girl, boy and ivan kalita

O dear Lor', look wottacome across!

Now Google tells me that Kalita is a girl's name.

Before I dive into Kalita, I have a question to ask Google. It demands to be a capital name. Why in the *unprintable word* world? If one writes 'google' starting with a small letter, the thin red wriggly worm appears under it. The automatic spell check turns it into a word with a capital letter and the worm disappears. I respect you a lot Google, can't live without you, a truth that sucks, but a truth nevertheless, but does that make you a proper noun? You are a search engine, but your inputs are from humans, you don't write yourself. For that matter, all of the above hold true for Facebook as well.

This is what one of the entries say:

'Kalita: [ syll. ka-li-ta, kal-ita ] The baby girl name Kalita is pronounced as KahLIYTah. Kalita is used chiefly in Indian and it is derived from Sanskrit origins. Kalita's meaning is known.'

For someone whose both parents were born Kalitas and who married into the Kalita caste, c'est interesting information and breaking news. So now I have a boy's first name (according to google, also check my blogpost titled Zuri, June entry) and a surname that is a girl's name.  I am not saying this. Google is.

There is a Wikipedia entry on 'Kalita' at the link 'en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalita_(caste).' Or you could just search for 'Kalita meaning' on Google web search and click on the Wikipedia entry.

I think all the Assamese Kalitas should check it out. It has interesting information of the origins of this caste and also of a powerful nation called 'Kolita' which was devastated by some floods in the 18th century. It seems the Kalitas are of  Alpine Caucasian origin which was deduced by measurements of their cephalic index. Whew! Long way our foreparents travelled (forefathers is a discriminatory word- I'm being funny, please smile). And chose this place to settle in. I don't know how correct the information is, but it makes an interesting read and those of you who are interested in genealogy or are Kalitas (surname or caste), or Assamese, or like history of names, or are like me looking for things to do to make the clock run faster, must check it out.

To widen the interest, people of the Kalita caste write surnames like Saikia, Hazarika, Barua, Phukan,  Lahkar, Mahanta, Medhi, Barman, Chowdhury, Deka, Thakuria, Tahbildar, Boiragi, Talukadar and Kakoti. I may have missed out many more. So all of you with these surnames may be interested.

There was also a Russian Prince called 'Ivan Kalita' in the 14th century. He was cruel and  achieved the right to collect tributes from all Russian lands which is why he was nicknamed "kalita", meaning in the Old Russian language "money-bag". Not nice, but he existed, like it or not.

Too much Russian in my name. Also an acquaintance who was learning Russian a long time back had informed me that Russian is the only language in the world which has the consonant so unique to the Assamese: the xa as in 'Axomiya.' There is no English equivalent to this consonant. Or in any of the other Indian and non Indian languages that I know.