HOW ARE YOU SIRJI ?

Kaise hain SirJi ?

The moment our eyes locked,his face lit up.He is my neighbour,a few houses down the road. With a toothy grin suffusing his broad countenance and body irradiating friendly warmth,he queried,

“Kaise hain SirJi ?”

As far as I can remember ,our road side encounters have been this way only - eye contact, broad smile ,this very same conversation opener followed by ‘politically’ incorrect neighbourly chit chat.

Only of late he has taken to adding  Ji to Sir . Sometimes  it is spoken as one word Sirji ,at most other times he lays equal emphasis on Sir and Ji with a moment’s interval in between, Sir-Ji .All depends on the level of cheeriness in his mood.I was comfy with just the ‘Sir’ for it was adequately deferential .So there wasn’t really any pressing need to suffix  Ji . In the days of the Raj,the reverential response used to be ‘Ji Huzoor’,and now  more commonly heard in government portals is ‘Ji Sir’.Either way  Ji is a prefix and it means ‘yes’,no more.Therefore a Ji suffixed SirJi can only invest double honours. Whatever,adding ‘regards’ tonnage to an addressee as unassuming and as humble as I,was undeserved. Maybe,in a polite way it recognised a newly acquired status -senior citizen.Blessed be he for a  ‘freebie’ honorifical , SirJi.

However I have other weightier reasons to squirm at SirJi and one such touches   divinity itself. If Lord Ganesh, in common parlance ,is  GaneshJi ,do humans qualify for the ‘twice over’ reverence, SirJi ? Even Mishraji, Vijayji... may incur God’s malevolence. Humans shouldn't claim communion with Gods.  

A Kanhaiyajee or  Ramjee is fine;it couldn’t be otherwise for obvious reasons.Such innately  ‘honorified’ Indians are not alone in the comity of nations.Koreans too impregnate their names with Ji. As many as 80% Korean names have Ji or a play upon it like chee, gi, je, jee, chi as a suffix or prefix .Ji Ho and Ji Hu are common names for boys, Ji woo and Ji yoo for girls. Ji in Korean means wealth and wealth in itself confers honorific . No need to add a further Ji. We though have a problem, a ‘Ramjee  jee’ address sounds queer.

Still the Ji sambodhan is commonplace and giving way to the still more weightier SirJi .Across arterial roads inside any cluster of coaching centres a typical archway adorning these roads is more than likely to have banners with a beaming girl chanting “main toh Physics padhoogi Arjun SirJi se hein” (I will learn Physics only from Arjun SirJi). Sooner than later, Ji will fall into disuse and SirJi 

will enter the Oxford lexicon.

SirJi is obviously an etymological evolution,a product of cross pollination between Anglo- Indian notions of respectful title.As with progenies born of genetic hybridisation the product is more robust and virile .It will be little surprise if SirJi dons the mantle of accepted honorific across all Indian linguistic zones.Good if it does,it gels wonderfully with our syncretic culture,synthesising the  colonial legacy of ‘Sir’ with  Indianness of Ji.

My friend ,though,disagrees. On a first name calling basis otherwise, in a foul mood he is prone to switch to  SirJi; ’aap galat hai SirJi ,or ‘choodiye SirJi’, ‘jaane dijiye SirJi’,(you are wrong, SirJi ,leave it SirJi  ,let it go SirJi).I suppose in his mathematical world two positives a negative make, not the other way round. For him, SirJi is a term of disparagement than endearment. 
  

 Regardless of his reservations,the hyphenation Sir-Ji is dripping  in reverence .But hold on ,it would be a grave error to presume that 

other permutations with Ji would be adulatory too.For instance,take 

Dear and Ji. Mr Ashok chaudhary, HRD minister, Bihar, burnt his fingers when he tweeted to ‘Dear Smt Smriti Irani Ji’,  HRD 

Minister at Centre.She turned crimson,how dare a state minister ‘Dear’ her ? Officialese notwithstanding, it was deemed a frontal assault on womanhood .The ‘victim’ ,Smriti Irani ,promptly took her plaint to FB with a longish outpouring of injured feminism.The 

upshot of the FB diarrhoea–only the husband had ‘Dear’ calling rights, other must use forms of “Undeared” address. Some doubting Thomas’s still question why Dear and Ji are  antithetical and gender sensitive.

Was all the huff and puff really needed? Without the brouhaha over 

feminism Mr Chaudhry would have been fully scuppered had Smt 
Irani chosen the right line. The offending word wasn't Dear it was Ji. Mr Chaudhary had no business pointing a Ji ,a pole arm, an armour ,at a fair damsel who only later was to be in distress. In the good old days of Ming dynasty the pole arm – a pole with a pointed spearhead and a dagger embedded on one side, killed many in 

battles.

But the word ji also connotes love or dread depending on how far you have travelled in conjugal life. ‘Ai Ji ‘ is a uniquely Indian stratagem deployed by wives to draw attention of husbands to 

themselves especially  in rural parts of North India where  it is not customary for a wife to call the husband by name.A year or two into marriage the husband’s heart goes aflutter when wife utters those magical words ‘Ai Ji. A decade later,the heart sinks at the beckon from the dread of losing money or expending physical labour .

Nevertheless, we,Indian,love Ji .Even biscuits are venerated with Ji,say,Parle G and Reliance doesn't forget to prefix Ji in the name of its latest offering ,JIO. Ji is our very heart and mind ,literally .We have even dedicated a popular song from Bollywood blockbuster ‘Ram Lakhan’ to  Ji

“Ai ji ,O ji ,Lo ji, Suno ji
mai hun man mauji,
karta hun mai jo,
tum bhi karo ji ,
one two ka four….”

CLASS WAR WITH THE STRAP

Blame this unholy ,irreverent piece on Late Vinod Mehta. May his soul RIP. In an  unfortunate confluence,Teachers Day has fallen on the very day I am stuck at page 12 of Mr Mehta’s memoir “Lucknow Boy”. As he relates of getting caned on the bum for his umpteen school capers , in empathy I can feel my bum swell to redness and sting.

Decades ago,Mr Mehta,a day scholar,could scoot home and let parents sort out his transgressions with Father Superior, but poor me ? Stuck at 6000 ft above sea level ,500ft higher up the nearest town ,Kurseong, and a climb up  along a 2 Kms long  winding  road from the highway below ,there was no escape from the leather strap for a boarder. The School Dispensary,of course,was there .It offered anti inflammatory balms, pain killers and a Sister Irene to poke and prod you into guilt confession and provide the solace “ it will do you good”. You left her care wondering whether she meant the balm or the punishment .

Still,school life wasn't all that difficult if you reconciled with the stick and the leather strap  as  a part of the teacher’s armoury as much as his erudition. Even parents endorsed felt “it will do you good”.I resided in that twilight zone ,neither brilliant nor a dud. Believe me, that's the most comfortable zone to be in for a boarder.You, succinctly put, are left alone to your devices. So lesser swooshes  of the dreaded stick on palms and fewer whacks from lashes of  the leather strap on bare bum.

However my bum was most vulnerable to the leather strap  in English Literature class. And so it happened .It gave me the mortification of five lashes of the strap on my bare bum.This being the first and the only occasion,the mental scar remains indelibly etched. Also it planted a lasting dislike for two things –‘The Merchant of Venice’ and Synagogues.

On that inglorious day it was my turn to read the following lines ;

The Merchant Of Venice, Act Three ,Scene I

Shylock to Tubal

 “Go ,Tubal,and meet me at our synagogue; go,good Tubal; at our synagogue,Tubal”

In retrospect, many things went wrong.In those early days of transition from a vernacular school to an English medium my diction was heavily accented by Bhojpuriased Hindi .It tended to be as Bassanio says of  Graciano “ too wild, too rude and bold of voice”. Further the tonal inflexions of Shakespearean verse, charming as it is, always confounded me. Ignoring  commas ,semi colons and regardless of modulation of voice at appropriate places,I read out loud and clear in one quick get away lest  Shylock extract his pound of flesh from me.

I got away from Shylock alright, but not the class.Instead of applause for my racy  rendition it broke into a wide chortle. Brother Conners ,the class teacher, gave the class an all encompassing severe cold stare and immediately pin drop silence ensued.

“My dear boy ,the letters  ‘ue’ at the end are silent, not to be pronounced, so read synagogue as 

 synagog Right, now  read it again.”  said Br Connors

This time I got the first one right,  my tongue failed me at the second one,  again synagogue. Br Connors glared at me menacingly. And the class waited  in silent anticipation.

“Out of the class .Repeat it till you get it correctly. Then come back and read  those lines again.”

How I wished someone lent me his tongue instead of his ears ! After repeated iteration in the corridor outside the class, I thought I got it right. Rev Br let me in and as sure as  the earth and the sky,this time it was synagog at both places. But what the Hell.  Br Conners was all fire and brimstone.

“Are you making fun of me? Why ‘syna’  instead of ‘sina’ now. You said it right before leaving the class. One last chance . Now Read it right ,else..”

The threat was too ominous in my present nervy state.I flunked again-culprit the word synagogue.There was no redemption now;you had it ,said the mind.

“Come here . Go to Principal’s office and get the strap . And be quick”

Trudging those hundred yards or so from classroom to Principal’s office to fetch your own instrument of torture is punishment enough.Legs feel weak , time crawls along with the legs and the mind agonises  infinitely more than the likely physical pain from impending lashes.The clerk delivered the dreaded strap much like Br Roh handed out chocolates in his tuck shop .A few gave knowing looks of commiseration,save for an ageless lady,I forget the name,with an eternal grizzle. She evoked visions of the seamstress in  the French Revolution keeping daily count of nobles put under the guillotine. And walking back  the worn out overused leather strap seemed to weigh a ton.

The actual punishment,by contrast,was anti-climatic.I pulled down my pants, down came the strap -whack,whack,whack,whack,whack,winced each time and it's over. No tears , big boy don't cry.Evening went to Sister Irene in the Dispensary. She didn't recognise me for I wasn't a frequent visitor.The balm was handed over,confession made in return for the solace  “it will do you good”