Christening

 It is normal everywhere to name people, give them ridiculous names either to annoy them or just for the heck of it. For instance the place I was briefly working at, a handloom unit of cottage industry, a person with a particularly dark complexion was addressed by all and sundry as Ujala. Ujala was the name of a detergent powder or a whitener. It surprised me because instead of reacting to being called ujala, the person would respond in a matter of fact manner. 

I myself got called by various names at various stages of my growing years. My pet name apart, my mother called me by countless names, depending on her moods. My siblings and class fellows had names for me and even my school principal had given me a name! 

My neighbors, Sanjay and Mahesh, cousins both, would name any and every approaching person from their window. Those names were apt somehow. I believe it is from them that I picked the habit. Many of my brandings have stuck: Amo— mango, in konkani — was my name which Devendra Sardesai still carries. It makes me laugh even now, almost fifty years later as I think about it that on the registration form of a basketball match his name was listed as "Amo", not Devendra Sardesai! 

Another mate of mine was known as "kavLo", meaning a crow. I wonder what happened to my dear 'crow'... We had quite some innocuous fun in The People's High. KavLo, was Ashish Sinai Kamat on his birth certificate, but to us all in school he was kavLo, crow! Poor Ashish had done nothing to get called KavLo except that he was of a darker complexion. 

However, the best name I had given to a class mate was Vakl. Vakl means specs! Dr Vallabh Kamat is a practicing dentist in Panjim today. He had no issues with his eyes. Quite a fine pair of warm dark auburn eyes he had, candid and they looked even more innocent owing to his fair complexion. I don't know why I called him specs but it stuck. We grew up pretty much of our teenage together and then he took up dentistry and I Fine Arts. We drifted along our chosen paths and didn't meet till well after two decades or so when I was in Goa, somewhere in the year 2009. Walking on the pavement, expecting my friend who had stopped at a bakery to catch up, I was ambling along. Suddenly a car began driving on the road beside me on the pavement. I sensed through my peripheral vision that the car wasn't pulling up to park —it was a no parking street, the central artery of Panjim. I looked to see. There were two middle aged men in the car with one driving, the other sitting beside him and, both were beaming at me. At first I didn't recognise them. Then suddenly a memory stirred and I did. It was 'Valk' and his older brother. I stopped and they stopped their car. It was his brother who said, "what, you couldn't recognise us? We recognized you from you walk and stopped to say hello. " I told them that it took me a while but I did recognise them. As if not convinced ( may be it is typical of us Goans) he said, " Kon sang? " (Say who?)  "Valk! ", I said at once and although we laughed there was a certain prestige issue on their part. Not so much Vallabh himself, but certainly his brother. After some more pleasantry they drove and looking at them driving away I remembered where I had christened Dr. Vallabh Kamat. It was in the Mushthifund Shala, near the MahaLakshmi temple, where our pre-primary schooling happened, way way back, somewhere in the late 1960s! 

There are too many people, friends and foes alike, who were christened by me who I fail to recall now... 

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