Humour – Random Ramblings

Real image and the Virtual Image

Whether we admit or not, these days , our behaviour is very much influenced by the Social media. from ‘chaar log kyaa kahenge’ (what would four people say) to ‘ chaalis log kyaa kahenge’ (what would 40 people say). Coincidentally , across culture , people are always worried about the ‘four people’ who need to approve their behaviour at all times. Why four and why not three or five? I am digressing right at the beginning; need to go on.

At the end of the day, we have spoken , ‘chatted’ or fought, more with our friends, ‘frenemies’ and virtual acquaintances and of course a great many total strangers than to real people in our everyday life. We have deliberately projected our virtual image to more people publicly , which may or may not be in line with our real personalities. Americans are cool; they have nicely adapted our word Avatar to indicate one of the many images of a being. My Twitter, FB and Telegram Avatars are so different, some one who has known me only through SM would think they are different people.

It starts with the DP or Profile picture ,that is generally natty or cool as compared to the grumpy you that your spouse sees every day, every moment, even as you are busy posting those ROFL emojis.

Physical appearance taken care of, the next issue is the projection of the mental ‘you’ ; someone cool, liberal, generous, fun loving, witty etc etc.

Everyone wants to be projected as witty. Most people forward jokes and funny videos to achieve that. It’s not easy to create contents particularly graphics. Since nobody knows who had made the original content, here it is important to be quick on the trigger.

A little digression here about humour as such.

To think of it , humour is much more than just reading a joke, even less forwarding one. It is the way one is able to laugh at oneself, see the funny side in ordinary activities in day to day life. I remember reading ‘Uncle Podger hangs a picture ‘ from Three men in a boat. Just an ordinary act of fixing a nail and hanging a picture by a senile old man is narrated so wittily. Whenever , I am on DIY mode , the thought of Uncle Podger does bring a smile .

Anything can be laughed at, no sacred cows there. Swami Vivekananda , it seems , used to mimic Ramakrisna Parmahams going into Samadhi , done with such exaggerated comic effect, sending his guru bhais into peels of laughter. I think in these corona times it would be great to be able to see the funny side of anything.

Coming back to SM, we’ll continue to interact with many avatars of many people including many of total strangers on twitter, FB, Instagram, and what have you. Some people who have been very close to one another have ceased to be on talking terms over some tiff on some virtual platform. Total strangers , who are know to each other only by their DP or avatars have got so close that they eagerly look forward to their ‘likes’ ‘follow’, ‘retweet’ etc. The number of ‘likes’ are also closely watched sending up or down , the Serotonin or Dopamine levels from moment to moment.

I am yet to see a ‘challenge ‘ like ‘nirvana from SM Challenge’ , for obvious reasons that even if you win that challenge where will you announce it and take a bow.

We cannot wish away WhatsApp and Facebook . Why not look at it as one more interesting dimension of real human behavior in a ‘virtual society ‘ ? Why not choose to be amused than be annoyed !

Fauji Blogs – Funny side up

Faujis can write

And they can be funny too

I love the net ; who doesn’t ! It is not just for the ease of accessing information or entertainment ; but for the ability to express yourself , to reach out to people from world over, to a few people who would listen to you.

I love blogs, be it a photo blog, video blog or simple text blog on technical subjects or others on stories of day to day life. Most blogs get relatively less attention even if the author of the blog is someone like Amitabh Bachchan. Views and likes are likely to be in thousands rather than in millions as it would be in say Tik Tok or You tube.

But the few who do read provide great satisfaction to the writer . It is a bonus to get some response, positive or negative , from fewer people who choose to comment.

People in uniform , the world over, have some unique traits, good or bad , depending on from where you look. Some , like Joseph Heller , author of Catch -22 , have written about their experiences in uniform , not as miltary history but as a satire on the armed forces and the whole business of warfare.

Essentially, there is nothing funny in climbing a vertical rope as a cadet, sometimes in full battle gear. It is sheer pain to say the least. Yet when you see a cartoon of the scene, it makes you smile. We have all enjoyed the antics of Beetle Bailey and the Sarge. Catch -22 is truly a classic that is biting satire on army and yet so popular in military libraries.

In this post, I intend initiating a compilation of some blogs by faujis who have written not just about strategy and tactics and professional issues, but have touched on ordinary things in life as a fauji would view.

Life is difficult. Sometimes more difficult in the forces. But human beings have an extraordinary ability to laugh at himself or herself . It is this trait that makes life not just bearable but even enjoyable. Eggs taste great sunny side up and tales sound good funny side up!

I have listed some blogs not in any particular order . To refrain from sounding judgmental I have introduced the writers in their own words. Here we go!

I am sure there would be many more. I have come across many anonymous / pseudonymous blogs where I have not been able to trace the writer behind. Hope to add on more links.

Joy Of Writing With A Fountain Pen

Ten Ten Ten

I wonder wonder wonder when

My pencil will become a pen !

Ten Ten Ten

It is a little known nursery rhyme, that I first heard long time after I had discovered the joy of writing with a fountain pen. The verses very aptly describe the thrill a ten year old felt when graduating from a pencil to pen. In our school it was going to the sixth standard (or sixth grade) that gave you the privilege of using a pen.

It was an event to look forward to , to own a pen. In Madras, in those days, the first pen for most students used to be a brand called ‘Writer’ ; Camlin and Pilot were the more advanced ones. Ball point pens were yet to become popular and gel pens of course were totally unknown.

Ball pens were difficult to write with and teachers were convinced that it was the sure-shot method to spoil your handwriting. So the only option was fountain pen with its cap, nib, neck and barrel. I spell out the parts as we were as conversant with the parts as the whole. We could even buy nib separately as just one fall was enough to break a good nib and there were many nib-breaking, heart-breaking, falls in a student’s life.

There is whole world of the fountain pen culture that is now almost extinct. If I were a celebrity, I would start a “Save Fountain Pen” campaign.

There used to be a brand called “President” that was thick and had a huge barrel . The barrel could take twice or thrice the quantity of ink that a normal pen could take. A friend of mine used to carry this pen along with a slim one and joke ” one is for writing and the other is a portable ink pot” . So it was !

Then came self filler pens that could suck ink from the pot avoiding the messy process of opening the barrel and filling with an ink filler. Unfortunately these pens could hold hardly half a ml of ink , good enough for signatures but not for the volume of work a student goes through.

Whatever pen we used a student could always be identified with ink stains all over. Index finger and the middle finger bore the brunt , though ink stains could be spotted just about anywhere; in the corners of shirt pockets,on desk-tops (due to frequent jerking of the pen to initiate the ink-flow) satchels, and sometimes on the face or lips. Students were always close to ink and ink to students.

नलायक बालक का बस्ता भारी होती है
और हाथ स्याही से काली होती है

(Northies, pardon me for any spelling mistake in my hindi)

There was a great excitement about using a new pen. Even today I feel it. There is a process of breaking in a new pen and every piece was different and every user was different. It is the process of tuning the user to the pen to ensure the smooth flow of ink and when the tuning is correct , the pen just glides on the paper and it is absolutely bliss. Some people use a glass to write on applying the right pressure to widen the split in the nib.

One pen, one user was the norm. That is one reason that a fountain pen lover swears by Shakespeare’s “Neither borrower nor a lender be thee”

While a pen is never borrowed , ink borrowing is an art by itself; can’t really be called borrowing as it is never returned. Hardly anybody had an extra pen , leave alone the bunch of pens a school kid carries these days.

At a critical juncture, say, during an examination, one may run out of ink. There is a frantic jerking of pen to squeeze out the last micro-drop of ink. Then you look around for a good Samaritan for rescue. Everyone is busy writing furiously, with one eye on the clock and the other on the answer-sheet (or may be neighbor’s answer-sheet). Then you find a friendly soul; there is no time for opening the neck of the pen and to do a barrel to barrel transfer; so, air to air re-fueling ensues. The donor just unscrews the neck of the a pen partially and screws it back for a nib to nib transfer of a few drops. A grateful smile follows ; that should help in completing the answer-sheet; way to bond specially in boarding schools.

These days we hardly see anyone using fountain pens. I do have a small collection , but I miss the range of colours ; there were many brands, Bril, Camel, Quink, Chelpark, Parker etc. Today we have just Camlin and Parker and only Black and Blue in most places.

Recently I had been to Coimbatore and was sauntering along the footpath leisurely. I spotted a tiny hole in the wall kind of shop with the board “Pen House” .I stopped to ask for Turquoise blue ink.

The shopkeeper’s eyes lit up; he said, though he did not have one at that moment, he could produce one in ten minutes. He was true to his word, he produced ink of eight colors; Royal Blue , Black, Blue black, Red, Green, Turquoise blue, Violet and Crimson. Voila ! Jackpot. The ink was manufactured by Daytone and was sold in plastic containers like the ones used for eye-drops or ear drops , though much larger. Later I learnt that the item was manufactured at Indore , about 20km from where I live!

The friendly shopkeeper, asked me what kind of pens I used, self-filler type or the tank type. When I said, the tank type, he was absolutely thrilled. He took out boxes and boxes of vintage pens from the 50s and 60s and also a whole range of expensive pens price ranging from Rs 2000 – Rs 5000. I bought a modestly priced pen of 1951 Model. I don’t think he earned much from that shop , but sure he was excited talking about pens past and present. May his tribe increase.

On my return to Mhow , one of the first things I did was to fill up Turquoise blue ink in the 1951 model pen .

A Bicycle Lamp and Bell

I am regular reader of Open page of The Hindu. Here’s an article by Ashokamitran . The writer gives a humorous account of his tryst with the law on traffic violation. The violation happened to be ‘not having a properly working bell on his Bicycle’. The infringement takes him to the court , where he … Continue reading “A Bicycle Lamp and Bell”

I am regular reader of Open page of The Hindu. Here’s an article by Ashokamitran .

The writer gives a humorous account of his tryst with the law on traffic violation. The violation happened to be ‘not having a properly working bell on his Bicycle’. The infringement takes him to the court , where he pays a fine and finally , armed with the receipt from the court, he retrieves his bicycle from the police station.

Today, the story sounds so exaggerated and even fictitious , but I know it is very much true. In early seventies, I have seen cyclists in the twilight hour ,looking for a match box to light their lamps. Then the introduction of the Dynamo light was a great improvement and convenience.

Nothing tells more about an issue than the jokes it evokes in the weekly magazines,(like Kumudam and Vikatan) much like the whatsapp jokes today. The magazines those days had many cartoons on the plight of an erring cyclist and a policeman. I distinctly remember a few lines from a play in our school days . It goes like this,

Cyclist :why do I need light, the whole town is lit up?

and the policeman deflates his tyres saying,”why do you need air in your tyre, the whole place is full of air ? Ha ha.

Coming to the present, I still use a bicycle and at times I miss a simple bicycle lamp. I went to my favourite cycle shop at Mhow bazaar to correct the situation. As is customary in Mhow, the shop was small enough to repair a punctured tube and big enough to sell and service a 15-gear Bicycle. But when I asked for a Cycle lamp, there was a look of disbelief and some smirking all around as if I had asked for the moon. I continued to keep a straight face indicating that it was a serious question and I was still waiting for a serious answer. Gradually the smirking stopped and one of the guys replied “Saab yahan chal jaata hai” (You can do without it here).

How have we come to this state where it is perfectly OK to ride motorcycles without helmet, or for four adults to travel on a motorcycle and the number of people or stores on a bicycle is limited only by the pedaling power of the cyclist? Lamps and bells are not even available leave alone being mandatory. Anyway, I scouted for one online and placed an order, and I intend using it however ridiculous it might look on the streets of Mhow.

Who Stole My MIlk ? – Facebook Style !

I am totally indebted to the face book philosophers for this post. The name of the game is “who stole my milk ?” To begin with , you pick up a photo of a hungry looking child like the one on the left. I picked up the first image answering to the search ‘hungry child’; … Continue reading “Who Stole My MIlk ? – Facebook Style !”

I am totally indebted to the face book philosophers for this post. The name of the game is “who stole my milk ?”

To begin with , you pick up a photo of a hungry looking child like the one on the left. I picked up the first image answering to the search ‘hungry child’; Just avoid African and Whites as the game involves some serious ‘India bashing’.

The next step is to find the villain who could have stolen the milk from the Child. If not stolen , you can always argue that ‘so and so ‘ is so well off that it would be a sin if he /they do not provide milk to the Child.

The villain could be anyone who is involved in expending some milk. It could also be symbolically expressed by just show of wealth. A lot depends on who is your target. If you think the govt is to blame … then show a Govt partying… Add a caption ,

they have laddoos to celebrate but no milk for a hungry child

In case you are anti-corporate , bring in Vijay Mallaya.

The banks have 9000 crores for Mallya and none for the hungry child

Peaceniks can always go after the Hawks crying for a higher defence budget. They can come up with “Cost of one Fighter aircraft can feed all the hungry children in the country !” Even The OROP bill for 8000 crores can be attacked !

Of course the easiest target is religion . Get a picture of an idol being offered milk … or cash being counted at a religious place. Imagine, the amount of money people spend on God; If only this money is spent on the poor , there would be no child going to bed hungry. (It’s a different matter , that had there been no temples, this money would most likely be used to make Vijay Mallya and the like richer)

You can even blame the farmers . There was a news report from Odisha about three weeks back, that the farmers emptied a milk tanker letting 14000 litres of milk flowing on to the street. No use crying over spilt milk; they were just protesting against a company not accepting the quality of milk they supplied. news report

The scope is tremendous; you can do IPL bashing or F-1 Race bashing if you don’t like sports. With some imagination you can make even children feel guilty. How ? throw some statistics like “70% of the milk produce is used for making Ice Cream and Confectionery ” So any ice cream eating or chocolate eating child is literally eating into the minimum protein requirement of a poor , hungry child; isn’t it ? One photo does it all; depends on where you place it.

Quote Unquote

In the era of social media , it has become the trend to share ‘Quotes’ . Find out what you want to say, then check out who has said a similar thing, modify it a bit and it will carry more weight. I have done a subtle experiment on Facebook ,don’t tell anyone, to embellish … Continue reading “Quote Unquote”

In the era of social media , it has become the trend to share ‘Quotes’ . Find out what you want to say, then check out who has said a similar thing, modify it a bit and it will carry more weight. I have done a subtle experiment on Facebook ,don’t tell anyone, to embellish my sayings ,with some good background, fancy fonts and finally by appending the name of some celebrity . It definitely gets more ‘likes’, thank God there is no provision for ‘dislike’.

Actually there is no harm in these ‘shares’ as long as you just keep receiving and forwarding , focusing only on the number of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ ;not really reading anything, or seriously considering the contents.

Trouble starts when some one reads and may be follows it up with some study of his own and then he feels offended.

I have been receiving some serious sounding stuff on parenting, attributed to Tamil saint Thiruvalluvar. . These sayings were everywhere except in the only book he is said to have written ! This is one work, I have been carrying even on LRPs (Long Range Patrols, for mycivilian friends)…

In some of the groups , I pointed it out, then I just got tired of pointing out, since few read them anyway.

There was another quote attributed to Swami Vivekananda. This was particularly creative as it just mentioned one part of the paragraph and conveniently left the concluding remark , which was 180 degrees apart. I have always carried the complete works of Swami… wherever I have been . So, immediately I checked back and got so upset, seeing the out of context, mischievous ‘quote’ . I shouldn’t have got upset really but somethings are beyond you . Got to be a little thick-skinned, if you want to surf the social media sites and also read. Who cares for the niceties of right and wrong and feelings of readers. Finally I wrote a blog post to assuage my hurt sentiments and it ended there.

So, in any group, I think it is better to avoid ‘quotes’ on anything particularly subjective issues. Once you own responsibility for your words , it is very difficult to make sweeping statements like ‘Christians are always good’ or ‘Jews are always bad’ , though it is convenient to post the same as views expressed by Hitler or Pope.

Secondly, If a quote has to be posted why not check out on the validity, the time, place and the purpose of the quote , by consulting Prof Google for 5-10 minutes?

Note This does not apply to anecdotes which are best expressed by the narrator in his own style.

Tailpiece : What is a rule if you cant break it. Having spoken at length about quotes, here’s a quote by Chanakya “Rumour mongers should be given death penalty” . I quoted this to a fellow-officer at a lighter moment for spreading some silly rumour of some one having received his posting order to some place. (cant think beyond). He assumed a very serious posture and replied “Murali , I am not spreading any rumour, I just originated it. Others are spreading it; go and kill them”.

Cheers !

murali

Do I really need a Cell-phone

This question has been bugging me ever since I could afford to buy a cell-phone. I managed to delay it for as long as possible, but sometime around 2006, sitting at a remote place in North Bengal with non-existent or poor STD services, kind of forced me to hook on to the cellphone network. Now … Continue reading “Do I really need a Cell-phone”

This question has been bugging me ever since I could afford to buy a cell-phone. I managed to delay it for as long as possible, but sometime around 2006, sitting at a remote place in North Bengal with non-existent or poor STD services, kind of forced me to hook on to the cellphone network. Now I learn through googling that the device had come into being a early as 1990 and that I had survived the onslaught of this device for a good 16 years !

Since then it has been a kind of love-hate relationship. On one hand, it is sheer magic to be able to communicate from anywhere anytime complete with streaming video images and on the other hand , it is terrible that anyone could intrude into your time anytime, anywhere. It can be a magic window to access happenings and people , world-wide , 24 x 7 and it can also be a cruel leash around your neck 24 x 7.

I am very poor at responding to a call , and definitely not ‘the fastest draw in the west’ as the likes of people whipping out their phone from nowhere, on the slightest indication of a call, whatever they may be doing, wheresoever . My log register always shows more missed calls and sent calls than received calls.

I observe that most people carry their phones while going for walk or run and I have heard that they carry their phones even to the loo. As for me, I find it difficult to keep a phone even close enough to reach before two rings.

Where I really missed a phone was when I started seeing the ubiquitous message on my computer screen – “OTP sent to your registered mobile number xxxxx901 and enter the OTP to proceed further” That’s the time I started looking for the phone frantically , most of the time , finding it only by calling from my land-line.

So, I started keeping the phone close to my desktop PC as another accessory like mouse or keyboard.

Over the years , the device size has been getting smaller and smaller and presto, suddenly there is a U Turn and the evolution is in the opposite direction. Here’s a cartoonist’s view of the point of inflection

Anyway, the smart-phones have arrived and with it , the social media apps whatsapp, telegram etc. When I tell people that I don’t always carry my mobile phone, the FAQs are:-

Aren’t you on whatsapp ?

– I do have the app installed but is it really required to read a surd / blonde joke , immediately on alert, leaving whatever you are doing ? Isn’t it enough to browse, say, once a day?

How can you move around without google maps ?

– I agree , google maps are useful when you are in a strange city, but how often do you need to navigate to your wash room ?

How do you keep in touch with your children ?

-well, I use the land-line, instant messengers or email while I am sitting at office or home and while on move, it really doesn’t matter if one is out of reach for an hour or two .

Don’t you miss it when , say, receiving someone at air port or railway station ?

-In army we tie up a whole lot of details before an operation, like frequency for radio communication etc.. but we never lugged around our radio sets 24×7 just for such contingencies. When required for a specific operation, it sure is very useful.

Coming to the original question, ‘do I really need a cell-phone’ ; it is good to own one , but I have stopped looking at it as a phone anymore . It is a standby for wallet, notebook, modem, music player, news aggregator , in-box, torch light and a thousand other things besides being a device for emergency voice calls.

So, it is good to have one or more devices, but to carry it everywhere you go , I feel , is definitely a leash around the neck that I would rather do without.

Is Technology the new God ?

“Uparwala sab dekh raha hai” the saying is as old as the hills, but what’s new in the TV commercial is that ‘Uparwala’ here refers to ‘CP Plus’ CCTV. Earlier days, a child was told “God sees all, knows all, is all powerful and he knows what you are up to , anywhere, any time, … Continue reading “Is Technology the new God ?”

“Uparwala sab dekh raha hai”

the saying is as old as the hills, but what’s new in the TV commercial is that ‘Uparwala’ here refers to ‘CP Plus’ CCTV.

Earlier days, a child was told “God sees all, knows all, is all powerful and he knows what you are up to , anywhere, any time, so better behave…..” As one grew up either the conscience took over the role of God or one just concluded that as an adult one had only his boss or the policeman to watch out for.

Today, be it a child or an adult, we have Technology watching over everyone. The Omnipresent,omniscient, and omnipotent God is in the form of CCTVs, databases and drones armed with all kinds of sensors and weapon systems.You may receive a challan for overspeeding and you may not even be aware as to where and when you broke the speed limit. To compound the issue thee is no human face, call it cop, to negotiate or reason with. You may receive a demand note from IT dept for arrears of tax dues along with fine and you may be blissfully unaware of any tax evasion on your part; nor is there any other human being aware; it is just as “What God giveth, He taketh back”

With the kind of digital foot print you leave of every activity; details of your movements, telephone calls, money transactions, shopping habits are all saved in some server and some software is forever crunching the ‘big data’ to catch you with ‘hand in the cookie jar’.

So have we finally invented a God, as Voltaire had wished we should ? But so far we have seen this God acting as a policeman, faithfully enforcing man-made laws.

May be some day we have Technology used to locate a hungry child and direct a food-laden drone to feed her; providing the proverbial “manna from the heavens”. Till then , God is God and Technology is just Technology.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Though, in the West, Rum is generally associated with sailors, In India, it is the soldier and an infantryman at that, who is more attached to this incarnation of Soma Ras. It is not just the contents, even the container serves the infantryman so well. There are some unusual … Continue reading “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum”

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Though, in the West, Rum is generally associated with sailors, In India, it is the soldier and an infantryman at that, who is more attached to this incarnation of Soma Ras.

It is not just the contents, even the container serves the infantryman so well. There are some unusual applications of this container and here we are talking only about a bottle having a uniformly cylindrical body and narrow neck and is made of glass; fancy shaped ones or PET bottles will not do.

In the field areas, generally in mountains, bunkers are made using available natural resources, ie Rocks, timber and mud. A CGI (Corrugated Galvanized Iron) Sheet is generally fabricated to form the door(fabrication involves putting a few holes in the iron sheet and using some wires to anchor it to a pole on one side or to use as a door handle or a door fastener !) What do we do for windows ? Getting glass panes is out of question. This is where the empty rum bottle comes into picture. Just make a rectangular hole in the wall and fill it up with a neat row of bottles. Sheer simplicity does it; your skylight is ready to brighten up your living space . Should you favour tinted glasses, well, you can try using beer bottles. I wish I had a photograph, but had to do with a simple illustration.

While on a Long Range patrol, the bottle is used just about everywhere. Though there is a whole range of equipment issued by the Ordnance Depot, like Mess tins, 4 men cooking set, 45 men cooking set and so on, what really works is a simple kerosene stove, a tawa (hot plate ?) and patila (a handle less pan) locally purchased. All solid (I wouldn’t say dry , as in army, opposite of dry is fresh and cooking oil comes under dry rations !) rations are carried in bag-packs and liquid or semi solid rations are carried in , you guessed it right, rum bottles. So you have milk, Curd, Cooking Oil, kerosene, and of course rum, all carried in rum bottles.

When you halt for the night, the patrol gets cracking to prepare a meal. You knead some dough , find a flat surface or use steel plate, and start rolling out the chapattis using the good old rum bottle as belan or the rolling pin. For a housewife a rolling pin might become a weapon, but for a soldier, his rum bottle becomes a rolling pin.

After the meal, which is generally cooked before it gets dark, you need a lamp. Fill up a bottle with kerosene, stick a piece of chindi (cloth for cleaning weapons) and you have a nice lamp; not so nice really , but so what ? I have actually read though nights using these lamps.

If that’s the story in a Field area, what happens in the peace station ? Well, you can see manifestations of a soldier’s sense of Good Life, in a Peace station. It is not uncommon to find money plants growing in rum bottles on window sills. And during the company bara khana , some hibiscus flowers or even a bunch bougainvillea flowers placed in rum bottles pass for flower arrangement.

Even in Officers messes, a rum bottle had its use. In the earlier days, cash strapped as we generally were, the mess secretary took pains to ensure that the empty bottles were sold at a good price to augment the income for the officers mess.

God knows how a soldier could have lived and fought without the Gift of Rum bottles with or without the original contents.

What’s in a name ?

Shakespeare said “What’s in a name ? A Rose by any name will smell as sweet” . Well, I say, there is everything in a name. What would Edvige Antonia Albina Màino have been had she not changed her name to Sonia Gandhi ? Try as you might it is extremely difficult … Continue reading “What’s in a name ?”

Shakespeare said “What’s in a name ? A Rose by any name will smell as sweet” .

Well, I say, there is everything in a name. What would Edvige Antonia Albina Màino have been had she not changed her name to Sonia Gandhi ?

Try as you might it is extremely difficult to explain to a north Indian that, South of Vindhyas, a name just consisted of two parts, one was your name and the other was one or a group of letters which was simply called initials, ie the full name was not used anywhere. Well the documentation calls for a full name. So a Punjabi ends up calling someone, Gangaikondan or hardanahalli, thinking he is on a ‘first name basis’ ; first name comes first isn’t it ? Not always. I had a class mate VAB Raghunathan and what his initials meant we never knew, and one day we learnt that he also was not aware.

That was when the odd teacher we had from Punjab, had set about the task of educating himself on the naming conventions in the South. After asking all the boys as to what their initials meant, he thought he had got a grip over name, patronym village-nym, family name caste name and so on. Too bad that just then, he got bowled by the system followed by Chettiyaars who usually took the first two letters (instead of one) of their father’s name as initials; A child of Annamalai becomes AN Somename. That was the last straw. He left it as a bad joke and said with a big relief ‘my initials are ASR , and thank God, it is all my name ‘Amrit Surya Ram’

When I joined NDA, I became aware that I too had a difficult name to remember.. ” Subramanian Muralidharan’ . Every problem carries with it an opportunity. At NDA you had the sergeants at every 100 yards looking for law-breakers; that is , cadets who have a speck of dirt in their hankies or cadets running too slowly or may be cadets trying to run too fast when yelled at to stop ! The defaulters had to hand over their identity slips or I-slips as it was called, to the sergeants and then keep reporting to them to retrieve the I-slip.

This is where my name came to my rescue. As a lost case, I was generally on the wrong side of Academy-law. I had two sets of I-slips. For every one of S Muralidharan there were two of M Subramanian. While I was known in my squadron by the former name the latter one functioned as the decoy for other squadron types. It all worked very well till the better part of the second term; A sergeant looking for an elusive M.Subramanian in my squadron would lose interest after some days.

One fine day just as S Muralidharan was reporting to one sergeant, another swooped on him from no where ,’So, Subramaniam, got you at last.” I didn’t have to try too hard to give a lost look. There ensued some animated discussion between my tormentors , on my real identity and in the process anger gradually led to sheer amusement so much so that I ceased to be a defaulter and found myself explaining with an air of authority on the naming oddities in the South.