My friend Kandarp

This post is dedicated to my friend Kandarp, or perhaps to a certain problem that keeps haunting him every now and then. Kandarp and I met for the first time in 1992. Our schools had closed for the summer break. Kandarp was visiting his grandparents who lived in Jayanagar. I was spending an unusual amount of time in the playgrounds playing an ununsual number of cricket matches with my friends. It was during one such cricket match that another friend of mine called Ganesh introduced Kandarp to me.

Ganesh: Vindy, meet Kandarp !
Me: Oh ! Hey Gandharv, how are you doing ?
Kandarp: Hi... uh..actually my name is Kandarp
Me: Yes yes, Kandraap
Kandarp (irritated, his face turning red): No! It's Kandarp K-A-N-D-A-R-P
Me: Oh Kandarp, Kandarp...sorry sorry. You know it's not too often that one comes across somebody by name Kandarp in Bangalore...ahem So, are you from India ?
Kandarp: Ofcourse I am from India. Kannada barathappa !! Kandarp is another name for Manmatha. Have you heard of Manmatha....Cupid ? The Roman God who makes people fall in love ? That's me.
Vinay: Wow.. really ? (thinking about my recent crush in Sudarshan Vidya Mandir)... Man, I would love to be your friend

And so this very conversation that happened on a hot Monday afternoon triggered a friendship - a friendship that has lasted for 15 years now, an intense friendship that I am now going to take undue advantage of....

Off topic:
Kandarp was smart chap (he still is). He could do decimal multiplication and division really fast. He knew the answer to every question our science teacher asked. He seemed to know the capital of every country you could think of. He knew the GDP of every nation on this planet, including Burkina Faso. Kandarp was indeed a smart chap. Girls would come to Kandarp during the lunch break to have their math doubts clarified. And Kandarp would come over to my desk to have lunch with me. As a result, I got to hang around with all the popular girls of my school !! Pretty cool stuff I must say. It felt really good being his friend. Just that I couldn't see any chemistry happening between me and my crush. But Kandarp advised me to be patient and I gladly agreed to follow his advice. After all, he was cupid ! btw I am still following his advice....psst

Back to the topic:
You see, I was not the only guy who got his name wrong. In all fairness to Kandarp, I think he has a wonderful name. My grandmom really likes his name and so does a Sanskrit teacher at a nearby temple. But throughout the 15 years that I have known him, I have come across several people who have had problems registering his name when they hear it the first time. They would look at his name, think for a couple of seconds and then change it to something that suited them. For example, back in 6th standard, Kandarp and I had won the south zone inter-school badminton competition and we were now going to compete at the inter-zonal level. On the day of the competition, Kandarp walked over to the registration desk to register our team and to announce our arrival to all the other teams. A physical training instructor from one of the participating schools was registering the teams

PT instructor (munching paan parag): yenappa hesaru ?
Kandarp: Kandarp, sir.
PT instructor: Aaaaahhhhhh ? (with knotted eyebrows)
Kandarp: Kandarp, Kandarp
PT instructor: Oh ok .... ahem ahem (spits the paan parag out)

The instructor went through names from all the participating teams and finally declared that there was nobody by name Kandarp! Kandarp was distraught. This couldn't be happening. We had fought really hard to make it to the zonal level and it seemed like some administrative glitch somewhere was going to keep us out of winning the zonal title. Wiping sweat from his forehead, Kandarp thundered "Illa sir, chanceeee illa...naav south zone winners sir...sudarshan vidya mandir !!!"..... The instructor went back to his list and specifically looked for the south zone winners. Lifting his head and spitting out some more paan parag, he said "Sheeeeee, the wonly team we have here from SVM is Vinay and Sikander".....Sikander ?? what the hell ! Kandarp took out his south zone certificate, showed it to the instructor and got his name changed on the list. We were finally set to roll. I opened my bag and pulled out a glittering maroon Yonex - our brahmaastra if I could say so.

A couple years passed by and we were now in high school. Back in those days, the second most coolest thing a kid from Bangalore South could do, was to go to Vijaya High School. The coolest thing obviously was to eat dose at Dosa Camp. Kandarp had aced the 7th standard board exams with a percentage of 99.98. He had lost just one mark in his math exam owing to a spelling mistake !! To everybody's horror, I had managed a decent score too. So our parents took us out of Sudarshan Vidya Mandir and put us in Vijaya High School. On our first day at VHS, we were all made to sit in an open air auditorium and a teacher by name Dumar kept calling out our names one after another to assign us to various sections. Dvinash Atreya D section, Dramod Biligiri D section, N R Drasad F section, Darsha Honappa D section, Vinay Murthy D section Dogish D section.... and so the list went on and on until about 500 kids were assigned to their sections, with the exception of only one guy. Kandarp was still sitting there in the hot sun with ears that had turned red listening to Dumar for two long hours. Kandarp couldn't think of a reason why he hadn't been assigned a section. Perhaps, they had a special K section just for him ? Dumar looked at Kandarp and said "Yeno sundaraanga, aagle class-inda aache haakbittra ?" Kandarp, who was blushing now, replied "illa sir, nan hesare karililla neevu" Dumar was surprised. He had meticulously stepped through the entire list crossing out every name as soon as he had called it out. After all he had been doing this for 20 years now. It did surprise him that he had missed out on Kandarp's name. Dumar put on his reading glasses and went through the entire list again. He finally found one name that hadn't been crossed - Kandar.P... sigh !! The necessary corrections were made and Kandarp was finally assigned to the D section. Manmatha was back in action, ready to impress all the girls with his laser sharp brain.

I have already told you about two cool things that kids in Bangalore South could do back in the days. Apparently, the third most coolest thing was to write the NTSE exam. The principal of VHS had impressed upon us that if we cleared the exam, the Indian government would adopt us. By adopt, he actually meant a scholarship. The first time our parents heard our principal talking about the NTSE exam, they literally freaked out. They didn't need anybody to adopt their kids ! Anyway, all the cool kids decided to write the exam and so I gave name too. To nobody's surprise, Kandarp aced the state level exam. To everybody's surprise, I managed to clear the exam too. And so here we were enrolling ourselves into a month long coaching class at the Kumarans' for the national level exam. On the first day of our classes, we were all made to assemble in a well lit classroom. There were kids from all over Karnataka. Kandarp even found his childhood sweetheart from Mysore in that class. Our teacher for the first class was a person by name Divakumar. As is the usual practice in all first day classes, Divakumar laboured through the intricacies of the national level exam and by doing so, he convinced me that I stood no chance of clearing the exam. I could clear it if I attended his class religiously and took all his tests. But that meant that I couldn't play for the local Apollo 11 cricket team anymore. I was already getting tensed about this NTSE exam. Perhaps I should have stuck to playing cricket. NTSE ?? definitely not my cup of tea. Divakumar decided to take a roll call and started calling out our names Dvinash...present sir, Drasad ... present sir, ..... , Vinay...a feeble present sir, Dogish...a confident present sir. Having completed the formality, Divakumar got ready to talk about the application of the harmonic mean to an average speed problem. As soon as he opened his mouth to talk, a hand was raised among the students and Kandarp got up. There was a faint murmuring in the classroom. Everyone wanted to know who this guy was. All the girls looked up. Divakumar was impressed. For the first time in his life, he had come across a student who had a doubt on day's topic even before the topic could be discussed...what a student to have in your class. But Kandarp had a totally different concern... "Sir, my name wasn't called".....err..... Divakumar's excitement sank in a couple of seconds and he opened the attendance register again. He looked at Kandarp and said "The only person who is absent today is Bhandari".... Dvinash, Drasad, Dogish and I burst out in peels of laughter.

And so the saga of Kandarp's name continued for several more years later. Several attendance registers were corrected, countless certificates were changed, a couple of T-shirts were re-printed, a degree certificate was re-embossed and a passport was also set right. One fine Sunday morning, Kandarp woke up and decided that he had to put an end to all this confusion. He convinced his parents to change his name to Kandarp Srinivasan and since then, I have been told that Kandarp prefers to introduce himself as K Srinivasan.

Cheers Kandy !