Saddy Sadgopalan

satchitananda · Mar 18, 2013

[JUSTIFY]The weekend has given me some really nasty shocks. One of the biggest shock was when I looked for my cousin on Facebook. My cousin, a whiz kid went to the US and settled down there ages ago. He recently turned 60. But no one would say that to look at him. The last time I saw him, he had a mop of thick, fairly black hair. He has always been skinny and he was still fairly lean the last time I saw him about a couple of years ago. I was quite surprised and pained though to know that he of all people suffered from high cholesterol and diabetes.

Now this cousin has a very typically South Indian name like Sadgopaplan. Can you imagine that he would go to the US and allow them to transmutate it to something like Saddy? :idontgetit: Add to that he has affixed that to his name, so it now reads Saddy Sadgopalan. :drowning Yesterday, I thought I would send him a quick message on FB and since I knew he was "friends" with me, I thought the quickest way to open his page would be to type in his name in the search box on top. I started typing Sadgopalan and FB like Mindi's best friend G promptly prompted me "Saddy Sadgopalan". Oh, how nice. Look how easy it was to find Saddy :biggrin2:. It does help perhaps to have such a unique name after all. So I clicked the link and opened the page. I was very surprised to see a fairly large picture posted there of Saddy in a very formal suit in a very formal setting with a smile revealing a missing tooth and almost all his hair missing from the crown of his head. Surprised is a gross understatement. It is a good thing, in fact, that I always sit half propped up in bed with my laptop on my tummy, otherwise I am sure I would have fallen off my chair in shock. Who knows I might even have cracked my skull open and to my great embarrassment (if I survived the fall) it might have been revealed that there were no contents in it to spill out.:hide: At the most there might have been a cracking sound followed by a huge hiss of air leaking out of the crack in the skull.

Anyway, I checked the picture. The man did not look very lean. He looked normal. I checked his face again and again. I could not say he looked like Saddy - rather the smile made him look rather very Happy - but maybe Saddy was feeling relieved to have the weight of so much hair off his head and that of one tooth off his upper jaw :coffee. Maybe this is what Saddy looked like when he was Happy. Then I saw some comments next to the picture which said "Uncle, I hope your health has improved". Now that statement filled me with a huge number of unspeakable misgivings mg:. I have to mention here that Saddy, though I have not been in touch with him for most of my adult life has been quite close to my heart. He had made me a cardboard goat whose head moved up and down to "High on the hill was a lonely goatherd" when I was 5 and ever since then he has been my favourite cousin.

As I said before, Saddy just celebrated his 60th birthday. So I looked for some more pics. No pics. I looked for good wishes. No good wishes. This was getting too much for that head of mine which had survived the "fall that did not happen". :spin I checked out his date of birth. It was 1953. Yes, the bloke was 60 years old but would be only in September. That did not match. So why did Saddy go celebrating his 60th birthday in March if it really was in September? Or if it was in March, why did he go changing his date of birth on his profile page? :confused2:

Finally when nothing seemed to make any sense to me, I decided to call Saddy's sis who stays close by, but she seems to be smart unlike me and does not get bothered by her stupid mobile. She has learned the art of ignoring it. So I did not get much info from there either. :| So I had to solve the puzzle myself. I continued looking for more pieces of the jigsaw. This bloke also lived in the U.S of A. He had studied somewhere in Calcutta and a few other places where to the best of my knowledge Saddy had never been. He also mentioned grand-kids who to the best of my knowledge Saddy does not have.

So finally I concluded there are probably too many Sad Sacks who have happy pics on their FB profile pages (though my cousin Saddy would not have such a flashy pic of his - he is just too withdrawing - so that did not fit either) in this world. That was confirmed by his sister this morning when she woke me up from my sleep by calling me on my mobile. :rant[/JUSTIFY]

Srama · Mar 18, 2013

That was funny Satchi! I know of many people who change their names after staying here for a while especially if they are in people interaction jobs constantly and if you don't change your name, it cane be butchered anyways. But I do have to tell you while I always get confused naming the faces what with the constant flow of Cathys, Katies, Cassys, Caseys etc all in one place, most people I come across make an effort to learn your name! In fact if the chances of them interacting with you are more, they persistently ask you with an apology till they are pro at shouting out your name from across the street

Well, any ways, FB does have an array interesting suggestions what with the interesting people there, it is no surprise that you found another saddy to make you feel sad and mad that you could not locate your cousin! You did leave the question unanswered as to if you actually finally found your cousin or not! and continue browsing comfortable seated on that bed, we do need you to spin these snippets for us!

Cheeniya · Mar 18, 2013

My dear Satchi
So this is a case of mistaken identity. What in a pedigreed detective story would be the irrefutable evidence turned out to be false alarm in this case, I mean the missing tooth in the upper row, mind you, and and a bald head to boot. While the main story fizzled out there, you managed to sustain the interest in the upakatha or side story and that is where your talent lies! I am referring to the fall that you did not sustain. It opens endless possibilities if the fall had indeed taken place.

First possibility is that of the skull opening up as you had feared though I personally feel that it would be too thick to open up in a fall from a low modern bed. I mean too thick in a general reference to all skulls and not yours in particular. If it did split up, what would be the contents? Would it be like the primordial soonya, a stark reminder of the Universe just before the Big Bang? Would it be some sticky grey matter making life difficult for that aging maid of yours in cleaning up the mess? The discussion would gain strength worldwide like the TV ad which carries on the 'Breaking News' routine about the bad smell in Charu's fridge!

I am happy that this Saddy is not your Saddy and I do hope that the latter has no tooth missing either in the upper or lower row and has at least half the hair intact to be able to comb them in a presentable way!
Sri

racr · Mar 18, 2013

:rotfl..hahaa...Saddy Sadagopalan indeed! Too good,Satchi..The Wodehousian spirit in you is rising again! Kudos!

"Who knows I might even have cracked my skull open and to my great embarrassment (if I survived the fall) it might have been revealed that there were no contents in it to spill out. At the most there might have been a cracking sound followed by a huge hiss of air leaking out of the crack in the skull."
-Why do you have to be so pessimistic?It could very well contain bhoosa or some similar kind of bio product,or multani matti(thats what I believe my brain is filled with..matti)

I'm waiting to hear from you as to how your Saddy really looks like! Its very bad that depraved souls like me are having a laugh at
his expense:hide:

Mindian · Mar 18, 2013

Hilarious sats:rotfl absolutely loved your write up. Me thinks you are BEST at humour. :thumbsup
What is the world coming to? I mean ,what are the chances that there could be more than one saddy sadagopalan.
Reminds me of one 'lucky' lakshmanan ,a handy man who came for some small eletrical work in our house.of course K insisted on knowing his name and calling him by his real name. I just let the poor guy be

Btw, learn to be smart like your cousin and ignore the ringtone on R's phone.Hope you learnt that from the 'sad sad affair of Saddy sadagopalan' LOL

Kamalji · Mar 18, 2013

Dea rSatchi,

HAHA. great funny one, now dont go looking fo rme on facebook. But tell me afgter so many years why did u go looking for saddy eh ! i guess the sadist in u took over to see how motehr time has tgreated the poor chap. Do u think that by getting to know hin once again and telling him u liked that goat, he will include u in his will and leave u with some money !!!!!

HAHA

Regards

kamal

BHAVNAM6 · Mar 18, 2013

My dear Satchi

Hats off to you for your great venture in putting your brain at the toughest task....

unlike yours my brain has given up to visit those areas which fear it to split up even without falling down from bed.

If I were you my grey matter would have been blasted and one could see the entire functioning getting collapsed in no time....

For me I feel I travel toward the regression age where not much brainy aspects to be required to challenge my ability to prove myself successful in tough agenda.

My brain could not be happier with my this approach. We both try to stick together in our progressing age....physically and intellectually.

It was indeed an humorous post.

Love,
Bhavna

arch1209 · Mar 19, 2013

Satchi what is in a name.....let me disclose my own plight - like I wrote in a previous post. All my life grew up as Archana and then during SSC exams baptism and birth certificate was checked, which revealed that my name was Mary Archana.....Indian passport authorities have a weird sense of humor, due to lack of space they made my name Maryarchana, so in the United States all my documents have me listed as Maryarchana! I am still learning how to pronounce it!!!!

So I don't blame other people when they cannot do it. But now my American friends call me Mary and Indian friends call me Archana! Its funny though, when people try to pronounce it in its entirety....

I am wondering though should I just change it and become a Saddy or a Katie...

Viswamitra · Mar 19, 2013

Dear Satchi,

Thank you for presenting your experience in a very humorous manner. Google is not a semantics search engine and therefore it does not have artificial intelligence to understand the users' intent. Frankly, if you and I search using exact same words in the search box, what you get in the first page will be dependent upon your previous searches in the internet and mine based on my previous searches. That is how it assumes what we search for even before we finish typing in the search box.

Sadagopan becomes Saddy, Madhavan becomes Maddy, Santhanagopalan becomes Sandy and Anantharaman becomes Andy in the United States but John, Joseph, Michael and Tom don't change their name as Janardhanan, Jawahar, Madan and Tarun when they come to India.

We are very accommodating when it comes to changing our name. I still remember when I took oath to become an American citizen, the immigration officer told me that I can either use first and last name or first, middle and last name but can't use initial in the middle. Therefore, I decided to expand my name into full first name, full middle name and full last name.

Whenever someone ask me to tell my full name, I have fun converting each one of the letter into an American name and by the time I finish my full name, the person on the other side needs to have a bottle of water. Mostly, they don't get it the first time and I start all over again.

Viswa

periamma · Mar 19, 2013

Satchi happy to see in your original form writing many hilarious posts.In one of our Tamil channel they telecast films based on a particular subject. For eg.one week all films with dual heros,another week comedy films and then brother sister affection like this it goes on.so this week is Satchi's hilarious week.come with more posts.