Name Calling

Each one of us gets a unique name given to us by our parents, some of us are more fortunate and earn different sobriquets over the years.  Most of us have a pet name at home, especially so if the formal name is a tongue twister and has more than three or four syllables. Pet names are typically smaller and easier to call out, while Pappu, Munna, Babloo, Guddu, Munni, Guddi were the common names for the middle class kids, Bobby, Tina, Rick, Mike etc were anointed on the suave aspiring Upper middle class progenies.  My siblings are twins and were christened Chuchu and Chiraiya being a boy and girl, which was rather sweet, as Chiraiya is a bird and Chuchu essentially is the tweeting of the bird. The Bhadralok have a practice of daak nam and bhalo naam alluding to pet name and formal name. Daak naam are most unusual sweet and dripping with affection, Titul, Poltu, Babal, Popon and so on. There wasn't much thought given while picking up these pet names as against the formal ones, it being a formal ceremony, "Namkaran sanskar"! Most of us grew over these pet names, however in some cases these stuck on for life, not everyone was pleased to be addressed by his pet name in public. Imagine the CEO of a multinational being called out as Dodo by his friends or relations while he is in august company. In private though he wouldn't mind. We had a senior officer being chided by his better half, "Guddu, that was not what was conveyed!", you could see an embarrassed Guddu squirming!

We also acquire nick names during our sojourn while pursuing our respective careers. Teachers, bosses, political leaders, sports persons etc invariably land up with a nick name which characterises them at times even caricature them. So we have a Ganje for every baldy, Sexy for every Saxena, Harry for every Harish and so on.. In school we had to devise ingenious ways to christen our venerable teachers without them getting a hint. However, over the years, the masters are aware of these nicknames and don't really mind them. We had "Gullu" for Mr Singhal, legend has it that he would promise gullucose (glucose) to the athletes, while Mr Kaushal Kumar was called 'KKu', Mr Nene was 'Ganju', after his shining bald pate. The names which our course-mates acquired were quite unique so we had Sanjay Verma aka 'Guni' named after a shloka in Sanskrit, 'Varmeko guni putro, na cha murkh shatanyapi, Ekashchandrah tamohanti na cha taragano kwachit', meaning it is better to have one bright son than have hundred fools, as one moon is adequate to conquer the darkness, thousands of stars can't. We also had Yash as the 'Champion', the seniors recognised his potential early on and named him such. We have a Jat who wasn’t one and a Mundu, which survived four plus decades, the others simply formalised. The other prominent ones were 'Pondy' 'Psycho' which may offend the sensibilities of the uninitiated but, for them it was perfectly normal. Their spouses of course did not take kindly to being addressed as Mrs Psycho. 

A number of them end up with names opposite to their profiles, so you will come across a 'Tally', who is barely 5 feet and a six feet guy being called a 'Shorty'. Bosses invariably end up at the wrong end of name calling and hence 'Grouchy' suits most of them with the permanent frown. Politicians of late have stolen a march with Pappu and Feku ruling the roost in name calling!!