Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Married to a Dumbo

‘Oh, Kundi told me that Bra is working in the same company as Boobs.’

I put the TV on mute and perked up my ears. Bra seemed to take centerfold of the otherwise geeky conversation with liberal sprinklings of Pinky, Lollipop and Grape. Shocking revelations indeed. My boyfriend (now hubby) was into something I had no idea of. This went a step further from the borders of kinkiness.

After this freaky phone conversation, I was all ready for a confrontation when he gleefully told me, ‘Guess who is coming down to visit us? Condom!’

This was the heights! To think IITians were a bunch of respectable folks who wouldn’t bring ‘that’ up on the second day of the relationship. And what a cheesy way to broach the topic.

Before I could call my girlfriends and weep, I was told that Condom was actually a guy who went to IIT with Pi. That was nickname given to him by his seniors as he brought some condiments from home. Yes, condiments became condoms.

So I will admit that we did have dinner with P-balls who didn’t flinch as he introduced himself. I will also admit that I don’t know his real name as it was never mentioned. My guess that it might be Prasad Balasubramaniam was of course very premature and juvenile. So I refrained from any more takes on his name especially after he assured me that his balls weren’t pea sized. Good to know, I guess.

Actually these days I am finally comfortable calling them by their nicknames with a straight face even in front of their wives, everyone except this guy called Romeo. Can you even fathom how that must be going for his wife? Me calling him Romeo is far from her troubles. Imagine a bunch of adult guys looking at him in the eye across the table in a dimly lit room going,’ Romeo, would you like some dessert?’

It’s not a very funny matter. They don’t recognize real names anymore.

‘Who Rajesh?’ ‘Rajesh Jayaraman? No, do not recognize him.’ What is the nick name?’ Oh Tampon?! Of course, he is my roomate and chaddi-buddy!’ (Note that chaddi-buddy is a great ad line for Tampax)

I believe it is a tradition, a passion and a full time hobby for many in IIT. The freshie is named, shaped and sent to the world as a different human being after four years. If only Victoria Secret knew that IITians were also involved in shaping a bra.

Say you are fed up of your given name. Now who wouldn’t be if you were named something like Karthik. How boring! You have seven other Karthiks in your class and you have no identity anymore. The other Karthiks don’t even look half as good as you. Time for a name change, but you can’t think of something that would do justice to your admirable, stunning personality. Your best bet- join IIT Madras and put the onus on your wonderful seniors. Be rest assured, after much deliberation and analysis, the best brains of India will congregate and confer upon you the name that will supersede any dull name that your parents spent months conjuring up. You will be aptly named ’Dumbo’.

I bet IIT-JEE has a case-question (this is taken from the 1997 paper)

You meet a guy called Srinivas Konchiluri on campus while you are happily farting with your friends. He is a freshie. He is wearing a peacock green shirt and laughs at everything you say even if it not funny. He is from Little Flower School, Hyderabad and says he plays in a Telugu band. What is the nickname you would give him? (2 minutes- 20 points)

Answers like Cheenu or Konchi will be the end of you. You might get a half decent score if you come up with LTTE- no relevance to the points mentioned in the question, but he looks like Prabakaran.

I am no expert in this field so I’ll refrain from coming up with the answer that would surely bag you the coveted seat of the IIT. I didn’t even make it past the first technical question. I went the easier route; I bagged the not so coveted husband of the same IIT.

93 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice writeup on Nick names. True my wife refers most of my friends by nicknames. Matter of fact we guys dont know many of friends name except their nicknames. 4 Years of college life, with nicknames,sticks on with you for life.

anantha said...

Lucky that I got pick my own nick and even more lucky that my name from school did not make it past the school gates to my college! Now tho, I am thinking of calling myself "The guy formerly known as aNTi", since a lot of ppl I know have gotten married and are in the process of doing the next thing possible and I would hate to be introduced to some pint sized human as "aNTi uncle"!

Anonymous said...

lol, this was really funny and brought back memories. Its sad but true that I dont remember real names of half my friends.
One question, How did 'Tampon' get his name? :)

Anonymous said...

Hehehe !
Seriously, this does seem like a crazy IIT-only thing ... my dad and his hostel-mates have the whackiest anmes for ecah other , and I bet being a dughter and all, i haven't even heard the worst of it !

Anonymous said...

So what was Pi's nickname ?

Kupa Manduka said...

:))
What's more interesting is when the aforementioned names are yelled out from one wing to another, quite often when parents or other poor, unaware souls are visiting the hostels...

Anonymous said...

Pi ka nickname bataoooo!!!! Waise I gave you a nick, hope you remember that one. You will die if you hear my roommates nickname.

Anonymous said...

Zo: pi's nick is dumbo.
anti: lol@ aunty uncle!!!
- paru

Alpha said...

anand: thanks... There is not line drawn between the real and the nick world.

anti: anti uncle would be cool..the poor confused kid. What was you nick in school da? More likely I wouldn't want to know. I am kinda scarred as you can see.

indiapad: thanks for linking too. ok that one I made up. oh comon, you think IITians cud come up with a tampon? They are still stuck to boobs and such. If i do come across one, I will find out for you.

ash: You dad too? Jeez..its been going on for ages. Please tell me they had classier names.

bh, zo: It's more risky giving out his nickname than his real name, i have gathered. So u'll have to deduce by urself.

kups: Yes, so I hear. Can imagine parents thinking- Why didn't we come up with that name Pain. Suits him so much more than Susheel.

zo: Other than that dumb lalithaji, I dont think you called me anything. Anyway, its not half as popular anyway.

paru- good deduction skills you have..but I have better misleading skills.

Quizman said...

Alpha,

Great work, as usual!

You may recall that our school had its share of funny nicks too. :-) My batch had a hirsute guy who was called "laal-baal" for obvious reasons. Then there were zappo, chillum, patta, bhattar, oxy etc. There was a guy called Shanti-something who was morphed into Panty. Even professors used to call them by those names. In fact, a person who was President of the student union during my time was called IIT. Why IIT? He was at IIT but had been expelled for doing something stupid. :-)

Alpha said...

quizzie: thanks man...you are too kind. Guffaw @ at the IIT one. Yeah, at least if nicks can be associated to the real guy in some obvious way..it makes sense. Otherwise I just give up or write a post.

Alpha said...

wait a min..laal kyon?

The ramblings of a shoe fiend said...

:D Lol! Loved this! Sherpa wants to know how pi 'let you get away' with calling him dumbo in the post title! I hope you have a fitting reply for him

Anonymous said...

Jee....I spent quite a few hours tackling that "analytical section" on our gre. remember - train goes to station A, then B back to D. Bird poops on E. Another train from G to H. No train from L to M, unless A reaches E before the bird poops. How many ways can A reach L?

And you saying Pi is not Karthik aka Dumbo?

- paru

Alpha said...

anon- then it must be the same one..but then, he need not know. u know this post is risky on so many levels. I hope people forgive me. I got a few emails already of people recognizing the names. To think I didn't use all the material I had so I cud go around protecting identities! tch tch on me!

shufy: Do the deed, ask forgiveness later. If I had run this down with Pi, half of it would have been censored and I would be left with a single line-'IITians have nice nicknames.' My hope is that he doesn't read it. Unless Grape has already called.

Alpha said...

paru- stick to trains..normally Karthik shud be Pi and so shud dumbo.. remember I didn't do well in anal.

Anonymous said...

Anti: are you pronounced as
Ant-eye or Ant-ee?

paru

Alpha said...

sorry folks if u got washed out in the tide. didn't really want to.

Anonymous said...

Alpha,

NOOOOOOO.....you deleted the mention of a so called fruit. Darn it. husbands (cursing mine)! when you tell them something interesting why cant they just read and laugh. why do they have to go and leave a comment. No there is nothing to laugh about. I just have to write you that long email. Soon.

the last anon who made you delete everything was my husband.

JS

Deepa said...

reading anti's comment, I remember a crazy mohan drama in which he is called Amma by Mythili, as a short form for appa mama (since he was Janaki's appa ;)!!!

Artful Badger said...

Very interesting post.
There is a very simple way to generate nicknames
1. Pick favorite foul word/body part/function
2.(Optional) Add remove alphabets that change form but preserve function.
Lo and behold!

Aparna Menon said...

That was super hilarious !! it took me some time to get out of the shock from reading the first line and regian senses :-D

Aparna Menon said...

And Oh by the way I have linked you ...!!

Anonymous said...

alpha's nick name is SohaJi, after soha ali khan from rang de basanthi.

Chitra said...

"Kundi', "Bra", "Boobs"?? :) :) :) Whatz up??

Chitra said...

Ha ha ha me ROFL :) :) !! Interesting blog and interesting comments :) !

anantha said...

Alpha: Hum tho bahut seedhe saadhe hain. Apne dost log bhi vaise hi the, vaise hain (i am not incl. you in this grouping, not just yet :p) aur vaise hi rahenge. Its just I don't wanna tell you :p Btw, I thought I was the only one who called you Lalitha ji... Hmmm..or did I pick up Zo's cues? Btw, Alpha, Do you really know a Rajesh Jayaraman? Funny, the hubby of one of my friends from undergrad is named thus!

Paru: Both, depending on who you wanna ask...

Dreamweaver: Neither do i know a Janaki nor do I know Mythili... Errr.. Wait.. oh.. i get it! :D lol...

Chakri: Why Soha? What did the poor gal do wrong?

Anonymous said...

more names from iitm:
tree. Guy landed up in green t-shirt and brown trousers
But the best was Neelakantan == Blue p....

Anonymous said...

I've seen the Neelakantan trick in action. One of my juniors ended up being called Blue C**t, politely shortened to Blue when in civil company. Another funny nickname I've seen IITM was Porukki. The guy's name was Karthikeyan and at the time of joining IITM he was sporting a really bad haircut. His hair was standing up in spikes. His seniors noticed the resemblance to a porcupine and promptly christened him Porcupeyan. This, over a period of time, was shortened to Porki and from there the next logical step was Porukki.

Rhyncus said...

PR Karthik became PRK which then became Prick. When he won some election and it was announced that Karthik had won, nobody knew who it was, till he started signing notices 'Prick'. We also had a Bums, a Scud and a Kuch-bhi among others.

Anonymous said...

Re your q : At place I studied, he would've been Chaddi. (Chaddi pehenke phool khila hai :flower school). Course, the girl's hostel woulda named him something inane like Pehelwaan, esp if he was a not-so-brawny type. (From Vasco->Vasco Da Gama-> Gama pehelwaan).

Sigh.

Nobody CAN figure out.

Alpha said...

js: darn husbands is so right! esp the IIT ones..next post will not be so polite. can't believe he made me censor stuff that was not even censorworthy. oh well, one para less to read which is a good thing for many. ermm... don't know how to bring this up politely, i had been waiting all night..where is the email hon?

dreamweaver: that must be funny if anti laughed..coz i can't figure it out for the life of me..give me an iit nick anyday!

suyog: thanks dude..your nick couldn't be worse than Romeo i hope.

apsie: good thing you recovered..thanks for linking dahlin!

chitra: did u cal me boobs, bra and kundi at the same time?

chakri: wake up dude..stop smoking that thing.

anti: rajesh jayaraman is not your friends hubby..i asked him coz he was the figment of my imagination.

vish desai: right on man..jeez, i hope these guys dont come to this blog and ask for commision..i hope you have a plan on how to deal with them.

anon: funniee indeed. porruki is hilarious.

rhyncus: poor prk.. thanks for all that material..now I can write another post. u fom iitm too? whats that ugly creepy crawly you have now? dont tell me its a centipede and that was your nick.

?!: yeh chaddi kahan se aa gaya? what was that with the vasco stuff. You and chakri need to stop doping for good. Or like I said you probably are right.

Anonymous said...

only you will educate me on the embedded secrets of the indian educated male.........

Alpha said...

anon: ok, if you insist. am i your dark lord or something?

Anonymous said...

Hey..funny post...made me think of the nicknames we have been calling each other. Let alone spouses, even my mom doesnt recognize my friend's real names. I recall a hilarious episode when my got a wedding card from a friend, she called me all excited about gossiping and said "Guess what?, ur friend X ditched her boyfriend Y and is marrying some guy called Z" Took me 5 minutes to stop laughing and explain to her that Z was Y's real name;)...sorry bout the long comment...

-fishy

Kaps said...

such funny nicknames are not restricted to IIT's alone. Here are some from my batch in IIM -
Dildo, Pondy & Lesbo. BTW, Balls is a standard nick for Balasubramaniam

Anonymous said...

This is funny indeed!! A friend of mine called Kartik Kuppuswamy ended up with the nickname 'Kakoos'. What do you say about that?

Anonymous said...

How Karthik became Amba: Split original name as "Kar" and "Thik", interchange the corresponding parts to "Thik" and "Kar" - which is a thick car in India?? Ambassador obviously!! Hence, the nickname "Amba" :-))!

kuttichuvaru said...

ha ha tat was funny!!! how i wish i went bak to those gud old college days!!!

B o o said...

Comments are hilarious than the post. No offence, Alpha! ;)
First time I ROTFLOL over a comment and that was left by "Kakoos" anon!!! (This is what you deserve if you dont leave your names, at least a nickname!)

*Is nt it ironic that anons are leaving comments for a post about nicknames? *

Anonymous said...

Is eddycated Indian male.

Psst ALipiri PHAniyamma, what do you know about our embedded secrets ?

Alpha said...

fishy, that was funny. My mom calls my friend Nai because we call him that. Nai got married, Nai bought a house...he's doing very well considering he started off as a single canine.

kaps, expand on the lesbo please. How does a guy manage to get a name like that?! don't say that he drank less bournvita..I will just shoot myself.

kakoos anon: I hope Karthik's potential employer or worse, his potential wife doesn't google his name and come here.

jita: Poor oppressed Karthiks of the society. that was innovative.

boo: that's ok..this one time I wont take offense..dont make it a practice though. go ahead and give all these various anons your nick..they are asking for it.

?!: psst- help me out on that, will ya? The agent business was not kicking off, hence resorting to these things.

Alpha said...

kuttichevaru: thanks. how come you didnt come up with your own nickname story?

Alpha said...

ramani: sorry for late reply. I was still analysing your comment. I think that's how it works..at least someone's figured it all.

Vee Cee said...

Tampon was probably the go-to guy for Tamil Pondies!

BB said...

first timer..nice post!

You blog hop, mainly to refrain from your own crap. The blogger seems to be a pro. You roftl at almost every line you read. You read the whole blog and finally realise you learnt nothing from it, but you just laughed and laughed becos you are connected to each and everyline of it. What is the nickname you would give her in the blog world? (1 minute --> -ve 20 points)

Alpha said...

vc: I bet you spent half your college life looking for Tampon. hope u got lucky.

bharat: thanks machi. I know the answer, but I will not tell. Phew! I almost lost 20 points. Somewhere someone put a smart chip in me.

Alpha said...

bharat, wait a min, what do u mean you leart nothing from it? I thought it was educational in finding embedded secrets of educated indian males (refer to some comment above)

anantha said...

Thank god the kids in my undergrad were not "forward" enough to call me Tampon!

Alpha said...

anti, vc wants to know if you can be contacted now for similar services?

BB said...

When I said I did not learn nything....I meant something new...these are the stuff I was brought up...nevertheless...it was fun :)

Alpha said...

Barath (finally got the spelling right), i was just pulling your leg man..no need to explain yourself.:) Look at anti, he never takes me seriously.

Anonymous said...

tampon == tamil ponnu

Vee Cee said...

*patiently waiting for Anti to answer Alpha's question*

anantha said...

Alpha: What services?

Barath: Machi, dont ever take her seriously. If you do, you end up in a mental asylum for sure.

VC: You are a patient? Where? Why?

Alpha said...

anti: we aren't giving out Oscars here, so easy on the acting skills.

Anonymous said...

a lot of comments here!
yeah nicknames stick for life. even our parents call our school friends by their nicknames cos they cant remember the real ones.

Alpha said...

anya, i think i know u from old times. good to see you again.

Anonymous said...

yes - old times indeed - i'm glad to be back. remember the winter poems?
i see i have missed a lot .. what with you running around the web..

Alpha said...

poems? i do remember one winter poem..we go that back? I run around the web as much as my pet spider can handle. he's growing old. anyway, good thing your spider lost it's way.

anantha said...

*realizes he has given away way too much info and wants to change the conversation.

So.. Alpha, did you watch Rang De Basanti? Nice movie, man!

Alpha said...

Anti: If Rang De Basanti is the name you are using as a cover to pitch 'your' kind of movies, it's not me you shud be selling it to. VC, heard that?

BB said...

@ anti and alpha!

Darn...did i sound serious ... Well as for the mental asylum....thing...iam alread in one! :) thats called the blogosphere! :) jus kiddin man...good one!

Satyashree Srikanth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chitra said...

"chitra: did u cal me boobs, bra and kundi at the same time?"
Ayyooo....no !! (shocked expression)

anantha said...

Alpha: What do you mean "my" kind of movies? If you are hinting that "my" kinda movies could be the ones that have references to almost every single nickname mentioned on your post, no. Well, not all the time. In any case, if anything can be laid at my feet, it's only my being a vital cog in rather innocous book club! We believed in taking literature to the masses. And the prestige that comes with it, has to be seen to be believed ;)

phatichar said...

hilarious :"))

I remember attending a school day of my alma mater, where we old students had to find a badge for ourselves that had our nicknames embossed on it, so it would be easier to identify us. :)

afishcalledgoonda said...

:-) i am glad i am familiar with the tamil nomenclature of various anatomical parts and bodily functions...hilarious.

Twilight Fairy said...

uh well.. how come everytime I come here you are talking about some name game!! :p

Anonymous said...

Well, this was hilarious!

*with all due reluctance coz of the probability of this comment being read at all*
We had such nicks as well.. to pick the best one, we had one guy called OKS (a probable google search result, this one :); from our college gang, that is) which expanded in tamil and meant one-balled sivakumar!
yeah, no good reasoning behind the naming, methinks!

Alpha said...

satya: I must say I am proud of you guys. In a college without much representation from us, you guys do make sure our presense is felt. *touched*

chittu: I am relieved beyond words.

anti: A pondy book club? Even better grave you have dug for urself. Anandavigadan types?

phatichar: yeah, what was yours?

journeylist: and why woud that make you so glad, lady?

fairy: Needed to get the names out of my system first. Glad you noticed the theme of the month.

zero kutti,you and I share a great History. I couldn't ignore Zeros (even if I wanted to)when I was an exam writing person in school.


oru kottai? Why? Like one of our friend thought he was really creative when he was ordering donuts (round sugary things with hole in the middle)..he wanted just one, so he said- I prefer Eknut. He was doomed.

Does Shiva have similar story?

Vee Cee said...

Anti - cha! verum reading material-dhaana!!! fuggedaboutit!

Alpha - you seem to be ultra despo on making sure I get 'stuff' from Anti. Don't worry. I'll definitely hand them over to you, just like we agreed!!! ;)

Alpha said...

vc: We also agreed that you won't make this deal public..now I am ultra despo to find another agent.

Vee Cee said...

alpha: you go find another agent. i need to find another source. Anti is supposedly good only for reading material.

Anonymous said...

alpha,
darn, you reply to every comment here!
Btw, zero is a self-imposed blog nick after deep contemplation on what the blog and the blogger was worth for!

SwB said...

wot men alpha!! ... bludy hilarious. lmao@ the chaddi-buddy ad line!

so how u doin?

Alpha said...

zero: lets argue that fact. I usually win.

blues: Thanks. Been a while..Doing great buddy..how about you?

Anonymous said...

.. and somebody had just referred to me as "zero kutti"! and I didn't react. So, here's to amend my reactionary skills. (not to forget that this also proceeds to verify my claim about your commenting skills.)

anantha said...

VC: One has to make do with reading when faced with a lack of playback equipment in hostels.... And don't you know how much educational institutions stress upon reading? We were just doing what our teachers asked us to do, read.. We also had group reading sessions in case the literature was in a language that was unreadable by many. Aaah.. the joys of reading.

Alpha said...

zero: lol, good thing u clarify regarding reaction skills.

anti: reading is differnt from drooling.

Anonymous said...

nick names give a different feel when u call a person. it gives u a sense of nice relationshp. evn my family n friend outside iit have understood that ppl here are known by their nicknames and refer to them as such. my cell is often a piece 4 entertainin ppl havin hazaar atrocious nicknames stored

CB said...

Haa haa..hilarious..
and ya..liked the karthik part. Coz I'm Karthik in IITM too..
have a look at this post of mine.

http://karthikcb.blogspot.com/2006/01/nicks.html

Anonymous said...

Hi,
A very nice piece of write up.Really funny. Good to know how our nicks will be attached with us for our entire life.And btw there is one more alpha in our batch at IITM but his is ALFA and I cant wait to tell the funda of this nick..its A Low Funda A** H*le.
-they call me whyda!

Alwaysvetti said...

Awesome...super stuff..!!

Vijay Shankar said...

hey nice post.
I am in iitm now and know how it is. But some freshies have gotten the better of seniors now and named themselves.

Anonymous said...

Pseud...

Aparna S Mallya said...

guess what, when i read yr post i hurriedly sent the link to my hubby. n that's coz we have some nicknames fr each other and also fr others that sound so much like the nicknames u have mentioned!

Anonymous said...

Aunty, cyber, rickshaw, syntax, bums, sandy, batata, pballs, ash, pitama, dufu, bull, bethal, err, dinchak, mojo, tetra, romeo, micro (=> typically a negation word of whats mentioned), daddy, jinx, puxie, pakodi, mux, 3.2, badco (bad-cow), saalay, zingaro, jumbo, tiny, maaki... so on.. you will find haazar of these every year..

80 - 20 rule... 5 yrs at IIT : 65 yrs of non-IIT life.

Artnavy said...

hilarious post- brings back memories

themiddler said...

Hilarious post! Got the link from a friend. Nice blog!

Harish Suryanarayana said...

Extremely Funny ! themiddler was kind enough to post a link to your blog in our vetti group here :) .

My nick : Pondy (:P)

Anonymous said...

There was this freshie whose name was Parv... The first time we met him, we asked him is name... he got nicked 'perv(ert)'... that is one of very few nicks close to ones' name...

Anonymous said...

Great article! Thanks.