So what do you call him?

As I have interacted with my Father-In-Law over the past year, I have gotten to know him better. We have grown closer bonding over deep philosophical topics ranging from cricket to property prices, Congress bashing to restaurant dosai quality.

What's astounded me is that I've spent the last 15 months without ever directly addressing him. I don't know what to call my father-in-law.

This hasn't been easy. On Day 6 after marriage I was lounging around at my in-law's home dressed appropriately with covered legs and wearing non-college, non-ragged t-shirts. As the new maapilai (son-in-law) at home, the attention being showered was overwhelming. However with a mature 'chance pe dance' attitude, I had shamelessly started accepting every offer of 2nd/3rd/4th round of filter coffee, opening crisp newspapers before the family got access to it, fiddling with the TV remote and other perks.

However the cumulative guilt goaded me to do something for the family. Hence, that evening when the phone rang I shed my lethargy and volunteered to pick it up.

"Thiagarajan sir irukara ?" ("Is Mr. Thiagarajan there?")
"One sec", I said and walked over to my FIL who was busy perusing the tampered newspaper.

I opened my mouth and failed to come up with an appropriate word.

1 Mississippi
2 Mississippi
3 Mississippi
4 Mississippi

Clearing my throat would have been too filmy, Uncle too distant, Pops too DDLJ, Daddy too familiar a name from my own family.

Finally I accepted my destiny. He was 'Appa' in my life now and this was the moment to give him that stature.

So I peered over the newspaper till the shadow caused mild inconvenience to him. He looked up, smiling.

"Phone..", I gruffed, handed the instrument and escaped.

A few months passed. Home phone calls were conveniently name free, where an innocuous "Namaskaram" hid all predicaments. All conversations involving him were filled with phrases 'your dad', 'Swetha's dad' that obviated any potential name struggle.

In that period, I did extensive research by speaking to a lot of couples facing this predicament. The discussion became an obsession. " So, what do you call your father-in-law ?" became my pet party question, which made husbands queasy and left respective wives amused. It turned out that wives managed to conquer this task with less hassle, less ego and much less thought. Maybe we men just made a big deal about it.

Soon the in-laws visited Singapore. A pleasant trip got freckled with awkward name moments. "Appa, do you want coffee?" became "DO YOU WANT COFFEE?", the decibel level forcing him to look in my direction. Soon I began to plan my location with him as the origin point of my 3-D complicated universe. A week long trip to Chennai this December made absolutely no difference. I treated the newspaper with more care, gulped more coffee than before, but FIL continued to be treated to awkward starts to our cricket, dosai conversation.

The hope still remains. If I can restart this blog after a 2 year crazy writer's block, maybe the hope for calling my FIL Appa isn't that bleak.

Meanwhile, THIS IS PLAN B. OK ?

Silly, Simple and not Funny

Dear Tata Docomo Brand Manager

You've done it again.


For a campaign that talks about 'Keep it Simple, Silly', you have made two wild decisions:

- You have picked Ranbir Kapoor to do stand up comedy. I don't know your intentions. But if you wanted someone absolutely unconvincing as a stand up comedian - you should have chosen Sunny Deol: A raw, underutilized, stone-faced celebrity attempting to make the audience laugh. Your tagline could have been 'Sunny keeps it Simple, Silly.' I appreciate the Jerry Seinfeld inspired look-tone and humour...but why?

- You have fake laughter in the background in all the ads. Bad jokes and Fake Laughter. A series of Bad jokes and fake laughter. A series of Ads with a series of bad jokes and fake laughter. I can't remember the last time when a humourous commercial used such subtle prompts for the audience.

Vodafone (Hutch back then) did an ad series a while ago with Irfan Khan (watch them here). A peculiar man in a normal environment explaining somewhat complicated but extremely relevant Telecom features with Hutch/Vodafone. That was simple. This is not. It made us smile, occasionally giggle. You've mildly annoyed us.

Like the previous Docomo post, I'll add some Internet Marketing blurb for your brand. I am sure you have a new intern in office to re-do a presentation on 'Web 2.0 strategy for TATA Docomo'. Since Social Media is the new buzzword, I'll use Facebook status updates this time. I read this website is growing and might become a phenomenon in the future. I hear they are planning to make a movie about it too (insert fake laughter).
I'll leave it to your intern to finish up rest of the analysis on this. I guess he is on facebook the whole day, trying to improve your brand's digital presence.

Good luck with your campaign. I am sure your message will reach millions and you'll grow your user base. And when an odd Docomo user calls up your customer service to complain, I am sure you'll have a stale joke or two up your sleeve to calm them down. And of course, fake laughter.