What's in a (nick)name?

So I was leafing through “Woman’s Era” while waiting for my turn at the salon, when I spotted this column called “How I met my husband” .As I sat there reading an interesting account of an ad professional’s first tryst with her boss,who went on to become her husband, I smiled. Thinking of my own.

Cut to 2003, when I was on this offshore team for a US based client. Most of my interaction was with this guy called G at client site . I'd never seen him, but we’d worked jointly on quite a few projects together.He was no more than a voice on the phone for me. It was another matter that I thought the voice ,one of the deepest I'd heard, was the stuff that could give any RJ a run for his money!

And one day, there was news that he’d return to Bangalore to join us. As I tapped away on my keyboard that day, something caught my attention. I noticed this tall, extremely fair guy having a little chat with my project lead. And as I wondered who this ‘bili jirle’ (white cockroach!) was, my project lead walked up to me and introduced him as the ‘client site guy’ G.
Man! Was I so wrong when I thought the baritone was the first thing I’d notice about the guy if I met him in person.It was his milky white complexion, all the way! All the months he’d spent in the freezing cold weather of Minnesota had made him look like the male version of Snow White. He could so easily be the “After” guy in the ‘Before-After’ segment of all the ‘Fair and Lovely’ ads. He was tall alright, handsome..err..okay fine,granted, but dark?Hell no!

A co-worker friend in another team, who happened to notice this latest addition to ours, got curious. Like me, she couldn’t help but take note of the lack of sun on his skin.

Over a cup of coffee on the same day, she inquired- “Hey who’s that cone of vanilla ice cream in your team?” sending me into fits of laughter.
And the name stuck. That was his secret nick– ‘coz everyone except him knew about it! I’d even use it as a code-word while gossiping with others, about him!

I even had my own set of corny one-liners for him.

When he’d be in a grumpy mood, I’d say,
“Oh Man! Looks like Vanilla ice cream is hot today!”

When he’d help me out at work
“Isn’t Vanilla ice cream so sweet?”

When he’d turn up in a dark brown shirt
“ Wow! Vanilla ice cream has a chocolate fudge topping today!”

And so on.
A year later, we were married. I went on to give him many more nicks, soon forgetting the original one.

Cut to 2007. I’m taking this totally harebrained quiz called “What flavor ice cream are you?” on blogthings.com, out of sheer boredom. But the last line of the quiz result brings a smile on my face. Take a look!

You Are Rocky Road Ice Cream

Unpredictable and wild, you know how to have fun.
You're also a trendsetter who takes risks with new things.
You know about the latest and greatest - and may have invented it!
You are most compatible with vanilla ice cream.

Looks like the first nick I gave him was the ‘coolest’ one after all!