Due north

A senior official in one of the government companies was meeting journalists after the company's results. It was his last meeting before he moved to another public sector company. The spelling of his surname, Nayar, suggested he was from Punjab. But he surprised journalists by speaking in fluent Malayalam. When curious journalists asked why he spelt the name the northern way when most Malayalis spell it "Nair," the man, who has spent most of his career in the northern parts of the country, brushed it off saying, "It is good to be ambiguous, no?"