dippu.com

It's a lie. All of it. We have spent the last year or so, living a lie. All at the behest of a mandan whose hearing disorder has resulted in a combination of syllables that may be the perfect malayalee name, but is actually the result of faulty hearing.

dippu.com. Does it sound like a real name for a website?

and yet it is us.

dippu.com.

I finally heard the truth from Decruz. He broke down completely and wept. "It's all a lie. How could they do this to me? Is everything I've ever believed a lie?" In the midst of this soul searching, I had the temerity to ask him what the problem was and found out the whole sad story. A story which puts the very existence of dippu.com at risk. Yet, in the best interests of journalistic integrity, I leave this story with you.

He was sitting at his ancestral home in Kerala when his world crumbled around him. Feeling very proud of himself, he mentioned that he had a website which provided a unique perspective on the south asian christian movement. And he added a kicker. "I named it after that dog we used to have here. Dippu."

He got blank stares.

"You know, Dippu, that little black and brown mongrel that used to bark incessantly whenever people came from foreign."

A lone voice piped up,"We didn't have any dogs named Dippu."

Indignantly," What? Of course we did, and we called him Dippu, Dippu."

Comprehension seemd to dawn on a few faces. There were "Ohhh"s and some of them started laughing. "That wasn't Dippu. That was Tippu. You thought your grandmother called it Dippu, so you always called it that. Now we know why." Decruz wasn't ready to let it go, so he had his grandmother come out and asked her what the dog's name was. Sure enough, she said "Tdippu" with the T silent.

This is a moment of loss for all of us. We are mourning the loss of a dog's name, a name that defined who we were. A name that inspired my slogan in better days.

We dippu in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

What can we do with Tippu? On a related note, why are there so many dogs in Kerala named after kings and generals. Tippu, Raja, Kaiser, Captain, Rex, Sultan, Rani, the list goes on.

We must find new meaning in dippu. No matter the cost, we continue to dippu. I Dippu. We all Dippu. Mad love, and much respect to the memory of our lost dippu. Pour some out for the name. We keep the faith.