IAS memories: so, what's in a surname?

Almost since my birth I was brought up in a Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Being kept busy with my 'studies', under the watchful eyes of my parents, I did not have many opportunities to travel, especially outside Uttar Pradesh.

I knew that we, sort of, 'hailed' from another city called Nagpur, as several relatives living there used to visit us. However, I first time placed my foot on the soil of Nagpur, when I was 20 years old. In between it had changed hands, in the sense that from being the capital of the erstwhile Central Provinces, one fine morning, it became a 'corner town', so to speak, of the state of Maharashtra. I then used to pity my relatives settled there, as I thought they had been short-changed.

Our family name is Agnihotri; and most of the Agnihotris I had met in my early life were either from erstwhile Central Provinces or Uttar Pradesh. As a matter of fact, our original native village was part of Kanpur district. I, therefore, grew up in the belief that all Agnihotris were UP-MP-wallahs.

At the ripe old age of 23 years when I joined the civil services, I had an experience which altered one of the basic features of my identity.

After being selected for the Indian Administrative Service, I reported for training at the National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie one rainy day in July 1968. When I reached the allotted room, my room partner was already there.

The moment I entered the room, he started talking to me animatedly in a language that I understood only vaguely. His name, as I had noted from the name slip inserted into a panel on the door of our room, was Abhyankar.

I, therefore, surmised that he was talking in Marathi. In no uncertain terms I told him that I did not know Marathi. He was aghast. "How can it be?" he queried. "Don't you know that the top two brahmin clans of Maharashtra are Abhyankars and Agnihotris?"

I said that, frankly speaking, I didn't. Apparently, like me, he too hadn't travelled much. I heaved a sigh of relief for my orphaned relatives settled in Nagpur, who had found themselves shunted overnight from Central Provinces to Maharashtra. They had actually been sent home.

After that I have taken many such revelations in my stride. Upon disclosing my surname during train journeys, I have been spoken to in Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, and Telugu.

As a matter of fact, being allotted to Andhra Pradesh cadre, I regularly used to receive invitations addressed to me as 'Agnihotrudu'.

During a particular posting in Visakhapatnam, which is close to the border of Orissa, an official of the Orissa government called Mr. Hota (he regularly used to visit Visakhapatnam during weekends to dispose of files) confided in me that Hotas were actually Agnihotris.

Once I had gone to Trivandram (now Thiruvananthapuram) for the inauguration of an exhibition being coordinated by my organisation. The chief guest was the chief minister of the state. After my customary welcome address, the chief minister delivered an impassioned speech in Malayalam to an audience in excess of 3,000.

Suddenly I heard the name Agnihotri being pronounced twice in succession, and once with a suffix. I asked a local officer sitting next to me as to what the chief minister was saying. He said that the chief minister was thanking me for organising the exhibition, and was, at the same time, recalling the greatness of a Malayali poet with a similar sounding name.

In all these instances, whenever I stated that I did not know the language, as I was not from the part of the country to which the speaker belonged, the language of communication used to switch automatically to English, except once. This time the speaker happened to be from Punjab. No sooner had I said that I did not belong to Punjab, he shot back that I did not perhaps know that my ancestors were from Punjab.

Another of the beliefs I grew up with was that somehow my surname was unpronounceable. On innumerable occasions, trying to leave a message on phone with the house attendants for the absentee 'callees', I had the discomfiture of having to repeat and break up, twist and turn the syllabi of my surname to make it understood.

Still it did not work on most occasions. Actually, I could have developed a literacy rating system on the basis of whether a person was able to pronounce my surname or not. Then one day it all changed. The film Ek duje ke liye was released.

Rati Agnihotri became the instant heart-throb of millions of people. My unpronounceable name suddenly, at least for a few years, became delectable. Acquaintances started looking up at me with a new sense of respect, particularly since the film was shot in Visakhapatnam. That, of course, was before I was posted there.

The inhabitants of the erstwhile USSR, especially of the Central Asian variety, have always had a great fascination for Indian films, thanks to Raj Kapoor's awara. Once I went to Moscow along with another colleague, as part of a team sent to organise the Festival of India.

One day, as we were sitting in the lobby of Hotel Russia, a few young girls spotted us and came up to us assuming, from our appearance, that we were Indians. They started speaking to us in chaste Hindi and introduced themselves as students of Hindi from the University of Georgia. In the course of conversation they asked us to introduce ourselves.

Being brought up in an Indian middle class family (which is, at times, unknowingly prudish), I said that my name was Agnihotri, while my colleague, said that her name was 'Rati'.

"Rati Agnihotri" the Russian girls chanted and clapped in unison.

Somewhere, in the cosmic time frame of the Stephen Hawking variety, I met Kamal Hasan, the male lead of Ek duje ke liye fame at a film awards function. When I was introduced to him he winced, went pale and whispered in a conspiratorially, ''I hope you are not related to Rati Agnihotri.''

Right now, its not my name that'[s the bane of my existence. Post-retirement, I can be officially described as a stateless person; after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. I am waiting to be told whether my pension will be debited to Telangana or Andhra.