago) which came to me when I was riding back home from work. A little bit of imagination is required to enjoy it.

First, a little bit of a background. My house is located at the corner of the first turn on a U shaped street. So if you look from the intersection section you will see our apartment. and it will look like the street ends at it.

This part is also related to the story. I had rescued two kittens which I rescued from the telephone exchange building behind our apartment. Chinna Pappa and Periya Pappa. The older one is Chinna pappa(Named after the characters in a tamil sitcom). Chinna means small and periya mean big, and pappa means child. Yes, thats how it is in the sitcom, the mother-in-law is chinna pappa and the daughter-in-law is periya pappa. They fight all the time and is seldom funny. Anyway, at the time of this story the kittens were about an year old I think and they mostly stayed outside. They kind of knew when any of my family members or myself come home everyday. They would wait at the intersection and when they see us they would race us to our apartment. It was almost a daily routine.

We had this moped which I borrowed from my cousin since I let ours get stolen. Yup, it was purely my careless behaviour that led it to get stolen(I was too lazy to lock it when I went to my friends place). So whenever I give a ride to my mom, somehow this thing started that when returning home, I would accelerate as I enter the street, cut the ignition halfway and then bet with my mom if the moped would roll on and reach our apartment building. I would ask her "Gummaaa Gummaadhaa", it got condensed from Pogumaa Pogaadhaa (Will it or will it not go[all the way])? She would always answer Gummaadhu(It wont go[all the way]). Now, as soon as it starts to slow to a crawl, I would start giving it thrusts with my hip, giving it that little extra to get it home(picture yourself on a office chair (the one with wheels under it) with your legs off the floor, hands not holding on any other object and then imagine trying to move it).

About these two kittens. You see, they have a peculiar way to race, they will race you in such a way they are always only just ahead of you. So, if you slow down, they slow down, if you stop they stop and wait for you to start moving again.

The whole thing went like this for a while, and by the time of this particular memory they had gotten very much used to my shenanigan. This is what happened that night.

- The kittens see my come, they get ready.
- I hear the meow(thats their call for get-set-go), I accelerate, and they start running.
- I was feeling lucky so a little before halfway, I turned off the power. A few seconds later, I can see the two kittens have noticed me and are slowing down too.
- I am close, but down to almost crawling speed. I was beginning to have doubts for the first time if I was going to make it. The two kittens meanwhile have stopped and waiting for me to come closer. They wait and wait, and I am there heaving. They look at each other then look at me and then start playing. I am like, "hey wait, I am still moving, arent I !?", determined to make it, no matter what. By the time I reach the gate, I had been concentrating so hard that I didn't notice the two have vanished. I guessed they probably got bored or lost faith in me. Well, they had not totally vanished, there they were, now waiting at the stairs for the next leg of the race, up 4 flights of stairs to our apartment.

As I was writing I realized, I do have one of the coolest gummi. We had so much fun those days. Even now when I call her, we almost always end up laughing.

P.S: I still havent lost that bet.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Question: How many things does it take to tell a river is frozen?

 
I actually saw a 60 something guy pick that brick(bottom right)  up from a building nearby and throw it with two of his friends watching and cheering :). I actually once found a shoe! I would have paid to see how that came to.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Spanish translation guide for Emegency personnel

I recently ran a call for a Motor Vehicular Accident where none of the passengers spoke english. It was by pure luck that one of my crew members spoke Spanish and I was able to cope with the situation. But it got me thinking how to avoid that situation in the future and after a little bit of searching around, I came across this iPhone app called Emergency Medical Spanish Guide. It has Spanish translations for most common questions you need answers for in these situations. I am planning on creating a cheat sheet with these questions and putting them in each of our ambulances.

In case you are curious, the person thankfully did not appear seriously injured.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

It cant be that crowded

but wait...

The city estimates about 2 million showed up for the inauguration. I also read somewhere that the TV networks sensored the booing when Bush came up on the big screen, but you should have been there to have experienced it. Its like the videos below only a lot louder. :)

This is for you Bush.


Cheney


And finally, when Obama stepped out

Sunday, January 11, 2009

A Neologist is born

I was talking to my sister after a couple of months and a word that I used to taunt her with when we were younger propped up in the conversation. We started reminiscing all the stuff I had come up and surprisingly enough my mom remembered a lot of them.

People who don't know tamil might not find this amusing. Actually, I don't know what lauguage most of them are, so maybe you will.

For my Sister:
1. loosaandibulbul - loosu means idiot. bulbul is a bird.
2. AK,YK, JS, SS - Archana Kali (Archana is my sisters name and Kali is the goddess of death), forgot what YK stood for, I cant tell you what JS stands for(my sis will kill me), and Sori Saami(Sori means itch, Saami means God). I remember having a longer list at that time which I would use only on special occassions.
3. Poikari Pookari - Poi means lie, Poo means flower and kari refers to someone female. I used it when she told a lie or blamed me for something she did. (I even called my mom this.)
4. This one is my favourite. I would get her everytime. You read it fast and like a song. Dhadhichi, Gundachi, Yaanachi, Paeyachi, Madachi, Sadachi, Vadachi, Archee

Btw, all this doesnt make me a mean brother. You have no idea about my sister. I didn't called her Kali for no reason. :)

For my Mom:
1. Annayae - There used to be this show called Veer Hanuman which was dubbed into tamil. Little Hanuman used to called his mom that.
2. Aatha - Slang for mom.
In the following you can clear see the etymology
3. Ammi Jaan - Means dear mother in Urdu
4. Gummi Jaan - The Gum in Gummis is pronounced  like boom, just replace the 'b' with 'g' and shorten the 'oo'. Gummi is a completly new word. No idea how I came up with that.
5. Gummi
6. Gum - I still call her this.
7. Gumthalakadi - My latest, Its a word thats part of many folk songs. Doesnt have any meaning. I call her this when I really need her to listen to me. Its like being called by the full name when you make mischief and get caught.

I know theres a few more, but cant recollect any at this moment.

My uncle who's even more creative, came up with these:
1. Gubbaccha - Apparently his son when he was a child tried to say "Book padichen" but came out something like this.
2. Takilimuthu - No idea.
3. Kootha, Guppa - Again, no idea.

I understand that for a third person, these may seem strange and childish, and maybe they are, but in a family its endearing. You know what, long after we have stopped using them, when we talk about it, it certainly brings a smile and maybe sometimes, even a tear.

Do you have any such names or came up with one in your life?