HYDERABAD: Let’s drop all pretence and admit, once and for all, that babies are rarely ever the ‘little bundles of joy’ they are made out to be. They are in fact, the fountainhead of all future troubles, in store for naïve unsuspecting parents. If you put any mom through a polygraph test, the real repressed truth will tumble out. The so-called ‘cuddly angels’ are nothing but milk-guzzling, energydraining, time-sucking ingrates who don’t give a diddly squat about you or your wasted life. All they want is: attent ion, at tent ion and more attention. To mothers and fathers, who were willingly suckered into this thankless deal, I have a devious revenge plan. How about getting at the baby where it hurts by giving the child a ‘stick out like a sore thumb’ name that will cause embarrassment forever? How about giving your dolly a suitably ridiculous brand name that aptly sums up the personality of the infant? For example, if junior is the type who wets his bed, how about calling him Harpic? That should raise a stink in the classroom when the teacher reads out his name during the roll call! If you found that way too offensive, we could always soften things up by making it fairly cutesy. By cutesy, I mean, the baby that bawls like a rowdy, for even itsy-bitsy things, can be named-Yahoo! The one that cries fairly musically could be called Bose. Hutch should be the mamma’s boy who tags along wherever she goes. Apollo (an allusion to the hospital) should be a perfect fit for the perpetually sick kid. Fevikwik could be the one who gladly ‘chipkofyies’ to relatives, who shower attention. And Johnnie Walker can be the restless devil, who keeps on walking. Lest you take my suggestions lightly, lemme warn you that this naming trend is already catching on in the West. Over 600 babies in Europe have been given the ‘Ikea’ moniker in the last 16 years. Just recently, a woman who loved weed and soft drinks named her girl ‘Marijuana Pepsi Jackson’. So the revenge scenario I projected may very well happen soon. And I am not kidding.