In Bengal Chakraborthy is title/last name/ family name. In south India we have it differently, Chakravarthy (spelt differently, rather correctly. Bengalis do not have letter ‘v’ so they substitute with B) is our first name/given name.
Lot of our folks wanted to have the Voter ID cards those days. Bengal govt was one of the first to introduce them. Most of us were enthusiastic about getting them. (Unfortunately, I could not do that as I was in Hyderabad during those days. People used to pull my leg saying, he works in Hyderabad, as it is head office, and he sometimes visits Durgapur, as it is his branch office).
Chakravarthy was hesitant on getting it done as he got used to being called Chakra borty by his colleagues and on railway reservation forms and by other localites. Unfortunately we failed to make Bengalis understand that, Chakravarty is a name and not the last name. They always insisted that he had roots in Bengal and they were sure that his ancestors were Bengalis.
Anyway, Chakri followed the crowd and proceeded to fill up the voter card application with capital letters hoping that they would blindly copy the correct spelling onto the actual card.
M.K.CHAKRAVARTY, fathers name M.V.RAMA SUBBA RAO.
In the meantime, I decided to jump on the bandwagon for my voter card. I went to the Congress party office in Benachity, near DSP employees Cooperative society and dutifully submitted the application to them. Not sure what happened to it. Chakri was worried that his name would definitely be mispelt. But we were assuring him that Chakri had done the smart thing by writing/filling the application form in CAPITAL LETTERS.
The day arrived when we would all be in possession of our Voter cards. Lot of our Bokaro hostel folks were not curious about their own voter cards but for Chakri’s card. All of us looked on with bated breath as Chakri tore open his envelope. As feared, the govt babus had not failed to do their duty. He was shocked to see the names and our loud laughter reverberated through the entire hostel.
Chakri’s name was printed as M K Chakraborty, but the better part of it was his father’s name, which was changed into VENKATRAO CHAKRABORTY.
God only knows how his father’s name was changed; probably they thought Chakri forgot to put the family name for his father. Later chakri and I tried to change it to reflect the correct name. We visited City centre office multiple times but in vain. Though it was disappointing for chakri, the incident always brings laughter without fail upon recollection. Some time I laugh out loud by remembering the incident and it ends in wistful tears ….I miss Durgapur and miss these wonderful people in my busy life.