Me, Myself and I

Asa mee. Asa mee. Kasa mee? Kasa mee? Tasa mee. Tasa mee. Asamee Asamee.

(This is how I am. This is how I am. How am I? How am I? That is how I am. That is how I am. An ordinary man, An ordinary man.) Those are the words written by the great Marathi writer P. L. Deshpande (affectionately called as PuLa) when introducing the story of an ordinary person you can find among many in the chaos that is Mumbai.

So if you might have figured out by now that this one is about me, please give yourself a pat on the back. Usually a person when born is given a name and then may have a couple of other names that he is called among friends but in my case, I go by a few more names on a constant basis. These names have been so ingrained that new people who I have been introduced to by these names have trouble placing the original name when I call them. So here are the names and how they came about.

1. Gautam Wagle - The name I was given as a jolly baby some 29 years ago by my parents. Gautam being the given name and Wagle being the family name. The name I grew up with, the name on my ids, the name I will take to my grave. While others may have some pet names at home, believe it or not I have been called Gautam at home through my life.


2. Gotya - That is the name I was given in my undergrad days. I think it happened only during the third year. I really don't remember how the name came about but it is the name of a marathi literary character called Gotya, a boy with all the antics when he was growing up. It is also the marathi word for marbles. So I don't know if that was the meaning that I was supposed to catch on but I will say it was the first one.



3. Waggle - This one goes to Janak "psycho" Shanghvi. Well when I came to the US for my masters, Waggle was the way the profs pronounced my name in class and Janak could not help but roll on the floor laughing and had to share it with our other batchmates. The name just caught on.


4. Bagel - This one is a slight variation of the previous one and it caught on as I caught on with the high carb, high cal diet of the American ways.


5. Wagla - Yet another Gujju was responsible for this one. This time Viren "Nannu" Patel. The jerk had gone to see XMen - 2 and the mutant Nightcrawler had the name "Kurt Wagner" and was supposed to be Ze German. Our gujju friend misheard it as Wagla and shared it among the cricket club. So the entire cricket club knows me as Wagla.


6. Batman - That one goes to Fatass and his labmates. Having trouble saying Gautam, I became Gotham and eventually Batman. So that is how the name of the blog originates in case you were wondering.

Whatever the name, the person is the same. Asa mee Asa mee.

A rule of thumb

Very Superstitious... (Do that with your eyes closed, a big grin showing your pearly whites and your head swaying). Thanks! Now you can continue reading my contributions to the Steelers win yesterday in the Superbowl Xtra large. The last two weeks have been a headache listening to the countless analysts and their stupid predictions. How the hell can you talk about a game of 60 minutes for 2 weeks? Atleast the last 2 years the analysts have had something to keep coming back to. Last year it was T.O. be or not T.O. be and this year it was the sweet homecoming parade of Jerome Bettis. Thank goodness for that angle since there was nothing to talk about the Seattle except for Jeremy "jaw dropping, catch moving"(wait a minute did I get that mixed up?) Stevens and his shadow brawl from behind Walter Jones with Porter. For if he did not have the big guy to have his back, Porter would have used Stevens' big mouth as a plow on his truck on Sunday morning to make sure all the Steelers fans got through the snow.

Being an ardent Steelers fan from the Happy Valley, it should have been pleasurable to listen and read about one's own team for a change rather than others the past few years. The headache was due to the inner turmoil of whether to party or to stick to the routine. Everyone has those before a big exam, an important meeting or a big game as in this case. We had planned to have a party at our place to watch the game and cheer the Steelers but the inner voice asked of how the Steelers had made it through the playoffs? Not by becoming hot in the last month of regular season, not by studying opposition films to device precise playbooks, not by a throttling defense, not by beating the "supposedly best" team, not by "THE TACKLE", but because I continued watching the game from me occupying the hot seat in the basement and talking to Bill Cowher through our telepathic headsets. So I was caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The idea of a party slowly fizzed out and it looked like traditions would be followed. Then when Fatass told me that Sri, Golu had called us over to their place, I was tempted to live dangerously.

Then came the moment of clarity. On the morning of superbowl, Sal Palontonio standing in freezing cold from 11:00 AM for a 6:00 PM game announced that he was outside an undisclosed hotel where Bill "what a sweet scowl that is" Cowher had moved the entire team to to avoid distractions from the media and fans and make it feel like a road game that the Steelers had gotten used to. If the entire team was sticking to its routine, I guessed I could sacrifice a few beers and some wings to stick with my routine. So there I was in my basement (or what is referred to as the Batcave) alone in my house while the whole Happy Valley was having a party. The remote in my right hand on offense and left hand of defense, I won the Steelers one for the Thumb.

Religion and Name change

No! this article is not about the transformation of Yousuf Yohana to Mohd. Yousuf. I read an article in the Hindustan times today on tensions surfacing between Hindus and Muslims at the Bhojshala shrine-Kamal Maula mosque complex in Dhar in MP. At this site, the Hindus recite the Hanuman Chalisa on tuesdays and the Muslims offer namaz on fridays. This friday coincided with the festival of Basant Panchami and the administration in order to avoid any trouble scheduled the Hindus to celebrate the festival or offer pujas from sunrise to 12:30 PM and later from 3:30 PM to sunset allowing the muslims to offer their weekly namaz between 1 and 3 PM. While the Hindus were stopped from entering the complex between these times, tensions broke and police had to resort to lathi charge and tear gas. While matters did not escalate, it must have definitely caused anxious moments due to events from the recent past.

This event is not dissimilar to the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi debate. the Hindu Jagaran Morcha claim that there was a Saraswati temple here previously that was destroyed by Muslim rulers and a mosque built near it. Muslims regard it as a dargah of Sufi saint Kamalludin Maulah.While the events of the Babri masjid demolotition caused some events at this complex in 1992, both the sects have lived and prayed together here except for this minor incident when the issue again comes to forefront. The Asiatic Society of India claims that it is neither a temple or a mosque but a historical monument. I totally agree with this view. We have to accept it as a part of history and our culture. We know that muslim rulers came and plundered India for all the riches we had. But it is part of any civilization. We have survived as a nation. Even the British rule over India is a part of our culture and civilization. We have adapted, gotten new traits as a result of these events. It is just a matter of what we called the newcomers. Muslim rulers who came, plundered and left were called invaders. The ones who stayed and created an empire were called rulers. Whatever we call them, they are part of our history and heritage. No amount of calling for detroying a structure and rebuilding the past will change history. Changing the name of cities just because the Britishers called them that will not change the fact that we were ruled by them for 3 centuries.

My undergrad college Victoria Jubille Technical Institute was established in 1887 during the British rule. It was established as a diploma institute to satisfy the booming textile industry of the city of Bombay with only the Mechanical engineering and textile engineering department. Other departments and degree programs were added at a much later date and the entire history can be viewed here. During my final year in 1997, the Maharashtra government of BJP-Shiv Sena renamed the college as Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute keeping the same initials. This was after the town was changed to Mumbai. So having joined the Victoria Jubilee Techincal Institute, University of Bombay in 1993, I graduated with my B.E. degree from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, University of Mumbai in 1997. How ridiculous was that? Changing names just for the heck that you have the power. I guess it is accepting that also as part of our history that we once let ourselves ruled by the whims of BalaSaheb Thackrey's party. My only question is if we refer to him as an invader or a ruler or simply a maniac?