The Curious Case of the Missing Y

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING “Y”

I went for my nth public function yesterday. One gets lot of time to ponder over the quirks of life while sitting on an uncomfortable dais for long periods. Some things at these jamborees always bug me.

Ÿ  Why do we always cram the podium with so many people?

Ÿ  Why the chairs on the dais are kept so close together that whenever somebody has to get up to receive the bouquet, or hand it over to somebody else, or make a speech, he has to get up, push the chair back and wriggle out. When he returns, the process is reversed. Pull chair out, squeeze in and pull chair back in and sit. And while he is doing these contortions, the two distinguished guests on his two sides have to get up to escape being trampled on. There is every possibility that you get home with a sprained back/ankle.

Ÿ  The dais also invariably has a pin/nail/tack (which is use for affixing the table cloth) protruding just in front of me which is always trying to prick my thumb or rip my new pair of trousers in the most inconvenient place.

Ÿ  Why do they write your names on the nameplates             only on the side facing the public? Whenever the honorable guests are requested to take their places on the dais, there is a scramble and confusion ending in the guest of honour sitting in the distant corner and the assistant deputy secretary of the society taking centre stage. Thankfully, the chief assistant secretary discovers the mistake and there is another scramble and then everybody is finally seated satisfactorily only to be requested to get up and do the ceremonial lighting of the lamp. I always happen to wear laced shoes on these occasions and have to untie and tie my shoelaces in quick succession in full public view, while everyone else on the dais is waiting patiently after having taken off their slip on shoes/open sandals quickly.

Ÿ   Before you have recovered from this ordeal, the most toneless and shrillest wonder in the town is let loose on the gathering in the form of a prayer. I always feel, the goddess Saraswati (goddess of arts and music) must be suffering this spectacle with cotton wool in her ears and with the choicest ones spewing from the mouth.

Ÿ  Then comes the MC(master/mistress of ceremony) and I could write a book on their shenanigans. The MC comes fully armed with the history of the town, the purpose of the function and a repertoire of four or five jokes/couplets/anecdotes etc; and launches into a long monologue ending in thanking all the dignitaries on the dais for sparing their valuable time in making the function a grand success. By the time he/she is through with the intro, nobody has anything left to say. So every subsequent speaker has to refer to him/her before repeating the same platitudes.

Ÿ  Then comes the ritual of garlanding/presenting bouquets to the dignitaries. I am fully convinced that here the garlander is more important than the garlandee. On one occasion, after about 25 persons garlanding the various people on and off the dais, they called, Mr. so and so ex MLA or something to do the honours. Mr. so and so asked “whom should I garland?” and the organizers said garland anyone, it does not matter, or something to that effect. 

Ÿ  Despite their gift of the gab/garrulity/verbosity, all the MCs always manage to get my name wrong. My name for the record is R.J.Ghatey. I am invariably called Mr. Ghatge/Ghadge/Laghate/Dhote or Ghatekar(some people assume that all Maharashtrian names must end with a kar). If someone manages to get it right, they goof up with the initials. In any case, they all the miss the ‘y’ while writing it down. Ditto with my designation. When I was a DGM (Dy General Manager), I was invariably called a Dy. Manager which is four rungs below. I secretly wished someone would call me a general manager by mistake. They did, once, when the great man (my boss) was sitting right next to me on the dais. I contemplated whether I could crawl under the table cloth, but there were too many pesky mosquitoes buzzing around in that space to risk it.

Ÿ  Often there are so many guests on the dais that the organizers have to invent fancy titles to massage everybody’s ego. And the MC manages to mix up all of them. I have been a ’Special Guest’, ’Guest of Honour’, ‘Chief Guest’ and ‘Distinguished Guest’ at the same function.

Ÿ  Then the speech making starts. Normally, the least important person on the dais should speak first and they should move upwards in the ascending order. But most functions follow a much more chaotic format. So you don’t know when you will be called to speak.

Ÿ  After every speaker the MC keeps repeating whatever was said for the benefit of the audience (which must be so stupid that everything has to be explained twice to them). And keeps requesting every speaker to make it short. (No one takes him/her seriously anyways.)

Ÿ  At the end, someone is requested to propose a vote of thanks. God forbid if that somebody happens to be a budding/fading MC. Then he/she goes on to repeat all that the MC and the other speakers said, interspersing it with his own five jokes/couplets/anecdotes. Finally he thanks all the speakers for keeping it short and calls it a day.

Ÿ  Phew!  Hence, in this case of the missing ‘y’, the MC did it.