Me and some friends form my native state of Odisha recently planned to bring up a group blog to highlight Odia issues and keep the Odia (Oriya) community update with latest news that concerns us. I would take this opportunity to thank Miss Nivedita Dash (Journalist) and Mr Suraj Harichandan (Banker) to have helped me conceptualize the idea and helping me choose the domain name. A big Thank You to Mr GopiKanta Ghosh (Eminent Author) , who induced me into planning this new community blog. The initial idea was to reawaken the great souls of Orissa among each of us.
The first step was to Book a domain name. It needed a fair bit of brain storming from me and my friends of course. We needed something that could appeal to the Odia heart. It needed to be small and easy to remember as well. I was looking at something like rottentomatoes.com or tacobell.com. The final list included phatamathia (cracked vessel), khataamba (sour mangoes), sajapakhala (fresh water rice) and chhenapoda (a sweet cheese cake). May be to your pleasure or to your disappointment we finalized chhenapoda.com to be our blog domain. It won hands down as the unanimous choice and people had the following opinion about the name.
- It is a prized domain.
- It is a nostalgia associated with Odisha that is both yummy and traditional.
- If you are an Odia you cannot forget the name.
- Irrespective of Sex, Age and Region it is has an appeal hard to put down.
- It is the pride and symbol of Odias.
I will like to share with you a few funny incidents while booking this particular domain. Suraj suggested the name chennapoda.com while I was thinking it should be chenapoda.com. Both the domains were available and both the words are in popular use. In a hurry we booked chennapoda.com but as it appears the right spelling is chhenapoda as we can see on Wikipedia. Their title says Chhenna poda though. Now I am dead sure it should be chhenapoda – the right spelling of the Oriya sweet dish. So we got this domain too. Two is better than one, what say?
On the Wikipedia entry I came across an interesting fact. It seems there had been a big fight over ownership of the Rasogolla brand as a state’s intellectual property. I mean the Rasogolla as a brand entity not the recipe. Odisha lost to West Bengal on that front but they are adamant not to lose this trade name to another entity. But it’s sad that the State Dairy Corporation (OMFED) that is leading the fight is not very sincere about it. I mean if you are aiming at getting the ‘Chhena Poda’ trade name all to yourself then you better get the related domain names as well. Don’t tell me you are a bunch of old fools who are diabetics and can’t even enjoy the delicious sweet, forget fighting for it. IT literacy in the state capital is pretty good but the top officials are expired products and should be done away with. Let the Youth lead for a change or at least consider the youth opinion.
There might be a time when the state diary corporation might come running after my neck for the domain or something. I am going to be well prepared.
I hereby request all Odias and patrons to help us by contributing to the group blog. More information on it to follow…stay tuned.
