Nicknames are something that you do not know when, how or where you will be given one. I am not talking about the ones that your parents, uncles, cousins give you lovingly when you have not even learnt how to speak. So knock off the Tinku, Pappu, Guddu, Chintu from here. I am talking of the ones that are given to you when you already have a name and possibly a nickname that has been existing for years but yet you get a new one like the ones that you get in school, college, B-school or companies that you work in.
Nicknames are very similar to a virus – it is caught by someone and then passed on amongst others till the time all have been affected, i.e. all are ready to use it. The only difference is that here the nickname finally settles with one person while all others use it to address him or her. Some people love their nicknames, some hate it, some don’t care about it, while some others reconcile to the fact that love it or hate it, and people will not stop using it once they have liked the hang of it for a person.
I also got a nickname during my B-school days, which till date has stuck with my B-school batch mates. In my case, my surname became my nickname and I started being called Mehta. The funny part is that the reason this nickname was given to me was because there was one more Kunal other than me on campus and so to differentiate between the two, people decided to address me as Mehta but by the end of the first semester even he was not addressed as Kunal as he had also been given a nickname and a rather funny one - Makkhi but largely due to a short form of his name – Mukherjee. (Makkhi – if ever you read this, must say that both our nicknames have stuck on even after so many years).
So coming back to the nicknames that were given out to quite a few of us during B-school, let me use this blog to relate some of the ones that I can recollect at the moment – Bhattu, PKD, Dutto, Thakur, Chom, Kicha, Kandy, Litte, Scooby Doo, Bhatia, Nimmo, Barju, Jaini, Appu, Uppu, Thussu, Shef, Vasu, Sid, Gammy, Maddy, Teendu, Pratti, Sallu, Pali, Vyji… these are the ones that come to mind…but I do know there were lots more. I also know that even after passing out of B-school 7 years back, almost all of these nicknames have stuck on and whenever people talk about someone or meet someone who had a nickname then, they are still called by the same name.
I am sure a lot of MICANs from then would have got new nicknames at their new work places, amongst their new friends but nicknames are like well nicknames. They do not get replaced, they just get added to the already existing nicknames that one has been given or gifted with.
I guess I digressed… the blog is not to talk about MICANs but rather to talk about nicknames. So nicknames have various reasons of getting originated:
• People want to describe a personality by giving a nickname eg – Guruji for a person who is philosophical in life, King Khan for SRK for his lifestyle
• People want to shorten a name which is very long – eg - Adi for Aditya
• They want to differentiate between two people having the same name – Example given above
• They want to describe the community/caste one belongs to through the nickname – Lala for a person coming from a trading family
• People want to have a code name for a person so that they can talk about him without others knowing about it – Eg – People having nicknames like Hitler for their bosses
• Couples like to call themselves in an endearing manner with a nickname – Eg – Sweety, Jaan etc.
There can be various other reasons for someone to decide on a nickname for someone else but the reality is that people love to pick it up and start using it and after sometime everyone forgets who came up with the nickname but everyone remembers that who it is for.
