Me, myself and BOFi

What good is a man in the real world if he doesn't have a few multiple personalities, to live his life for him when he don't feel like livin' it any more?

"When I was younger,
So much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in anyway.
But now those days are gone,
And I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind,
And opened up the doors."
Help-The Beatles

I find myself with many a thing to explain, many a person to apologize to, many a confession to make. I have thought a lot about it, about what I have done to myself, what myself has done to me. Thing is, I generally find it quite difficult to think of things in an abstract manner in my mind. Thoughts generally do not have a habit of existing independently, in a limbo, for the sake of themselves. They are an ally to speech, to writing, to any creative act that we perform, not an independent function of the brain, atleast not in my case. So we try to work around it, through visualization, through mental abstractions, through conversations with oneself. Then, at some point of time, you end up losing the thread, and give up the line of thought. Or you turn to writing it down.

So I write it down.

Thing is, it feels quite awkward to write only about myself, 'cause I do not think that it will make for very enjoyable reading. So, this post will mainly be about the system of nicknaming which is an integral and highly enjoyable part of life in IIT-M, something which makes this institute unique. And coincidentally, it has a deeper connection with my plight. So I would like to request all casual readers to just skip over the italicized portions, they are more for me, and for some people who I owe explanations to. More importantly, even if you do read it all, PLEASE DON'T comment on the italicized parts, else I'll be forced to insult you....

Ragging is prohibited by law-yeah right! It isn't so here for sure. However the brilliant thing about IIT-M is the fact that the ragging here is actually extremely enjoyable, an experience that most people end up cherishing. Seriously! There are of course the stray cases of ragging getting serious, and of certain obscene ragging practices, but overall it is a brilliant experience. Most people here are pretty unique specimens of humanity, with more quirks than people in most other places, and it is this which makes 'interacting' with them such a brilliant experience.

Now one of the main components of IIT-M ragging is the ceremony of 'nicking' of freshies. Now before you get any ideas of seniors making sharp cuts in freshies with a blade or something, I will quickly assure you that it is nothing of the sort; it is in fact a ceremony in which the freshie is bestowed with a nickname, one which will define his identity in IIT-M, and quite often, after IIT-M too.

Define one's identity-how come nobody told me that. I always thought that it was another bit of meaningless bullshit, one of those things seniors generally do to derive some sort of sadistic pleasure. I always thought that you could take your nickname and still be who you were, and that people would know you for who you were and not by the goddam personality you had been arbitrarily allocated to. IIT-M takes in one bunch of people, remoulds them, and sends them out changed, complete with new name. A complete overhaul, a modern day Miniluv. You aren't who you were after you are here, you have become who you they have made you. Change for the better you say? I don't know....I don't know....

Now, as most seniors will tell you, nicking is not a completely arbitrary process. It depends to a large extent on the freshie himself, on how he interacts with you. True there are a disproportionate number of 'dufu's' around, who have been nicked completely arbitrarily, by seniors who didn't have time or enthu or any goddam creativity to nick them better, but by and large, most freshies on aposteriori reflection realize that they have earned their nicks, and in most cases are decently pleased with them. Thus, some sort of balance, some sort of equilibrium is maintained due to which a large number of people in every batch end up with nicknames they can proudly call their own (but most often can't reveal them outside IIT for fear of ridicule....). Some of course go further, and completely integrate their nicknames into their lives.

I never did want to grow up. Ever since I read Peter Pan, and Winnie-the-Pooh, and Alice in Wonderland, and stuff like that, I had decided to never leave my own enchanted forest. Time, fate, JEE ranks, and a goddam sense of wanderlust landed me up in another forest in Chennai. Not that any other forest would have made a difference, in fact, IIT-M delayed the process for some time, by virtue of the fact that it still retains a sense of childlike wonder compared to the cynicism of other IITs. Here, in this enchanted forest, I could still walk with the deer, and sing with the birds, and hide from the grown-ups. Yet it drew me out from my own enchanted forest, and as I drew out, I felt myself filling up into someone else, not Siddhartha, but someone else who had become one with me...I became the BOFi.

"wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on top of the Forest, a little boy and his bear will always be playing."
The House at Pooh Corner-A.A.Milne

I wish it were that easy.....

The most interesting thing about nicknames is that they have a funda behind them. Now most of the time, these fundaes are pretty pointless and dumb, but every once in a while one meets people who have very entertaining fundaes. These fundaes are generally based upon their experiences during interaction, on what they said, on what they did. However, quite often people get nicknames long after the interaction period, based on certain quirks of theirs, or on certain interesting experiences that they had in IIT. I'll start my hall of fame of interesting nicknames with one such example-that of my good friend Wimpy. Now when Wimpy first turned up in IIT, the story goes that he used to go around trying to impress everyone with his amazing intellect. Seniors were greeted with a very cordial outstretched hand and a greeting which went thus-"Hello. I am JEE rank 12 and my name is Karthik. I am sure you're glad to meet me......". Soon our man Wimpy became the terror of his wing. The whole hostel used to turn up to watch Wimpy vs 8th wing battles. If someone put on loud music, Wimpy used to immediately inform him that it was hampering his crucial mental processes. If someone took too long in the bog, then our man would lecture him on the need for cooperative bog-time allocation strategies or whatever. Soon he decided to give himself a nickname, for who was more suited for the task than him? One fine day, 8th wing junta were asked to address him as 'C' because he felt he was qualified enough to issue pointers in C to all around him. At this point seniors decided to take matters into their own hands, and so Wimpy was born-the only nickname in the history of the world (as our man will proudly tell you) that is the alternate pronunciation of an abbreviation of an abbreviation! For Wimpy stands for 'WingP' which is short for 'Wing PITA' which is short for....you get the point! (whew, now I need some water after all that!)

By the way, in case you get wrong impressions, I would like to make it very clear at this point that Wimpy is a very dear friend of mine, and that he has changed remarkably from his early days. He's one of the few people who I know is capable of laughing at himself, a quality for which I respect him greatly. He has a lovely blog of his own, and is one of the pillars of No Questions Asked. He recently has been awarded the Aditya Birla Scholarship, something which he 'richly' deserves, and has managed to bring in his personal life some sort of order;). I sincerely hope his life keeps changing for the better, and that he doesn't mind my writing about him too much.....

Life change for the better? Is it really that nice to be an adult, losing all that you cherished for all these years, the sense of wonder in all around you, the innocence, the carefreeness, the belief that parents were perfect, and friends were always by your side, and that attachments were unconditional? To be filled with the terror of the unknown, uncertain future, to have to choose your paths, when till now you were guided by others. To have to look for hidden meanings in every action of others, be responsible for the outcomes of your own actions. Some take in all these changes with a sense of derring-do, as just another adventure (although I believe the sense of adventure is a part of childhood, and so we have a contradiction...), others don't think about it, and others still don't even realize it is happening to them. I, on the other hand, ran away from it as far as I could, and ended up meeting myself. And so the BOFi was born, as a projection of all adult features in me. Initially it was imperceptible, an occasional deviation in my habits, my mode of interacting with people around, but after sometime I realized I could alternate between the two. So at times, depending on the situation I could be Siddhartha, and at other times I was BOFi. In the beginning it was all quite novel, to be able to react to situations in different ways and all, but after some time, and I still don't know how, it all went wrong...

Resuming from Wimpy, we next come upon the great Narmad nicking scheme. Now Narmada is one hostel with which I have had very close ties over the first year (and a large number of my friends happen to be there still), and so I have had lots of exposure to Narmad nicks. Besides Wimpy (and for that matter, Hospy), Narmad has a host of other interesting nicknames. My good friend Helmet is said to have got his name due to his comparing a certain anatomical part to a helmet. Shamanth is one of those people who hasn't got a standard nickname, but the most commonly used one would be Bigchu, which was allocated under the Narmad nicking scheme-to address people as prefixes to a certain hindi profanity. So Shamanth was 'big', Ramji was 'our' (which subsequently became OC), and others became 'this', 'that', 'other', 'yet another'(who became YAC), etc.

Talking of Shamanth, I am forced to admit that he gives people THE WORST POSSIBLE nicknames ever. I do not know anybody, except my good neighbour Mahanama (named for the great accuracy and size of his nama, studies have shown that it deviates from a parabola by a maximum of 1%), who has ever retained a Shamanth nickname. Yet our man goes around proudly calling people by his nicknames, and then turning to us and laughing, as if he had just made a big joke or something. Thing is, we too end up laughing at these moments, and the poor guy never realizes we are laughing at him, and not his nicknames! And so he proudly struts around calling people CD and Peter and Bigf and Mr.Beef and Paedo and God knows what else, while all around him nod their heads in sympathy, and wonder how many volts it'll take.....

It wasn't obvious at first, but slowly I realized that there were often times when I ended up saying things I would have never said. I developed a habit of saying things for pseud like many people around, although I always hated doing this. Often I said things which ended up paining people, but I never said it to derive any sadistic pleasure or anything, it just happened. I developed a sense of cynicism, a dislike for things, which I never had before. And from second sem onwards, when the novelty of hostel life had worn off, I was slowly filled with a general sense of depression at life, one which I have managed to fight off effectively enough, but one which keeps coming back at odd times to haunt me. And I have receded further with every moment into BOFi. Most people I know here haven't actually met me, or known what I am like. They have seen a facade-no, I lie. They have seen BOFi, for he is not a facade, he is real. As real as I am, more perhaps at times....

Now I do not think a post on nicknames would be complete without a mention of the nicknames that (ahem) I have given. I have had the privilege of giving a grand total of three nicknames, not because of a lack of ragging sessions, but because I do not like giving nicks arbitrarily like many of my friends do, but like to put some thought into them. I like them to be such that the recipient is proud of it, is able to use it outside IIT. One of the nicknames I gave was to a batchmate of mine-Kumar Appaiah, who is one of the nicest people I know, and is an absolute God of Linux and other computer related topics. Besides, he also has a decent knowledge of Bengali, and a great love for Kolkata, a city in which he spent a large part of his childhood. Due to the respect I have for him, I christened him KMap, an abbreviation of his name, which I am sure will ring a bell with anyone exposed to digital logic. Luckily this name seems to have caught on, because he deserves it.

The other two nicknames I gave were to Narmad freshies. One of them informed me that he was not occupying his room, but had left his mattress there, upon which I asked him to make suitably changes to his mattress so as to properly stake out his territory, taking inspiration from the habits of wild animals. Thus AMP was born-short for 'A mattress pisser'. The other freshie happened to act out a scene for us in which he was going to suggest to his girlfriend that they get physical. However his way of doing things happened to be to suddenly make the suggestion as the two of them were cycling to school, without any preamble or build-up. The thought of his girlfriends reaction to this interesting suggestion (Hell! She must have fallen right off the cycle in shock!) was enough for me to immediately christen him LHS, an abbreviation of his exact dialogue ("Lets have......").

However, it is not as if BOFi is all bad. In fact, he does have many traits which I am proud of. He has a degree of maturity, of mental strength and reserve, which I sorely lack. Besides, he is very useful, because there are many situations which I am forced to be in, which I would run away from in normal circumstances. It is at times like this that I retreat into myself and the BOFi takes charge, dealing with the situation as he deems fit. I do have a decent amount of control over him, enough to use him usefully. Yet at times, when my guard is down, he emerges unbidden, and does things which I regret later. Eventually I guess I will have to become one with him, strike a compromise between my two existences, my two identities. Yet I rebel against this, and hold on as long as possible to the fast disappearing shreds of my childhood, uncertain of the future, and unwilling to face the world.....

Finally we will come to the tale of my own nicking. I still remember the incident, like it were yesterday. It was around 12 at night, when I was returning to hostel along with two friends of mine. We had gone for a walk around the campus after the freshie quiz, to take advantage of the beautiful weather. On our way back, we were stopped by a large group of second years in front of the library. They first disposed of the other two quite fast, since they already had nicknames, and then concentrated all their attentions on me. After a long session of general questioning, they decided I was safe enough to try more daring things with, as I wouldn't go running and complain to the warden or something (People actually do that!). Then one of them had a bright idea. A few seconds later I found myself, to the great amusement of all the seniors, holding my backside and hopping around shouting 'Aaaaeeeeeee' (Don't even ask me what that means...). After I had done this for some time, they asked me to stop, and one of them, barely able to suppress his laughter, informed me that I appeared as if my 'butt was on fire'. And thus I became BOFi.

And thus it all started. And thus it continues. You may argue that I think too much about small things, and that it happens to everyone, that everybody hurts, and I'll agree. You may argue that most of what I wrote was bullshit, and that nothing ever happened, and I'll be forced to just keep quiet and let you keep your opinions while I keep mine. You may argue that I tend to overdramatise things, but then I'll blame that on BOFi. You may argue that all I've done is follow the age old tradition of blaming all my faults on others, and I'll have to tell you there is no other. I am both simultaneously, or atleast, a bit of me is in both. And that's ok really, in fact, or so I hope, it's a good way to resolve things, as long as you know it is true. It is like the great engineering maxim-"To make something work, quite often you just have to break it apart and reassemble it". Or as one Peter Parker put it so well before me (Hey Satya, dedication to you da, for making me read all those comics at your place, and showing me a way of life which I could seriously consider adopting after IIT. You got extra room in that pad of yours.....?)

This is my gift. This is my curse.