Folks at home are a funny lot. They ought to be. That’s where I got my sense of humor anyway. They have never lost an opportunity to demonstrate it. Be it my photo in full glory, or my nickname.
When I was young I was called SriGundan. Sri is a take off from my name, but Gundan stands for Fatso. Now this is humor at its best. As far as my memory goes I have been only as fat as a telephone pole. And not that they have all been drumsticks to call me fatso! Still I was named so.
When I chase the etymology of all words that I come across and even get successful at that, this one eludes me. Even they don’t remember now. To get them prophetic and right, I had been trying my best with Kingfisher, but still I fail in that honorable duty.
Now I realize that you really don’t need any reason for naming a nick. Or for that matter all the reasons to have a nickname, because I don’t think one gets called by their name ever at all. I don’t remember calling my daughters by their name. So much so, if I call them by name they know that I am furious at them about something. Invariably they are Pattu, Chellam, Puppy doll, Meen Kunju or sometimes even something I don’t understand what it is. So it’s really not about what they call you, it is just that you can’t be called by you real name.
In office they call me TS, friends call me Ganth, Daddy by kids, Uncle by the whole world, Boss by the team mates and if someone yells Srikanth, I look behind me. Only my mom does justice to my name still. I can’t be complaining too much, because I have kept hoards of names for my friends, colleagues and family. There was one guy I named Pulli ( stands for fullstop in Tamizh ) because he was of that size. Many such names were used and to great embarrassment after 25 years if someone refer to a friend, unless that nick is told you can’t really relate who they are talking about it. So some IIT’ians and Senior Counsels are Mullan’s and Pencil’s.
Once I happened to meet the brother of a friend and I recognized his face, but could not place who he was. And he also smiled at me. When I managed to ask him how I know him, he said he was Mohan’s brother, I still could not place him and I was exasperated. He understood my predicament and mentioned the nick of his brother at last.
But these kind of faux-pas apart, aren’t these names etched so much in your memory that any reference to them takes you back to those happy days and you start wishing that being SriGundan was more fun all said and done!!
When I was young I was called SriGundan. Sri is a take off from my name, but Gundan stands for Fatso. Now this is humor at its best. As far as my memory goes I have been only as fat as a telephone pole. And not that they have all been drumsticks to call me fatso! Still I was named so.
When I chase the etymology of all words that I come across and even get successful at that, this one eludes me. Even they don’t remember now. To get them prophetic and right, I had been trying my best with Kingfisher, but still I fail in that honorable duty.
Now I realize that you really don’t need any reason for naming a nick. Or for that matter all the reasons to have a nickname, because I don’t think one gets called by their name ever at all. I don’t remember calling my daughters by their name. So much so, if I call them by name they know that I am furious at them about something. Invariably they are Pattu, Chellam, Puppy doll, Meen Kunju or sometimes even something I don’t understand what it is. So it’s really not about what they call you, it is just that you can’t be called by you real name.
In office they call me TS, friends call me Ganth, Daddy by kids, Uncle by the whole world, Boss by the team mates and if someone yells Srikanth, I look behind me. Only my mom does justice to my name still. I can’t be complaining too much, because I have kept hoards of names for my friends, colleagues and family. There was one guy I named Pulli ( stands for fullstop in Tamizh ) because he was of that size. Many such names were used and to great embarrassment after 25 years if someone refer to a friend, unless that nick is told you can’t really relate who they are talking about it. So some IIT’ians and Senior Counsels are Mullan’s and Pencil’s.
Once I happened to meet the brother of a friend and I recognized his face, but could not place who he was. And he also smiled at me. When I managed to ask him how I know him, he said he was Mohan’s brother, I still could not place him and I was exasperated. He understood my predicament and mentioned the nick of his brother at last.
But these kind of faux-pas apart, aren’t these names etched so much in your memory that any reference to them takes you back to those happy days and you start wishing that being SriGundan was more fun all said and done!!
2 comments:
I have had a similar experience when I met a school mate of mine in our 30's. I remembered only his nick name which was too embarrassing to call him with. I didn't address him for full 10 minutes till my dad mentioned his name. The next 10 minutes of my conversation with him, every second word I used was his name to show that I knew his name.... Hilarious!!
BTW, I forgot to mention your latest nick name - "Sevvallai"
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