A to Z Challenge - My Theme- City Connect - my connect with....
Aurangabad-Schooling & Junior College / Bombay- Graduation & First job/ Chennai - Marriage & Motherhood
AURANGABAD
YOGANANDA & THE GOLDEN AMULET- I don't recall now if it was Amar Chitra Katha or any other publication but we had this book at home. The story spoke about how a simpleton Mukunda becomes the great saint Yogananda. If we as, kids owned this book- Dad in his precious collection owned Autobiography of a Yogi - by Paramahansa Yogananda
YAZHINI- A friend from graduation college Bombay. My family use to prompt me to check if I can pronounce her name correctly. Yazhini is etymologically a tamil name and there is hardly any English equivalent to the "ZH part" of it. This name gets pronounced as Yaalini/ Yaazini/ Yayini -but they differ from how the exact pronunciation in Tamil goes.
Maazhai (Rain)/ Vaazhaipazham (Banana) are 2 other words, I can think of facing similar challenge as Yazhini
CHENNAI
YOU
HEAR THEM SAY -When new to Chennai ; to me ; getting hold of state geography was of high interest. It still is! Apart from going around the
city ; I use to be all ears; to Tamil news updates my mother in law use to
watch. Right from the headlines &
all though the news- You Hear them Say - district & city names like "Krishnagiri Maavatnam", "Madurai Maanakaram", Erode- Dindigul-Salem....so on. In
the next available opportunity -I would fetch a map & check how these places spread across
Tamil Nadu.
5 comments:
1. You can now try saying this:
Kuzhandhai Kuselan Vaazhapazha thollil Vazhukki Vizhundhaan ;)
(Baby Kuselan slipped on a banana peel and fell down)
2. Nice findings on Chennai. I learnt about Mofussil from Akhilesh when he once quizzed me while we were travelling in the metro what the 'M' in 'CMBT' stood for :)
In school we used to make fun with rhyming words. One boy will say vaazhaipazham (banana). The other boy will say vaangabayam (afraid to buy). Just fun among small kids. Different names for the same city, especially on buses, will confuse the hell out of out of state visitors. For example, Pondicherry, Pandy, Pudhuvai, Pudhucherry. They are all the same city popularly known as Pondicherry.
I can relate to hard to pronounce names...
The Multicolored Diary
Yazhini looked like a Persian name to me till I read your write up. I love Chennai by the way. You may already know all about its history but there was a walking tour I took in 2017 organised by Storytrails which was fantastic.
I wrote about it on my blog--A Chennai full of stories. Sharing the link, if you'd like to check it out:
https://artismoments.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-chennai-full-of-stories.html
Cheers Vyoma.
"zh" sound is in Malayalam as well. Mazha for rain and pazham for banana.
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