Call Me By Your Suffix

I am on a call with quite a big actress. We are pitching something to her (more like begging her to come on board for half of the price she is asking). She is in her 50s and as beautiful and radiant as ever. I had to first convince the brand that she would be the best for the project, then naturally the responsibility to convince her to accept the money the brand offered fell upon my shoulders. I had worked with her previously, and she remembers me, so that’s a plus. I won’t be name-dropping because what if she charges for the name drop? Also, name-dropping is done by people with less humility, and I have the most humility possible. Anyway, at some point during the call, she addresses me as Vishal bhai. Now, normally I am used to it. Girls or boys younger and older than me refer to me as Vishal bhai. I don’t know how the suffix bhai has gotten attached to my name. Comments like “haha Vishal bhai” and “get fucked by a cactus Vishal bhai” will often be found under my posts. But this was a first. A woman in her 50s. The call happened, the project happened, but the internal joke of her calling me bhai is still happening. And it may continue to happen until either one of us dies.

The suffixes that we put after someone’s name are our way of unconsciously showing respect. Even the “arey Neeraj yaar” you say to your friend Neeraj when he has fucked up your couch by dropping paneer butter masala diffuses the tension. The “yaar” puts the other person at ease. The same thing goes with pet names. A couple I know told me that when they start talking to each other by mentioning their respective names, they know the fight is about to start.

The debate of what we call auto/cab drivers has been going on since the time the wheel was invented. “Bhaiyya, ye kya bana diya?”, a person from the stone age exclaimed when he saw the wheel for the first time. “Wheel hai ye, and don’t call me bhaiyya,” the inventor said. For most people, the suffix depends on the places they have grown up in. People who grew up in Mumbai refer to a random guy by saying “boss, ye bike aapki hai?”. Boss. Crisp, doesn’t disrespect the person, and is easy to say. Nice. However, if you hear “chalna hai bhaiyya?”, you are automatically transported back to Delhi or the northern part of India. Some of my friends from Jaipur refer to people as ‘bhaiji”, Bongs have “dada”, then there is “anna”, and so on.

But, for people who don’t want to get into the hassle of remembering this for every region, there is this thing called “sir”. It’s too respectful and in some settings can backfire as a sarcastic comment, but we are willing to take the risk. I remember when one of India’s chess prodigies called a Russian Grandmaster “Sir,” and there was a small debate over whether he meant it sarcastically. No, he didn’t. He was just being respectful because calling him just Peter or Steve would’ve been disrespectful, even though it totally isn’t. Unless you are brought up as an uncouth, vile person who refers to random people as “oye” or “tch tch,” most Indians have this ingrained habit of being respectful towards our guests or service providers. We don’t say “hey fix the power,” we say “sir kal se light gayi hui hai yaar bhenchod kya ho raha hai ye”. It’s endearing. Wait, I’ll be back with another paragraph, the ice cream “uncle” is ringing the bells on my street. Uncle.

However, in the last few years, I have noticed that the newer generation, the metro residers, the kids who have been brought up with English as their first language, have stopped using suffixes altogether. “How much?” they would say to the guy who has come to fix their wifi without lifting their eyes from the phone. Or “where are you?” they would text to the Ola/Uber driver. If something isn’t fixed, they won’t even argue with them; they will calmly record the proceedings and put it up online for everyone to see and get a refund instantly. Gone are the days when we used to settle the refund by taking our fathers to the shop. Life has become, what’s the word, transactional. We don’t have an electrician who we can call up any time to get things fixed. The contact of Pradeep Electrician has now been lost forever in your phonebook. The person has been replaced with his job. All electricians have the same faces now. I am a fan of technology, I mean I have most of the latest gadgets, again like I said, my humility is through the roof, but surely, there has to be a way where we don’t lose the packaging of suffix wrapped over the toffee of emotions (whatever emotions they may be).

Signing off,

Vishal bhai.