*The fictional characters of the 21st century have "first world yoga names."
http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/TcVedrnJxqu6b1ylDr6D0I/The-class-of-Kaira-Shyra-and-Shanaya-in-Bollywood.html
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Kaira, Shyra, Akira, Kia, Tia, Sia. Shanaya. These are Bollywood’s cool new names, broadly classified into the “ya” or “ra” nomenclature. The Poojas, Nishas, Anjalis and Nehas of the 1990s are déclassé. These new names carry an unmistakable aspiration to be global.They are unrooted to place, community or any kind of identity except class. They are almost never longer than three syllables and easy to pronounce. They float on coolness and lightness. An ex-colleague memorably christened them “First-World Yoga Names—FWYN”.
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What are these names? Who thinks of them? Why are they so baffling? Be honest: Do you know anyone called Shanaya or Shyra who is above the age of 12? That is, anyone from what can be broadly termed the Indian identity. What happened to the Poojas, Anjalis, Nehas, Nishas, and indeed the more old-fashioned Rajjos, Pushpas, Neenas?
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The FWYN appears, at first, to be wholly meaning-free: Who is to say what Sia means or Kia or Kaira or, before Johar told us, Shyra? But they likely claim a global register of meaning—outside the largely Hindi-Hindu and partially Urdu-Islamic axes of Bollywood nomenclature. In fact, these names are almost completely removed from the old markers of place, religion, community. Who can say where Shyra is from, what Shanaya’s mother tongue is, what kind of food they make at Kia’s home?
If you are the bearer of an FWYN, you typically inhabit a glamorous professional identity. Kaira is a cinematographer in Dear Zindagi. Shyra is a tourist guide in Paris in Befikre. Jiah is a singer in Rock On 2. Akira is a documentary film-maker in Jab Tak Hai Jaan. Most of them pursue creative work. The exception is Kia, who is a marketing honcho in Ki & Ka. But it is nevertheless a highly paid, powerful job, something that is nicely captured in the High Heels song. Sometimes these girls do nothing—Tia in Kapoor & Sons or Shanaya in Student Of The Year. Yet, somehow, we picture them doing posh work, work that features cameras or recording equipment or PowerPoint in heavy doses.
What you definitely don’t see them working in are dusty downmarket jobs, like a schoolteacher (Bhumi Pednekar in Dum Laga Ke Haisha) or a clerk (Vidya Balan in Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh) or a nurse (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Guzaarish) or even a doctor (Kareena Kapoor Khan in Udta Punjab, Rani Mukerji in Saathiya). Indeed, one of the central pleasures of the Kahaani films is this texture of a not-so-shiny universe.
Closely related to professional identity is class; and indeed, the only identity that the FWYN remains connected with is class. When we hear Kaira, or Shyra, or Shanaya, we picture a montage of scenes—working out of Starbucks cafés, taking long-haul flights alone, multilingual flirting, downing shots with friends. We think of elite boarding schools, and foreign degrees....
