of cabbages and kings

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

No jabberwocky post this, but the verse’s stuck in my head since morning.

I’ve posted on shoes, and perhaps not on cabbages, but I sure can. Made a lumpy mess last night for dinner. There’s more I’d love to prattle on about the ways and tricks or the surefire ways of NOT cooking it, but we shall leave that for another post.

Moving on to royalty. Not the blue blood Lady Di kind, but more on the monikers half the desi population is burdened with. The name which was the basis of most 70’s and 80’s films. The one that Nirupa Roy  loved to call – O mere Raaja, to Raju, and Raju Bhaiyya. Of course, the South had its own variances – En Raasavey, to Raaja, Rajan, the list can go on. You get the point.

How does it bother me you may ask? It doesn’t. It didn’t till this morning at least.

There is a new king in town. As in my contacts in gmail. Last week due to something that the daughter signed up for at our Sunday morning religious-inclined ritual, I was forwarded onto this gentleman. The gentleman’s name is, you guessed it – Raj. A variation of it, rather.

That potentially puts him at the 13th king in line in my inbox.

Coming back to this noble king. He emailed me on certain particulars and bam, gmail has him down as a contact. Through the Namaste’s and the Ji suffixes he tags on with great reverence to my name, he managed to get lodged into the 6 position in the autofill. I counted.

The Kings in my inbox are varied. From the noble spiritual kind to the husband to the strange dads I have to deal with. There’s even the ex-colleague in there somewhere, though why he insists on staying in touch is beyond me.

There are some Queens in between too. None wedded to any of the above mentioned Kings, but there they are rubbing shoulders with the high and the mighty. Making their appearances every time I hit the Royal R.

I like Gmail. Am a huge fan of gmail’s features, the simplicity of google and its products – the whole shebang. I don’t even mind them reading my emails. They are strangers after all, and if they want to sell me some fine products after reading my very detailed emails to the husband, sure I can indulge them. It’s voyeurism reversed. Not that I ever write any, but one can dream, or lie to a bunch of readers, however way one would like to interpret it.

So when I have to start framing an email, it isnt as easy as trusting gmail’s handy dandy autofill system. The last time I did that I sent a poor soul on the other end of the coast a long drawn out strict call for a fun informational evening on the extra curricular program that a school this end of the country offered. The man was nice enough to crack a joke on asking if he could call in as his teleporter was off getting serviced, and let it be. Such emails can provide a source of amusement, or annoyance depending on the frequency and content on an otherwise boring work day.

This morning I opened up gmail. Hit Compose. Wrote a curt 4 liner, on the chores and errands that each had lined up for the end of the day. Scrolled up and I start hitting ‘R’. Insane number of folks landed. Folks I didn’t know even existed in my realm. Then gingerly hit an ‘A’ – the box shrunk considerably.

That’s when the whole Raja-Raji-Rani thing hit me. The choices I was presented were

Raj
Raja
Rajan
Rajkiran
Raju
Rajesh
Rajes
Rajeswar
Rajeswari
Rajeshwari
Ramila
Ram
Rama
Rama [girl this one]
Ramamurthy
Ramesh
Rami
Ramani
Rajani
Raji
Ranjan
Ranjani
Rani
Ranadey
Archana – what? what is she doing here? yes, Her email id has a Raj in it!
Rasi
Rasika
Racha
Rucha
Rathore

I assure you the list may seem endless and it might look like I know half the desi population especially the royal kind, but no siree, I really am confused and lost as to who some of them are!

So if I had to specify and remember some of the folsk I’d really like to communicate with, I have to remember their email ids. Perhaps I should thank my stars that they are at least simple. Work id’s especially. If I’d have to remember desiqueens, crazybees, cutegirl202, purtyinpink and the like, my head would’ve sprouted enough gray hairs to loan a few to the swamijis at the Sunday morning Mission.

The noble spiritual king who shares the husband’s name would have recieved this an hour ago if I wasn’t interrupted by a phone call.

At the stroke of 5,
From our little hive
A Holiday Inn
And a sweet honeyed chin
Wait for you
to collect all that’s due

The sea would be boiling hot, though who gets fried is yet to be seen.