Juggled Addressing

I was asked to report to Mr. Vivek Mishra, my PM-to-be, on the first day of my working with the company. Timidly I went, with all the mixed feelings of a fresher,far from being aware of the corporate culture. After having introduced myself, it was time for me to listen, or in the worst case, pretend to be listening to all the preaching he did. To seem obedient, I started acknowledging every sentence of his with “Yes Sir”. For the frequency I had tuned myself to prompt me into acknowledging, possibly, I also could have said “Yes Sir” even before he uttered any sentence! (Just possibly……. Not too sure, because I was at my mechanical best out there fuelled by the anxiety and fear and my mind commanding me to escape from that extra-terrestrial world of workaholics! ) All in all, I seemed completely out of place.
After sensing my discomfort and perhaps, tired of my “Yes Sir” sequels, he, of my father’s age, said, “Hey Rashmi, don’t be so formal in addressing me with ‘Sir’. Please call me Vivek”. No different from his corporate peers, he too believed that such a gesture would ease the tension to create a friendly atmosphere and help me in getting along with folks. Hardly did he realize that it put me into a lot more discomfort for it shook the so-called 'ethics' that I was forced to get accustomed to in addressing elders with due (The Indian interpreted) respect. How can I forget getting beaten or earlobes twisted or yelled at, and when surroundings didn’t permit any of those, getting those deadly stares (which implied ‘Coz people are here, you are spared, face the consequences at home …… ) at the least?
Once bitten twice shy. All the mental and physical blackmails have had repercussions and hence, I resolved to call anyone elder to me (parents excluded) as Uncle or Aunt or Sir or Madam, as the case may be. A world of soooooooooooooooooo many Uncles and Aunts is incredible! ( I am forced to forget that ‘Uncle’ means ‘dad’s/mom’s brother’…… coz if that uncle is older than my dad/mom, my dad/mom too calls him Uncle….. God! Too tough to track the family tree! ) . After all the grooming for couple of decades now, I perfected the art of ‘respecting’ people. Now, I am expected to unlearn decades-old lessons learnt, in a minute by addressing someone with his name when he falls under the “Sir” category. Got to be a Roman in Rome, so, I made a hard-and -fast rule that I would address my colleagues and friends with their names, relatives and neighbours as Uncles or Aunts and others, Sirs or Madams. I really thank God that some people on earth are younger to me, to make my life a little less cumbersome as there are not many address restrictions to abide by with them in consideration. The new ‘Addressing Strategy’ I had derived helped me in complying with the ‘ethics’, a lot better.
The real agony started when new tenants occupied my neighboring house. Coincidentally, it was Vivek’s family that moved in. Now, I was in a soup. As per my ‘Addressing Strategy’, I had to address a colleague with his name and a neighbor as Uncle. Now what? Since, I was used to calling him Vivek for months now, I thought I’ll stick to it. But something worse to come yet, his wife (of my mom’s age, more or less) who strictly falls under the ‘neighbour’ category had to be called “Aunty’, right? How does it sound like, to address a person with his name and his wife (years younger to him) as Aunty? I am reminded of a hair-dye advertisement wherein, a person was called ‘Bhaiyya” and his wife ‘Aunty ( echoing 3 times for the effect )’ which was indicative of her seemingly old age. Sensed the worry? Perplexed? ………… Real soup, man!
The real concern is , why are we jugglling with cultures? Addressing an elderly person by name was not what I was taught. If only I have to let go of all that I have learnt over the years to get acclimatized to a new culture, why forced to learn it at all? Addressing someone as Uncle or with his name is not my bother, but the ambiguity involved truly is.For a slow learner like me , even with corporal instructors around, switching between such things is not a piece of cake. Am I not justified in demanding consistency after all the relentless toil in 'culture-training'?