Going Nuts

Groundnuts, cashew nuts or hazel nuts- there are many. Each have their own benefits, advocated by doctors universally. But this article is neither about nuts nor about their apparent health benefits. Instead this is about the nicknames we students gave to our teachers with all due respect.

Of all funny names that come to my mind, Chinese butru tops the list. We were in class 5^th and he never taught us but some invigilator duties were sufficient to rechristen him. The reason behind this hilarious name, I am told was his short stature and mechanical approach (fake Chinese gadgets –the inspiration perhaps) to teaching. Incidentally, a friend of mine told me about this while we were playing and we both ended up in tears of laughter. Another such uproarious name that we invented almost half a decade earlier than the rajnikant starrer ‘robot’ was , yes, you guessed it right, ROBOT. His punctuated style of speaking was probably the reason he was named so. Nepali master was another such name we gave to one teacher of ours (do I see accusation of me being a racist?).

It was in class ^7th, I changed schools and was introduced to new teachers with new names. At this point of time, I felt how creativity sweeps all barriers of physicality. Even at distances as large as a few hundred miles, students name their teachers with comparable zeal.

Here, in spite of the city life, nicknames awarded to teachers were laden with ingenuity.

Sample this. A teacher called chiniyabadam was baptized so because of his customary statement:

“Nahi padhiyega, nahi likhiyega…station pe chiniyabadam bechiyega”.

But jokes apart, he was dexterous in his craft and more than that he was a good human being who rose above teacher – student relationship to help his pupils. Another was called Prem Chopra purely because of his voyeuristic poetry and striking resemblance to the said actor. Krrish and chhota chetan, despite being clichés were hit among us. The teacher who loved his students but was abhorred by one and all was called “baka”, which I guess was because of his eccentricity which everybody confused for wackiness. He was a senti-“mental” guy who got carried away with his emotions.

To forget dumdum mai and her beetle chewed face would be a mistake execrable. Another such teacher was thermos, she taught us geography and disaster management, which is a pun in itself as nobody but the first bench of the class used to listen to her. The rest were heavy eyed enough to doze off.

Pele, our math’s teacher, was funnily named thus with no such reason whatsoever. He knew his students called him with such a name and almost appeared to enjoy that.
dholu and raavan were 2 such another names, purely based on the physical appearance of the teachers, the former had a big paunch and the other one was huge in size.( no, he just had only one head )

It was again in the summer of ’09 I changed schools after graduating from high school and a new world of nicknames opened to me. This time I had the privilege or perhaps, become smart enough to moniker people around me.

“solanaceae” was the name which we used to call a teacher, simply due to his strange infatuation with the foresaid plant family.

I had my share of fun all through school life, experimenting and dubbing everyone around me. What’s your story??

p.s.: another nut was, well, a coconut. The man taught us mechanics – the physics of freely falling vaddies.