about hariesh manaadiar

this page is about me - hariesh manaadiar

chill out with me in this icy wasteland of information overload about me.. as you can see from the layout, am a bit of a tintin comics fan, specially the man hanging on the right.. haa haa, he is a character and a half for sure..

now for a bit of history about the main character - "me"..

i am a keralite (people from kerala in south west india) by lineage, but was born and brought up in madras (now known as chennai) in south east coast of india, so guess that makes me a tamilian as well..!! keralites speak one of the many indian languages known as malayalam, a language which is considered by some as a palindrome (words that you can read backwards also and still get the same sense/spelling).. many consider this language to be a tongue twister and complicated and i tend to agree a bit.. personally, i speak malayalam (speak), tamil (speak, read, write), english (speak, read, write), hindi (speak) and german (studying)..

kerala is one of the most beautiful places on earth and is often termed as "gods own country".. that is indeed true in more ways than one..

kerala is also a unique place as to how the people (mostly the hindu community) get their surnames.. we don't use our fathers name or a family name as a surname as is normally the case.. our surname is based on the "house" or "location" that we come from.. it cannot actually even be termed as a surname because the "surname" comes first and then our given name..

for example, my original name is puthan veettil hariesh.. translated in english, it means hariesh from the new house.. one of my ex-colleagues was karunkunnatthu veettil sunil (sunil from the house on the black hills).. in my case though, the veettil got translated into english during the course of my passport and id registration and hence am officially known as hariesh puthan house..

i however took a liking to my caste name manaadiar (originally mannadiar) which is what i use as my surname now.. mannadiar is reportedly an off-shoot and a sect of the nairs which is a caste name in kerala.. other than this i do not involve myself or support any caste based system..

present : at present i am living and working in johannesburg, south africa.. i have been here for the past 9 years having come over from dubai on a transfer.. i work for a shipping company and have been in shipping for the past 20 years (more about this in my work page)..

am happily married with 2 girls tasmika and tarishka (chi chi).. my wife sarika is a south african from the unique and distinctive bunny chow and curry capital of south africa - durban, right !!..

i am also a freelance website designer and blogger and currently write articles regarding shipping.. you can read about this and my other interests in my interests page..