Instant Messaging

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When we were young brats living in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP, we used to off and on have 'guests', chiefly new senior faculty recruited by IIT KGP who were yet to be allotted Qrs. They used to stay for a week or two and tried to befriend us then and there. A look at them was sufficient to reveal that they had been downloaded straight from the US, England, Australia or even Russia. After dinner, we three musketeers used to sit down on the lawn bench and smoke and gossip for a while. The newcomer would join us on the bench opposite and wait for the right moment to butt into our conversation. Those were the decades when 'foreign-returned' were few and far between (unlike now) and they had a wee chip on their shoulders which they were eager to show off as early as possible, justifiably. And we used to bet how many minutes they would take to do that. And one of us would say it is very humid and, as likely as not, our 'guest' would declaim: "Not half as humid as London"

Last year we were staying in a high-class township...the costs and rents were double those of the neighborhood. Only NRIs could afford to buy them as investments and let them out, asking their poor old parents to 'look after' their property and collect rents. Indeed, our landlord, a middle-class brahmin, was made to buy two apartments in that township by his two sons who are both settled in the US and agonized that 'money doesn't grow in the US...while kids grow too fast'. One night I was visiting the local medical shop and was joined by a retiree. After a couple of minutes, he started asking me the usual intimate questions of where I worked, how many kids I have, and where are they...And then blurted out that his only son is 'settled' in the US and made him buy an apartment here and was forlorn that he 'lost' his son to the US and can never ever get him back. And said that he was made to visit the US for 3 months and he disliked the weather, the loneliness, the racism, and stuff and returned to India within a month and vowed to never go there again, saying that for Hyderabadi kids the US is like the proverbial 'distant mountain that looks smooth from afar'. I listened glumly and he suddenly produced his 'card' and asked for mine. And I had to bluff that my stock of cards is exhausted and new ones are still with the printer.

In the 19th century England, refusal to return the favor of exchanging 'cards' was deemed an insult sufficient to provoke a 'duel', with 'seconds' helping and encouraging them to 'have mutual satisfaction'. Let me quote from Pickwick Papers:

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"...the stranger (Mr Jingle) was returning, and Mr Tupman was beside him. He spoke in a low tone, and laughed. The Little Doctor thirsted for his life. He was exulting. He had triumphed.

'Sir,' said the Doctor, in an awful voice, producing a card, and retiring into an angle of the passage, 'my name is Slammer, Doctor Slammer, sir---Ninety-seventh Regiment---Chatham Barracks---my card, sir, my card.' He would have added more, but his indignation choked him.

'Ah' replied the stranger, coolly, 'Slammer---much obliged---polite attention---not ill now Slammer---but when I am---knock you up.'

'You---you are a shuffler!, sir,' gasped the furious Doctor, 'a poltroon---a coward---a liar---a---a---will nothing induce you to give me your card, sir?'

......Doctor Slammer looked unutterable ferocity, as he fixed his hat on his head with an indignant knock......."

(And there was an infructuous pistol-duel arranged by their 'seconds'...)

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None in our Physics Department at IIT KGP those days had ever dreamt of getting their 'cards' printed. Imagine HNB or SDM producing a Visiting Card!!!

But the very first day I landed in Hyderabad and took an auto-rickshaw and tried to befriend him since one such chap would be good for me in any emergency and asked him his name, he produced a wafer-thin plastic card with his name, cell-phone number and other details like the registration number of his vehicle, asking me to ring him up as and when needed and he would be at my place within minutes (I had paid him double the meter fare as a sweetener).

Perhaps our Director did have a card. And surely did our Professor-in-Charge of Training & Placement; since both would be dealing with aliens like Secretaries in the Ministry at Delhi and the Personnel Manager of Telco (if there is one).

Here is an e- sample of a retired eminence:

Professor G. P. Sastry, Ph.D.(IITKH), F.E.E.E.E.(Malaysia)
Director, ABC College of Engineering, Valhalla
Former Director (AA), IIIIIT-Timbuctoo
Former Dean, Discontinuing Elucidation
Principal PIQMD Coordinator
Professor-out-Charge, PQRST NMOT - 732-543-897
20, Gandhi Street II ,
Muthukur - 600106976
Tel:Off: 271635268765,
Res: 08521-22222222,
Mobile:9078654387654
e-mail: gps1943212@bahoo.go

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The Chief Engineer (Retd) here that I talked about many times earlier once asked me how I 'write' my address.

I replied: G. P. Sastry, G-4, Sri Sai Apts etc".

He then asked in bewilderment: "Don't you write Dr. G. P. Sastry, Ph D?"

I said, "No"

He then asked: "You don't even write Professor?"

I said "No"

He then asked me why not.

I had to reply that very few people do take the trouble of writing to me, and they know who and what I am...

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