Tar Baby

Tar Baby - a sticky situation: a situation or problem from which it is virtually impossible to disentagle oneself or that is only aggravated by efforts to solve it.

Continuing with the coal theme: here's an expression that received a lot of (unwanted???) attention when Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney used it to describe a construction project in 2006 but was "hauled over the coals" for what is considered a racial epithet by some.

The tar baby is supposedly a popular character from African folklore. It gained popularity in the 19th century United States in the written form in one of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories, a collection of stories based on African-American folklore, narrated by the fictional Uncle Remus, a former slave. In the story, "Tar Baby" is a doll made of turpentine and tar, built by Brer Fox to entrap his enemy, a tricky and cunning Brer Rabbit. Brer Rabbit talks to the doll, and when it doesn't answer, he hits it, and gets stuck in the tar. The more he struggles with it, the more he is entangled in it.

It sounds like yet another harmless story, doesn't it? For reasons better known to this hard-to-comprehend world, (or perhaps I am missing some subtle nuances here???) the expression has been occasionally used as a derogatory term for African-Americans. Needless to add, public figures who choose to use it encounter controversy.

Source: http://www.randomhouse.com/, Wikipedia
Image: Wikipedia (Br'er Rabbit and the Tar-Baby, drawing by E.W. Kemble from The Tar-Baby, Joel Harris, 1904)

Alwar

As a welcome digression from heavy words, heres a place which I know pretty well.

Alwar: District in North Rajasthan, better known for its milk cake and extreme cold. The song 'Yeh Bandhan' from the re incarnation movie Karan Arjun was shot here.

I used to sell Tata pick ups some years ago, and in this capacity was managing the dealership in Alwar. It was on some trip to some nondescript village that I was recited the story of the origin of the name 'Alwar'. Truly fascinating. Hark..

It was earlier called Ulwar after the Ulwa river on whose banks the town resided. As far as I remember there is no trace of Ulwa anymore but it has manifested into the lingua franca. Now during the British Raj, Ulwar and neighbouring regions were provinces paying largesse to the Empress. The royals from each protege used to sit around a round table with the white skin seated at the table's head. The princes were seated in alphabetical order. Under such scheme of things, our Ulwar prince always ended up far away from the epicentre. Hence, he changed the name to Alwar!

I think this is one word origin which is google proof :-)