In Arabic, “cow eyes” connotes beauty. IIRC, there was some breed of cow in pre-Islamic Arabia, called “Maha,” that had large, white eyes surrounded by kohl-like coronas. It’s like “doe-eyed,” I guess.

That’d be a neat name for the daughter of Arab & Brown parents: Maha-Maha — Grand Cow Eyes.

MuraliMannered…speaking of intra-family marriages, and you know all you Southies have it in your family too, my paternal grandparents were first cousins before they got married–absolutely cute couple. And i think my great uncle married some sort of niece-cousin of his (not sure how they are related). It makes naming relations on that side extremely confusing! My brother and I just end up calling people by their age range (really old–grand-titles, mid age-aunt/uncle title, and everyone else by their name) We also have the whole generational thing because my mom’s uncle is basically the same age as she is so she calls his wife sister-in-law (mani, babhi). My dad was only 15 years younger than my patti and so he mentioned that when he was little he used to call my great-grandmother ‘adu ma’ or ‘that mom’ and my grandmother ‘akka’(didi, behn, etc) for a long time.

It was the effect of small-town to big-town migration, rapid forced change, within a generation, to developments in the economy, education, professional environment, female entry into the workforce, etc. The social adjustment from all that, and more, is still under way, and we are all dealing with its effects…

Chachaji, you are so right.

P.S. I never got the ‘cow eyes’ insult but i did get the ‘cow lover’(as if that was something bad) and ‘curry pooper.’ (which, lets face it…happens)

Also, to add to the craziness of my family tree, my uncles and aunts on my father’s side span in age from 7 (1 year older than my youngest brother) to 55. On my mom’s side the diff is “only” 20ish years, and my mom’s older sis was pregnant at the same time as my grandmother. My youngest uncle is already a great-uncle, and the craziness will only get worse with my generation…

Yes, of course. Goes without saying. I should have been more specific. In any part of the south where people don’t use caste identifiers or “house names”, you’re likely to encounter the problem I described above. In other cases, not so much.

this isn’t true for all south indians. it doesn’t work that way in my family. my uncles (father’s and mother’s side) all have the same last names. i think what you said above depends on which part of south india you’re from.

That’s very interesting! Thanks for explaining it, hema. How would the names be listed on a passport?

It’s because of the way naming conventions work in the south. Let’s say a South Indian gentleman is named P.N. Krishnan. Krishnan is actually his first name, the P stands for Puliyur (a place, probably his ancestral village) and N stands for Nagesh (his father’s first name). His brother is going to be P.N. Vijayan (the P and the N stand for the same thing). To an American (or even a non-South Indian), this would seem odd, because technically, the two brothers have the same first names (P.N.) but different last names!