In the midst of the excitement surrounding the swearing in of our new Prime Minister and the array of ministers that he is bringing in, I celebrate the sounds of Indian Ocean’s new album, Tandanu. The sounds have been playing in my head since last month. This morning, The Hindu supplement carried a piece about the band and there’s a curious piece of information about why they named it Tandanu.

It’s the name of one of the songs in the album, but has no specific esoteric meaning or symbolism. Of a bunch of names, they chose it because it sounded musical and nothing by that name showed up on the Internet! Amused and laughing, I wondered at the simple logic of the choice. What a great branding strategy and one we all use everyday, to stand out and be unique on the Internet, the entity that my 20-something year-old cousin Shruti called “a very happy place” when we met up yesterday!

Just last week, in branding ideation sessions for two separate business ventures being started by close friends, the teams struggled to wean themselves away from the trap of logic and rationale, meaning and association. To venture into that unique world of whacky and catchy. To take that brave new step to choosing names that stick in the head, make the reader screw up their faces with question marks on their foreheads.

It’s not always possible. We are a generation still mired in the old ways, but we’re beginning to open up to new possibilities.