Whats in a name ?

Names are the small identification tags, that human beings stick to each other, in order to distinguish say A from B.Like every thing else, this too leads to interesting and hilarious stories.

During my primary school, I was made to sit next to a boy called pope paulose. I remember this because later I came to know what or who a pope was. There couldnt have been greater disparity. The said boy was dark, unkempt, with lice crawling over his forehead,( having decided to breathe some fresh air as against his heavily oiled locks).He was nothing like a pope or paulose. 

Our small township was a goldmine of hilarious names. My enterprising elder sister once took it upon herself to compile such gems and her list , unbelievably , ran into fifty odd , odd-names. We lived in that part of Bihar where it was common to add the suffix of' babu'(not to be mistaken with the bengali term for endearment ; or with the malayali proper name), to all respectable gent's names.Whether the suffix diluted the effect of the names or highlighted them is tough to decide.

We had , KaanuBabu(the one eyed one), Paanu babu(the guy who eats too many paans -betel nuts),Chchedi babu(immortalised in salman bhai's dabang)paanchu babu(some thing to do with five-paanch)penchu babu(either' screws''-pench';or related to owl)goda babu(tattoos).A rare name was Teenkauri babu(the story goes that the unfortunate guy survived the death of numerous earlier siblings; to ensure his long life , a ritual was performed wherein he was sold to the Lord Yama- the god of death; for three cowrie shells).

An older cousin, a highschool dropout and a troublemaker was endowed with the unseemly moniker of' chavanni'(25 paise). Last I heard, he was a lawyer. Wonder what his clients address him as?

My favourite was' gulaabi babu', the nonchalant dispenser of medicines at the local medical shop. Poor guy had nothing rosy about him. The LGBT movement was unheard of , and madhuri dixit or' gulaab gang' was yet to make an appearance.

My own name has had its share of lime light.I was named after the lake (pampa sarovar) which lord rama crossed on his way to sri lanka. My malayali friends were petrified at the serpentine connotations (paamb means snake), the well read ones demanded to know if I knew that I was named after a grassland in Argentina(The Pampas).My more irreverent friends have called me papaya, pumpkin, (anything that is large and begins with a p).Pompous, pompeii are other distorted versions which I have to grin and bear. In college , everytime a new teacher took the roll-call,  I would patiently wait for him/her to reach my name. They would invariably falter, much to the collective mirth of the class.Then I would sigh and tell them it rhymes with champa-the flower.That would result in another round of raucous , hearty laughter from the benches.