North-Indian or South-Indian, Monty? + News

It was a class joke.

“He asked her whether she was North-Indian or South-Indian and she said she was East-Indian!! I mean, is there even such a thing in existence?!”

The ‘he’ was the class clown, AB (no, it wasn’t a Bachchan) and ‘she’ was good old me. Those were the glorious days when kids found AB spoofing on me and V vrooming off to some zumba-land and doing the zumba dance funny and derived entertainment from such things (yes, I(and everyone else) used to get teased with every random person and elaborate tales were concocted based on such ludicrous ideas which in turn provided great 12yearold-type joke-fodder). The above line was one which remained a much quoted line for about 3 days (which is a very long time for such things). I still don’t understand what is so absurd in my being an Easty and saying that I am indeed one. You can’t categorise all Indians as Northies or Southies. Where will the Bongs, Oriyas, Gujjus, Assamese people go?

And I can’t even begin to recount all my monikers. Everyone had them. Everyone’s surname was made fun of and it was distorted to something that sounded silly and generally was silly. I was called ---

>Mohan Aunty

V still calls me aunty!!

>Monica

God alone knows how this came into being.

>Mona darling

The cheesiest of them all. This, I assume (and I may be wrong), was a derivative of Monica.

>Monty, full-monty, half-monty and other crap related to ‘monty’

Well, a lot many people there couldn’t pronounce ‘Mohanty’ and ended up calling me ‘Monty’ which was damn irritating. Plus, I wasn’t the only Sneha around. There were 3 other Snehas and one(or may be more, of whom I am not aware) Snehal which made it ever the more confusing.

>Matinee

Since I am the ‘Mumbai Girl’ here and there was this movie called ‘Mumbai Matinee’ which had released some 3 years back, people in my new school decided to call me ‘Mumbai Matinee’, which in due course of time became only ‘Matinee’. So yes, I am Matinee.

There were many more names which I can’t remember (old age is taking its toll). However, there weren’t any that I don’t want to remember. I love all of them!

Sigh! Those were the days of innocence.

I have been spending the last 10 days sleeping, eating and not really doing much work. So, this is a Public Declaration that I shall get working and be more productive in the remaining days of 2006 which, by the way, wasn’t a great year for me. It was frustrating and a year wasted. I didn’t learn much, I didn’t read much, I didn’t do anything that would make this year special (apart from reading some valuable metaphysical stuff from Linda’s books, but hey, I have been doing that every year since the past 3 or 4 years). I am so glad this year is ending and 2007 is beginning. 2007 is my number 3 year! Yay!

I’ll be off for a 9-day long break to my Dad’s place (the place where he’s posted. It’s supposed to be a tourist-y place too) and then to Puri (where my granpa and granma live) where we’re having this family reunion after 17 years (ie. After 17 years everyone will be under one roof. This hadn’t happened in the past 2 decades minus 3 years since we couldn’t coordinate our time of home-visit). Then there are other family type plans happening so this Christmas should be fun (more people around->more gifts).

Happy holidays and I hope you have a magical year ahead!

P.s.- Yes, I have grown extremely fond of writing cocktail posts.