Name-dropping is an art practised by most ambitious people who want to appear more important than they are. It has become so common that everyone can see through it. Name-dropping can be better described as a cheap ploy and an unsavoury habit. I have many amusing examples of this fake art.

I had a friend in Bombay (it had not yet become Mumbai) who was a great champion of the poor and the down-trodden. And like many leftists of his ilk, lived in a style which was the envy of the richest of the rich. He was a party-giver; I was occasionally invited, as I had known him in my college days in England. When all the guests were seated round the dining table, his telephone would ring. His wife would take the call. She would come back, tap her husband on the shoulder and say, “Call from Delhi; the PM is on the line.” He would get up solemnly and apologize: “Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be back in a minute. Please carry on.” He would rejoin us after a few minutes, looking very concerned and say non-chalantly, “Sorry to interrupt your meal. Yes, what were you saying?”

The prime minister-on-the-phone form of name-dropping has become very popular. It can as well be the president, CM, governor, Birla, Tata or Ambani on the line, depending on who the name-dropper wants to impress. I came across a more sophisticated form of the same approach in Delhi. There was a dapper little fellow who was a minister in Mrs Gandhi’s cabinet. The race was on over which one of her ministers was closest to her. This fellow evolved an ingenious plan to spread the rumour that he was her favourite. At every diplomatic dinner party, while the guests were enjoying their meal, a message would be delivered to the host to tell the minister to call at the prime minister’s residence on his way back home after dinner. As he anticipated, the rumour spread in Delhi’s gossip circles. The first thing Mrs Gandhi did when she heard of it was to sack the minister.

The most outrageous name-dropper was again a self-proclaimed champion of the impoverished millions. He lived abroad mostly, but visited his poor homeland every winter. He drank only Blue Label Johnnie Walker (the most expensive of whiskys, also said to be the favourite tipple of the communist Bengali neta, comrade Jyoti Basu) and reprimanded all the Gymkhana Club, Golf Club and fancy livers. “Aren’t you concerned with the plight of the hungry millions who sleep on pavements?” he would thunder.

This was a bit much. So once I shot back, “Who are you to talk? You even live in luxury suites of European hotels; why don’t you return home and do something for the starving millions your heart bleeds for?”

“Good question!” he replied with condescension. “The same question was put to me by Indu.”

“Indu? Who is Indu?” I asked.

“You don’t know? Indira Gandhi. I call her Indu.”

The latest on my list of name-droppers is a lady who I have known over 40 years and helped add new names of eminent men to her unending list of names worth dropping. She also likes to cut me to size. The other day I was telling my mehfil of an odd gift and an odder blessing His Holiness the Dalai Lama had sent me; it was a rakhi-like red string with the blessing that I’d die a peaceful death. “Never!” shouted the lady, “It cannot be true of the Dalai Lama. He would never say such a thing. I know him very well.”

I could not help giving it back to her: “No doubt you were studying in the same school in Lhasa.”

Sahib on the prowl

The Indian notion of the British, when they were rulers of the country, makes them out to be an arrogant people who disdained making friends with ‘natives’, had their ‘whites only’ clubs and returned to England the day they retired from service. However, there were scores of Englishmen who went out of their way to befriend Indians, refused to join ‘whites only’ clubs, and even after they returned to England, kept in touch with their Indian friends. I knew many of this kind and still cherish their friendships. I am beginning to discover that there were many of this breed I had never heard of. Thanks to the initiative taken by our own desi sahib, Ruskin Bond, two compilations of articles written by a Scotsman, Edward Hamilton Aitken, have been published: The Tribes on My Frontier and A Naturalist on the Prowl. The author was evidently a shy, withdrawn person who never used his full name but only the initials, EHA.

Aitken was born in Satara (Maharashtra) in 1851, son of a Scottish missionary. He was taught at home by his father before he went to Bombay University. He was a topper throughout and after earning his degree, taught Latin in Deccan College, Poona for six years (who wanted to learn that dead language is not revealed). Thereafter he joined government service as a Salt and Customs officer. After a short stint in Kutch, he was transferred to Khargodha (in his writings, called Dushypore) and scoured the forests of the Konkan region, studying wild life. His columns deal entirely with birds, butterflies, caterpillars, beetles, spiders, monkeys, jackals and panthers. Although he married a Scotswoman and had five children, he never wrote a word about them. He left India with his family in 1906 to settle in Edinburgh, where he died in 1909. Apart from his abiding interest in nature, he had no other preoccupation. Apparently, he was a medium-sized, slenderly built man, wore a solar topee and sported a beard.

EHA’s prose is felicitous, with a touch of humour. He makes grisly crawlers like earthworms, caterpillars, and spiders come alive. He rarely, if ever, used his gun or killed anything. He had a spine-chilling encounter with a panther, which mauled him and his companions before he shot it dead. At the end of the story, he writes that he made it up as most shikaris do to add spice to their stories. Both books are a joy to read.

An adman’s game

Sehwag ko Mayur pehnao

Lekin — bus unko cricket mat khilao.

(Let Sehwag wear Mayur/ Sachin drink Pepsi/ Dhoni put Brylcreem/ Ganguly have Chavanprash/ Fill Dravid with some Castrol/ And Yuvraj with some lassi with extra malai/ But please — stop them from playing cricket.)

Courtesy: J.P. Singh Kaka, Bhopal