Celebrity life of word

Words become celebrities too. Overnight, they shoot from obscurity to stardom, writes Dr Saumya Balsari in her regular column.

Words become celebrities too. Overnight, they shoot from total obscurity to stardom and hover on everyone's lips and crowd the thoughts. Take, for instance, "Cruz", but I hope you agree, that there's nothing more to say about it. Somehow, I don't think hundreds of desis will be dashing off to bestow what is a girl's name in Spanish upon sons who are born confused, anyway. Then there's "tsunami". I was in Mumbai, city of irrepressible spirit and pragmatism, last week. I overheard a smartly dressed young man speak into his mobile phone against a backdrop of skyscrapers at Nariman Point, "Listen, I know those tsunamis will take months to clear, but we should close that deal with the World Bank". A tsunami is now a generic term for an obstacle, a potential disaster that it is possible not only to survive, but to skip sprightly over, like rickety, flimsy hurdles in a school race.

Enjoying the hospitality as a guest at a private Mumbai club, I politely enquired after the health of a friend's mother-in-law. "Oh, don't mention her please, she's a total tsunami!" she shuddered delicately, teeth poised over a plate of panipuri. Clearly, the word did not carry associations of a flimsy hurdle here.

In truth, few of us were on nodding terms with the word before December 2004. It was never invited to conversations over dinner or to linger over dessert, but by January, it was one of the top ten words in the Internet search. Soon there will be a flood of books with titles such as: Wrath of the Tsunami, and The Day The Sea Came Home. Bestsellers in the offing, wouldn't you say? Sting, who may well pen a song about the tsunami, should hurry up before a rapper beats him to it.

Two months on, "tsunami" is already passé, unless you want to use it to describe the hurdles Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles have to jump before they are legally wed. There is already another celebrity word in currency: "Sudan1". Fortunately, the digit after the word pre-empts any convenient media associations with malnutrition. "Sudan1" will soon be sexed-up, like the other simple things in life in Britain. Just think of the repeated female squeals of "Yes" for a "multiple organic experience" in a current shampoo advert. "Sudan1" has a lot going for it as a celebrity word. For one thing, it has red-hot chilli at it is source, and what's more, it's of Indian origin too, and there is mystery at its heart and a trail of culpability to trace.

As we scurry to check our larders and food cupboards, the word becomes an invisible weapon of terror as we ask where else could Sudan1 be lurking. Could anyone have put the culprit Worcestershire sauce into the tin of custard? Well, you never know. There is one thing, however, that any desi knows - East or West; simple home cooking is the best.

(Saumya Balsari is the author of the comic novel 'The Cambridge Curry Club', and wrote a play for Kali Theatre Company's Futures last year. She has worked as a freelance journalist in London, and is currently writing a second novel.)