The History of Papaji

The name Papaji sounds queer. I came to bequeath this name by the grace of my good old first year friends in college, who had so much enthu to lessen the enormous burden of ragging by humor,regardless of its quality. The room in first year was not a 'room' in the strict sense of the word. It was a dormitory instead. Metamorphosed from a common room meant for recreation,our room was a host to 10 people from diverse places and backgrounds,with equally diverse habits. No doubt it was a melting pot of civilization,in which we all 10 souls evolved from the disgraceful status of "Juniors" to a hallowed status of "Senior" in an year. While I will describe the adventures in this room in greater detail in further posts,let me concentrate for now in my present topic. So, a little away from this "dormitory" was the room of Pankaj Gupta, who came to be christened as "Chachaji" towards the final year. In first year state sentiments ran high as we were looking for the geographical neighbor as our first instinct in the now-alien-college. This guy being from Lucknow, our closeness was obvious. The room mates of this dude included a an individual whose weird activities gave him the name of "jungeli",though his habits were indeed not too far off from the macabre connotations of this title. As myself and Chachaji were together for most of the time, the slick-minded Jungeli lost no time in coming up with an all-encompassing name of "Papaji". The name then implied an intimate companion and advise giver,but with the passage of time junta went on to bend,twist and manipulate it as according to its convenience and we had a wide spectrum after 4 years ranging from respectful sounding "Papaji" to downright degrading "Buddha Khoosat"!! The name went well with my habit of mentoring events and enjoying the vicarious pleasure of their consequences. It also suited the un-asked for pre-test classes wherein hostel public would flock to my room and walls became scratch pads and impromptu white-boards only to be covered with all sorts of circuits and motors. Thus in the first month of college was created a nickname that was to remain with me for the remaining 4-years....