The Montek Mystery

Recently a couple of guys and I have committed ourselves to the cause of uncovering the ultimate mystery of life... who really is Montek Singh Ahluwalia?

You can read about him here.... but REALLY... who is he?

Over the years I have come across many people of the Sikh faith and they're by and large very nice people. At the outset, let me state that I have nothing against the Sikh religion or beliefs. This is just a random ponderance. If you're sensitive about this kinda thing, please do not read any further (but then you'll miss the mystery of Montek).

Now for the uninitiated, the Sikh belief is that their men should have 5 K's - Kesh (hair - which means the hairdressers in Punjab are not particularly well off bar some uncompliant few), Kanga (comb - well most of them do have the hair), Kachcha (underwear - no smart ass comments on this one), Kada (bracelet - for identification in case of drastic hairfall) and Kirpan (sword - one of which might be put to use on my neck soon)... Personally I think there should be a 6th one - Kulcha (flattened bread with stuffing in it - very nice)... but my bat sense tells me this won't be well received.

Anyway - this is not about Sikh beliefs. This is about Montek. Apart from the 5 Ks and a proposed 6th one, there's another trend that has gone beyond just emerging. It has arrived. Contemporary (personally that's debatable) names which have a natural phonetic link to their traditional name. My favorite example is Harvinder. AKA Harry. Has a global ring to it. Separately a lot of these men (yes... men) are called Pinky... not sure what the traditional name for that is though.

But this is not about Pinky. It's about Montek.

So the mystery. What is Montek Singh Ahluwalia's real name?

One cracking streak of brilliance is our lead (and only) theory. His original name was Mondegar. But in his circle of esteemed economists, he was laughed at and rebuked. Often he was asked - "Oye Mondegar - Ek beer lana" (Hey Mondegar, get me a beer). For those of you who haven't made the connection - the beer comes from Cafe Mondegar in Colaba, Bombay - a very very popular watering hole frequented by backpackers, engineers, MBAs, advertising folks and gangsters. The waiters are roughly the same profile, give or take 10%.

Coming back to Montek - Now this name - Mondegar - and all it's associations - largely beer - was a hitch in our young stars fledgling career in economics and policy making. He was frustrated at not being taken seriously.

And hence the drastic step.

Now something (let's call it my bat sense again) tells me we might be a bit off the mark here. Which is why this blog entry serves as an appeal to the people of the world at large to find the answer. Leave your theories / results of your research as comments to this blog entry. Contrubute to world peace...

REALLY... WHO IS MONTEK SINGH AHLUWALIA?