About Names Not So Good, After All!

I've been told that from West Bengal have a chip on their shoulders. Well, why wouldn’t they? 

Imagine labouring through life, tough enough as it were, with a name gifted indulgently to you by a fond uncle or a loving grandma when you were little. Too little to protest.

Cut to the present. Imagine the horrors of having that name discovered, being ridiculed by the world at large. From anonymity to the centre of attention, except none of it is good. The name that you spent your whole lifetime trying to hide. How does it feel Potla? Or should I call you Habool or Pocha? Or are you a hulk of a man who goes by the name of Chhotu or a pleasantly plump, middle aged woman called Teensy?

Tsk tsk!

My pet name or, as Bengalis would have it, daak naam was recently revealed to the world thanks to a tip off by a friendly relative on a social media site. I don’t think she meant any harm but I have been struggling with the jibes ever since, silently seething. Why did my supposedly loving parents allow this to happen to their daughter? I haven't a clue. And no, it doesn’t help that it is a one-of-a-kind name and that you cannot claim mistaken identity.

Still, I guess it could have been worse. I could have been named after a cat. Or a dog. Pet lovers would go into raptures but there are some who might baulk at the idea. Like my dear departed grandma for instance.

During a visit to her sister-in-law’s place once, my grandmother discovered, much to her horror, that one of the many cats in the household had been named after her. Throughout her visit, she heard her sister-in-law (the matriarch of the family) screeching out at regular intervals: “Penky, stop jumping on the table!” “Penky get off the bed!” “Penky don’t you dare touch the milk!” 

You can imagine my grandmother’s state the whole time. She had been sitting in one corner of the room, drinking a cup of tea, rather quietly as this particular relative was not a favourite. I realise now that the feeling was probably mutual!

Each time, her name was yelled out, my grandma would jump out of her skin. She didn’t know why she was being admonished for the things she was NOT doing till her sister-in-law slyly introduced her to her namesake. A scruffy looking cat. Grandmother was humiliated to say the least! Secretly though, I thought it was hilarious and the perfect revenge!

Another time, my father was invited to a colleague’s son’s rice ceremony. On reaching the venue, he found the house teeming with guests, most of whom he obviously didn’t know. So he chose to park himself in a spot away from the crowds, next to the golden-brown dog tied to a charpoy with a chain. After a while, he heard the host, his colleague, shouting out loudly for a “Goldie? Goldie, where are you? Come here at once. Goldie?????”

My father helpfully offered: “Goldie is here, next to me, tied to the bed.”

The host came over to where my father was sitting, eyeing him rather coldly. “That’s not Goldie, that’s Jimmy. Goldie is my son, he’s crawled off somewhere and we can’t see him!”

Do you blame my father? I would have made the same mistake.

How was anyone to know that Goldie was not the dog?

Incidentally, Goldie is now a middle-aged, pot-bellied man, working as a manager in a bank. Good thing, he’s not on social media though.

Sigh.

Disclaimer: Any similarity to unfortunate pet names of persons living or dead is purely coincidental!

No sex, just tea please!

After two surgeries and nearly one and a half months of being bed-bound, I was anxious to get back to normal life. So when I found myself at the gynaecologist’s office for a routine post-operative check-up, the first question I asked was whether I could resume my domestic duties. In other words, make myself a cup of tea.

Getting up at the crack of dawn and brewing myself a pot of Darjeeling tea is the single most important thing in my life. That half hour of solitude before the household wakes and all hell breaks loose. Not being able to do that in the recent past has made my life quite miserable. Tea made by others is never the same. The colour, the flavour – sadly lacking.

“So doctor,” I asked cheerfully. “If everything is okay, can I head into the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea?”

She looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Yes, yes,” she said. “You can have sex!”

I was puzzled. Had the woman not heard right? I was talking about tea.

“No no,” I said, my ears growing warm. “I wanted to know whether I can do kitchen stuff. Make tea?”

“Yes,” she said blandly. “You can have coitus.”

Now the last time I checked, tea was not a code word for sex in any lingo. Which brings me to the burning question.

Is it my imagination or is the northern part of India obsessed with tea? Erm. Sorry, I meant SEX.

Yes, I know I come from a city where lovers (or lubhaars if you will) canoodle in every nook and cranny of a historical monument called the Victoria Memorial (doing stuff under umbrellas and blankets that would put Queen Victoria to shame had she been alive). But in Kolkata, there’s a time and a place. You either get a cabin in a sleazy restaurant with grimy green curtains or go to Victoria Memorial if you are so inclined.

Didi doesn’t bat an eyelid.

But here, it’s out in the open. In broad daylight. All people ever think about. Or talk about.

When I moved to Gurgaon, nearly twenty years ago, colleagues at my workplace would discuss contraception methods over bhindi and roti at lunch. From copper T’s to what nots, stuff that was enough to make one want to go off food for days. Made me forget my alphabets, it did. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

That should have given me a hint of things to come.

Sadly, it only got worse.

Colleagues, neighbours and random people I met would tell me that I needed to reproduce and fast. Time was running out. My biological clock was ticking and everyone and his Aunt was keeping time. Best days, methods. I didn’t need a book. I didn’t even need to ask. It was the favourite conversation-starter. Everywhere I looked, people were making babies faster than rabbits.

Phew.

Twenty years later, I must say things haven’t improved one bit.

Oh well, at least I can drown my sorrows in a cup of tea! The beverage, what did you think I was talking about?

Hrrrumph.