arvinder: Unusual Friends

Continuing the series of Unusual Friends - #10 Namesakes (People who have the same names as me)

As you know, my name is Arvinder Bawa, and over the years I have had a few encounters with people with the same name.

Some years ago, when we lived in Maracaibo, one day we were parking our car at a famous hotel for the afternoon at the swimming pool, essential in the 40C plus heat everyday. As we got our bags out and walked across the open air car park we spotted a couple of young men just getting into their car. They saw us and one of them, a very Indian looking man came over and greeted us in the Sikhs' greeting 'Sat sri akal'.

We got chatting and after a while he agreed to meet us later in the evening to talk more and have a drink. So I asked him to write his name and a contact number on a piece of paper. I looked over his shoulder and saw that he was writing out my name! Now I had just arrived from my office where we were used to wearing an ID badge. I thought perhaps he was reading my name from my badge so I said 'You don't need to write my name'.

He looked at me strangely and said 'No, but this is my name'. Needless to say we had a lot to talk about.

Later when we came back to England, we moved into a house in Epsom and one day we found a card dropped through our mail flap which read 'We are the Bawas from 79 Pine Hill' and a phone number. Pine Hill was nearby and we just had to go around and meet them.

More recently we were having a morning stroll around the port in Laredo when a small group of people passed us and I heard someone say something (Sat sri akal) that made me turn around and see who it was. It was a young lady who had correctly identified me as Sikh and knew my language. She turned out to be a Sikh herself who had lived in nearby Bilbao for many years. In conversation it turned out that she and her family back in India knew some of mine. when I asked her name she said 'Most people call me Bawa'!

It turned out that it was her nickname, which many of us from India tend to have. I too have one, which many of you know. To tell you the truth Bawa was also the nickname of my father and he chose to change his surname legally. In my father's case Bawa referred to a small clay figure of a male. But according to the young lady hers was given to her to imitate the crying of a child!

I will end with a curious story about the men's room of a popular restaurant in London. Although in this case it is not a person, nevertheless the door to the men's had the label 'Bawa'. I think it referred to the male figure, the source of my own surname.
It is a funny feeling to find one's name on the door of a men's room.