Nothing groovy about some awards names

THE first soft drink to be packaged in a can in South Africa was Groovy in 1970. Before that, cooldrinks only came in glass bottles of all sizes

It was not long before Groovy became synonymous with all other canned beverages that followed.

I remember old women would often ask a shopkeeper for a Groovy Fanta or a Groovy Coke. Thus, the word Groovy had come to mean any cooldrink in a can.

There is more about how some names originated. We know that a sandwich is two slices of bread with some other food between them, such as egg chutney, tin fish curry, cold meat, cheese, jam or peanut butter. But how did the word “sandwich” come about?

Google tells us that John Montagu (1718 –1792), the fourth Earl of Sandwich in England, was a gambler who did not like to leave the table to eat. When he played cards, he would place his lunch meat between two slices of bread to avoid getting greasy hands.

The saxophone got its name from Adolphe Sax, a Belgian who invented the musical instrument in 1840.

The guppy, a small fish that breeds quickly, was discovered by British naturalist Robert John Lechmere Guppy in Trinidad in 1866.

Rudolf Diesel was the German inventor of the diesel engine.

Now, why am I rambling about how some things got their names? Well, it is all because of my friend Bob who dropped me a note and used the word “eponym”.

An eponym is a person, place, or thing after whom or which someone or something is named. Many diseases are named eponymously for the people who discovered them. Down syndrome is an eponym. The condition was named after the investigator, John Down.

Like Groovy, we find many eponyms which were initially brand names but are now used to reference entire categories of things. Band-aid is the name brand that makes adhesive bandages but most people use the term to refer to any adhesive bandage, regardless of who makes it.

Some people use the word Checkers to refer to a plastic bag – any plastic bag, irrespective of the store. Another example is Kleenex, a brand name of facial tissues. However, it’s become synonymous with all facial tissues despite the brand.

Bob’s use of the word eponym was in reference to the use of certain people’s names as the titles for awards to be presented by the Natal Tamil Vedic Society Trust, in conjunction with its cultural wing, the Institute for the Advancement of Tamil, to commemorate the Tamil New Year.

Some of the names that have been chosen for the awards are questionable, said Bob, adding those responsible had not applied their minds properly. I found it difficult to disagree with Bob when I perused the list.

The names for the awards – which in time could become eponyms for certain humanitarian activities – are the Swaminathan Gounden Award for Building Unity; the Poomani Moodley Award for Deepening Non-Racialism; the Judge Navi Pillay Award for Human Rights and Justice; the NC Naidoo Award for Philanthropy; and the Emma Dixon Award for Community Work.

Then there are the Badsha Peer Award for Services to the Poor; Dr Juggie Pather Award for Research and Development; the Harriet Bolton Award for Advancing Gender and Worker Rights; the Valliamma Munusamy Mudliar Award for Youth Activism; and the MN Pather & RD Naidu Award for Sporting Excellence and Administration.

There is also the Dr Shishupal Rambharos Award for Senior Citizen Activism; the Thambi Naidoo Award for Fighting for Social Justice; the Saiva Pulavar KC Gounden Award for Devoted Propagation of Language; the Patrick Ngcobo Award for Devoted Propagation of Music and the Shrimathi Jayalakshmi Naidoo Award for the Devoted Propagation of Dance.

Some of the personalities attached to the awards have been cast correctly.

Navanethem Pillay became the first black woman to open her own law practice in KwaZulu-Natal and she provided free legal assistance for activists detained by the apartheid government. She was the first black woman to serve as a judge of the high court. She also served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal, which probed the genocide in Rwanda and was later appointed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Valliamma Munusamy Mudaliar died at the early age of 17 after participating in Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance campaigns in 1914. Possessed of a fiery spirit and mental strength, she was involved in protests against racist legislation for which she was imprisoned. She fell ill in jail and died soon after her release.

Dr Shishupal Rambharos was a long-standing patron and trustee of the Aryan Benevolent Home, which provides sanctuary not only to the frail and aged but also to the indigent and homeless.

But some of the names chosen suggest a political agenda could be lurking somewhere.

Harriet Bolton was a fearless trade unionist who fought for the right of African workers to unionise. Why would the Natal Tamil Vedic Society Trust, a once-illustrious organisation that propagated Tamil language and culture and is now largely dormant, choose to honour Bolton rather than a unionist from the community such as Tailor “SP” Pillay, secretary of the Laundry Workers Union; or Billy Peters, secretary of the Durban Indian Municipal Employees’ Society?

There was also Sam Pillay, secretary of the Broom & Brush Workers Union; MD Naidoo, secretary of the Tea, Coffee & Chicory Workers Union and the Food & Canning Workers Union; RR Pillay, organiser of the Natal Coal Miners’ Union; Mannie Pillay, secretary of the Biscuit & Confectionery Workers Union; or George Ponnen, organiser for several garment workers unions.

Hazrat Sheikh Ahmed Badsha Peer, a mystic and Sufi saint’s only link to Tamil is that he was born in Madras (Chennai). He is credited as being one of the earliest preachers to sow the seeds of Islam in the Natal. Did the Natal Tamil Vedic Society Trust not consider Swami Nischalananda, founder of the Ramakrishna Centre or Swami Sahajananda, founder of the Divine Life Society of SA, as worthy of lending their names to awards?

Both organisations are doing outstanding philanthropic work, especially in the fields of primary healthcare and basic education.

Patrick Ngcobo was the first African to train as a carnatic singer. But his name for an award for “devoted propagation of music” pales into insignificance when one considers greats in the musical firmament such as Tony Moon, Bell Moonsamy, Manikkum Moodley, Mahadevan Nair, R Muthu Pillay, AM Iyavoomurthi, S Nandha, Gopalan Govender, I Kistraj Ragavan, Arumugam “Tabla” Govindasamy Padayachee, Soobiah Pillay, Harry Arunachalam.

It is not too late for a rethink on some of the names for the awards. This is surely not the best that the Natal Tamil Vedic Society Trust could have come up with.