| nabin |
Posted
on 18-Jun-01 08:06 AM
The following story is posted here with the permission of R. Mahadevan, the author.
Story of Dutta
by Ramesh Mahadevan
Most universities in the midwest have a sizable Indian student population, which is loosely knit into some kind of a community. Like entropy, the size of this community keeps getting larger, people go in and out and very soon you only happen to know just a handful of people. Others lose their identity and become another pretty, albeit anonymous, Indian face - unless they happen to run your Indian Associations and in our case, they happen to be a Tominath Dutta.
Allright, next you are going to ask me who the heck was Tominath Dutta anyway and how come all desis in town knew him ? Let me try to answer you, but it is impossible to get the gestalt of Tominath, maybe some components, but no, never the whole story.
He was the kind of guy who never went to the IITs, never had any pretentions of any sophisticated westernization while in India. He was here for a Ph. D in Math, which is very difficult for most people to do, and that was why people thought he was so naive with the ways of the world, its street-smartness. He couldn't even buy a bag of onions without goofing up in a major way. Many IIT nerds would dismiss him as a silly geek. He was your and my version of the village idiot, only he also happened to be a genius in mathematics. A darling of the crowds. Also known as the bakra, murga (goat, rooster) who was the source material for a number of real and some made up, desi community legends. Even the most stupid guy would feel compelled to harass Tominath and feel superior and most of the time Tominath wouldn't even realize he was being the butt of all the jokes. He believed in the general decency of all human beings. And despite others' perception of him, he was perpetually happy and content.
Somewhere, somehow, someone christened him 'Bong' and the name stuck to him like a scotch tape. Like other terms of endearment, such as Surd and Southy, this was also more a tag and his Bengaliness was never an issue. Even Arunavo Majumdar called him Bong, perhaps to distance himself from Tominath.
"Bong, what does your name Tominath mean ? You Bongs always have exotic names" Some curious person asked.
"Tominath means 'the moon'" replied Bong.
"But Bong, which part of your name then means 'the' ?" asked the same curious guy. As if on a cue, everyone burst into guffaws and laughs in various octaves. A good punchline. A new 'Bong episode' is thus brought into the world.
We don't know how true this incident is, but some people swear by it. It seems Bong had wanted to go to the Niagara Falls once and someone convinced him not to go that day because the Niagara Falls is closed on sundays. Bong was told that he could go if he wanted to, only they would have stopped the water from flowing and he would only see the barren mountain wall. Naturally, Bong went only the next day.
Every two weeks or so his fly would be completely open and janata would go into paroxysms of joy. There was even a betting pool regarding when next he would walk around with an open fly. But Bong didn't care. His work was what was supremely important to him. Sale at the Penney's or the Cosby Show or Indian Association diwali dinners, open flies can all go to hell. Sometimes he skipped dinners. Some people were jealous of him, but rationalized it as "He is so dumb. His slavedriving advisor must be sucking his blood. I will never do this, because I want to have fun too".
...cont'd in sharing a story II
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