Babulal

Babulal

In my childhood, we had a neighbour who had this nasty habit of giving outrageous pet names to kids in his Bundelkhandi dialect. His own son was called ‘Lungdi’ and I was called ‘Gunthaduwa’. I do not know what these words meant or whether they had any meaning. But in a grotesque way, call it reverse snobbery, I was proud to be called Gunthaduwa and not just Lungdi or Bangdu.

        In our school days, it was customary to have code names for all the teachers. e.g. B M Tiwari was called Bum, L N Bhargav was Lalloo and R K Tiwari was Rocket. I am sure many alumni would not remember the real names of some of the teachers. I for one cannot remember the full name of Lachchhoo, our maths teacher.

        This practice continued in college with one modification. Even some of the boys were given nicknames. Some names were common like Gullu for Gulati and Sonu for Songaonkar. Babulal was, however, a departure from the ordinary. Prakash was a handsome boy with an aquiline nose and longish curly hair. He was a good sportsman and a decent and harmless kind of bloke. His only fault was an exaggerated swagger and an affected manner. E.g. He bent his hand outwards while shaking hands with others, walked with a stoop as if he was seven feet tall and swung his hands like an 800 pound gorilla. He said Hi, in the era when everybody else used to say Kaay!(meaning ‘what’ in Hindi).  He was part of our gang, but his cockiness was a little irritating. I, therefore, started calling him Babulal, which with due apology to all the Babulals in the world, was a rather down market name for a guy like him. Initially he resented it and reacted violently when addressed as Babulal. But the more he reacted, the more he was called Babulal till he resigned himself to it. Soon, he was only Babulal to all of us. We lost touch after college and I almost forgot all about him.

        The name had however not lost its utility yet. It came in handy again when I was working in SBI at its local head office at Bhopal. We had a great gang of boys, all about the same age, in our Credit department. We had a blast during our lunch sessions, when we discussed, inter alia, everybody in the building. Now we were giving code names to our bosses and senior colleagues. Mostly it was a simple English translation. Sangeet was called ‘Music’, Azad was called ‘Independent’ and Manoj was ‘Entertainment’. Our boss was one Mr B L Joshi, a very suave and polished gentleman with fine manners. His singsong English accent was aptly dubbed by somebody as the one picked up from a girls’ convent school. Predictably, instead of Balkrishna Laxman Joshi, he became Babulal to us, but of course only behind His back. Mr Joshi somehow stumbled across the bantering, mostly good humoured, that went around in the name of Babulal in our department. His curiosity was aroused but he was too uppity to ask anyone what the joke was about.

        Being a fellow Maharashtrian, I was a little closer to him than others. One day, when I was standing in his room, waiting for him to sign some papers, he suddenly asked me “Ghatey, who is this fellow Babulal you all seem to be joking about?” I was totally gobsmacked. I never expected a direct question like this. After hemming and hawing a little, I blurted out the first lie that came to my mind. “He is a peon in the neighbouring department sir.” Mr Joshi did not appear satisfied with my answer but he did not press the matter further. My lie was promptly shared with the lunch club with much merriment.

        After 2-3 days, Babulal, oops, Mr Joshi, called me on the intercom and said “can you please ask that fellow Babulal to come inside my cabin. Our peon is on leave and I have to send some files to the executive floor.” I was again totally taken aback by this unusual request and after realizing what he really meant, feebly mumbled a yes sir. After some time, I went in to inform him that Babulal was also absent that day. Again, he seemed unconvinced but let it go. This incident kept our lunch club in splits so much so that some fellows had to be physically restrained from literally rolling on the floor.

        After that day, Mr Joshi kept asking us one by one about the whereabouts of Babulal till the day when one smart fellow told him that Babulal had been transferred to a local branch. The matter was allowed to rest after that and we all were more careful talking about Babulal  around Mr Joshi.

        Last month, I got a call from an unknown number on my cell phone. “Is that Mr Ghatey?” “Yes. Who is this?” I am Prakash Karanjkar.” “Prakash who?” “Arre yaar, Babulal speaking.” “Oh! Babulal! Why didn’t you say so?” It was great talking to Babulal after so long. We decided to meet the next week when he was coming here. After meeting him in person, I realised that he had lost most of his curly locks and acquired a substantial belly instead. His swagger now looked more like a waddle, thanks to his girth.  The exaggerated gesticulation was now looking quite absurd rather than stylish . As the meeting was taking place after a gap of more than 30 years, we swapped our life stories including the health of our parents, jobs and marital status of our respective progeny, and so on, for quite long. When we parted, I said “Let’s meet again Prakash.” I did not have the heart to call him by his sobriquet Babulal again.

        Yesterday, somebody called to inform about the sad demise of Mr B L Joshi. Mr who? “Arre yaar, Babulal! Our boss in Bhopal.” The First thought that came to my mind was “Thank god! he passed away without knowing the truth about Babulal.” It is this piece of news which triggered off a torrent of memories which I have tried to capture here. At the end of it all, I don’t know what was more saddening; the demise of the Babulal who didn’t know till his death that he was called Babulal, or the fading away of the other Babulal.