Dial M for monkee- the history of a nickname

To those who haven't spent the last few days under behind a rock, "monkey" is the word of the day, week, month or even your year. And it seems that it is a racial slur. Point being, if monkey was a racial slur, i can sue nearly all the people I know in this world. And if I expand monkey to include monkee, monks, monka and other variants, I can sue ALL the people I know in the world.

Flashback to a scene in 2002 in an engineering college in Mysore Road. In the midst of an engrossing discussion on Robbie Keane's late equalizer against Cameroon the previous day in the world cup, Kodhi stepped up and made a profound statement, whose profundity would have made even Abhay proud. "Doesn't Atul look like Monkey in Dexter's laboratory?" was the exact statement. It took a while to even register that he wasn't continuing the aforementioned discussion.

Now the world is used to look-alikes coming from Abhay, (Doesn't maldini look like a shoe, doesn't this twig look like Kanti being among his celebrated ones), but the mimetic statement from Kodhi didn't exactly spur our pea sized brains into working overtime. However, Kodhi pertinaciously held on to the perceived look-alike, choosing another opportune time to reprise his statement. This time he made the "Doesn't Atul look like Monkey in Dexter's laboratory" statement just as I was getting thrown out of an Analog Communications class for ostensibly sleeping in class (in fact, I was doing precisely that). This time, for some reason, Kanti and Abhay, the other 2 celebrated members of the back bench, readily acquiesced.

Written history keeps little record of the next few days that transpired soon after, but by the time of the quarter finals (a couple of weeks later, for those of you who spent 2002 hiding under a rock), all my close friends were introduced to the concept of calling me 'monkey'. Maybe it was because the alternate nickname which was floating around that the time (being Tul), in spite of its mellifluous 'cute'ness is actually a Kannada expletive, not used often even in its home state.

Even family was getting used to the idea of 'Hello, can I please speak to monkey' phone calls, back in the days when landlines were still used. But I decided one fine day, more for the heck of it than anything else, that from henceforth ,my nickname shall be 'monkee' as opposed to 'monkey'. It was a small, yet significant metamorphosis of the appellation. When questioned, it was easy to get away with a vague ass reason like "I'm a big rock n' roll fan, and Kodhi gets some really lousy ideas, that's why I was nicknamed monkee". Eminently believable on both counts.

The egotistical me that usually came out when I was a quizmaster meant that the 1st question of any quiz would have to be a self dedication. In the process, over the next few years, I single handedly gave The Monkees far more references in Bangalore quizzing than they could have ever got otherwise. So much so that all possible fundaes about the band have been exhausted by now.

Cut to scene in IIMB circa July 2005. While logging into BRacket for the 1st time, for want of a display name, I randomly typed in my old college nickname. I had little idea what popularity levels this moniker would reach. Barely 1 term on, I was universally 'Monkee' to the batch, and even a professor would go on to call me Monkee in my class. I would then famously go on and get embarassed during placements when Indum screamed out "Mooooonnkkeeeeeeeeeee" from one end of MDC to another, prompting several stunned i-bankers to wonder whether they had come to the right place to recruit after all. Of course the fact that said person repeated said feat several dozen times over the day somewhat reduced the shock value, if any.

The 'monkee moment' hall of fame would include the time I was made to climb a tree in Coorg during a class trip in the 2nd term of IIMB. Well, it seemed like an obvious thing to ask someone nicknamed monkee to do. Of course, the whole act was partially (make that largely) self initiated. The most famous 'monkee moment' in IIMB of course undoubtedly occurred when a certain "akka" sincerely asked me who Atulya Bharadwaj was, on seeing my name on some list. On volunteering that the aforementioned name was in fact me, came what reinforced 'brand monkee'- "but I thought monkee was your name. At least your family name or something" *

From there, it was a matter of time before batch mates, juniors, friends, friends' parents etc were to know me as Monkee. Several French classmates during exchange would also get to know me as Monkee since "Atulya Raghuram Bharadwaj" was quite a mouthful for le Francaise, who could never get past the 't' in my first name while tryong to pronounce it.

A certain fotbw also ensured that even at the workplace, this name would start to make its presence felt. Cuplord raised a valid point once. If MS 'Vindi' Banga can still be known by his dorm name, me in senior management would prove embarrassing for the company (and at the very least, me). I for one, would not want to be a shareholder in a company where a "Monkee Bharadwaj" has to address the annual shareholders' general meeting.

Of course, Andrew Symonds has taken the moniker to entirely new levels. So now that suddenly it is an ethnic slur to refer to someone as a 'monkey', I can sue a few people for the heck of it. I think I should start with Rags, who amongst his several million accomplishments, came up with the derived Monkesh patrike name, from where this blog takes its name.

* That statement was actually made in all earnestness