Saajan vs sajjan

By Vijay Kumar

Long ago I went to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to meet the President of India. I met a nice girl at the reception and told her that I wanted to meet the President and asked her for directions on how to go about it. She spoke to the Military Secretary and told him, “sir, Andhra Pradesh se ek sajjan hey, he wants to meet the President!” My Hindi was very poor, but I liked the word sajjan. She asked me to give an application and call her the next day to find out if I would get the appointment. The next day I called her up and told her, “I am your saajan from Andhra Pradesh”. She was offended and told me that she had no saajan in AP, but explained to me that saajan meant lover and sajjan meant gentleman.