I sit on a stone outside the Padmanabha Puram: a residential complex near railway station. Some buffaloes pass by. Smooth soothing soft breeze touches my skin. Some vehicles keep passing. The weather has been pleasant in this month.

I saw a tagline on a small trailer which was parked on my way. It said something which meant what the heading of this article means.

Exact words: Jai maan Ardhakunwari!

Ardhakunwari is derived from Ardhakumari. Kunwar or kunwari is variation of Kumar or kumari which meant virgin or pure. Ardha is a prefix here which means half. Thus the word means half virgin.

You might have heard about the virgin Mary. But what about the mother half virgin? This is the first time I have seen her name. She’s neither virgin nor not virgin. She’s neither pure nor not pure. She’s neither black nor white. What’s she?

Yes, she’s a mystery. There’s a world of gods and goddesses who are taken from the folklore and found only on the vehicles as protection charms.

Since this post is about names: let me take a diversion here. I have been meaning to write about couple of surnames for sometime. Surnames tell a great story if you have means to dig up the etymology. However I would only touch upon two new surnames I found in my colony which were waiting to be discovered.

The first one is maafidaar. It’s the surname of a ration shop owner. It seems like it has something to do with the infamous maafia which is originally from Italian maafos which relates to the arabic or Urdu maafi too and means to pardon. The word is kind of euphemism because ‘being able to pardon’ was an insinuation towards ability to punish. It was about the creditors. The word Mahajan originally meant ‘great people’ as in the epic Mahabharata Vyasa says: Mahajanoyen…..panthah : the path on which great people have left their footsteps is the path to be walked. Later the word meant only the people who were loan sharks.

The next word is: argala. This surname also seems to be odd. It’s akin to maafidaar threatening in nature. Argala means divine obstruction. It’s not something you take lightly. It’s the surname of a family of advocates of law.