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If there is one facility of the Government of India that has retained its efficiency over all of my 70 years, it is the Money Order...I must have sent a couple of hundred of them and none missed its goal.
Of course it doesn't mean it hasn't become more and more of a headache, as RKN says.
I recall that, during our Imperial days, the money order form came in a long broad size and it was free. The text was in English and the unlettered in English had to seek the help of a learned person to decode its lingo and fill it up for them. The form was thick and easy to handle. It had ample space for the addresses of the payee and the remitter and for the message that could be written below the form which was divided into four or five units with arrows showing their demarcation, and slicing.
Then came the imposition of Hindi on the unwilling. The size of the form remained the same but it was now in the 2-language formula with the Hindi version of every item below its English version. Naturally it became crowded and clogged up and the space for addresses and the message got impossibly reduced.
Then some clever babu (a rare species) realized that every form has two sides and so why not use the obverse for the Hindi version. But by then the addresses became too involved due to the healthy explosion of the number of post-offices in the country, with all those PINs that arrived; and the space for the message got reduced progressively.
And it became too expensive for the Government to dole out their precious forms for free and so they came at a nominal price...you needed to carry rare small change like the 10 paise coin...or buy and hoard them in bulk. And the form got thinner and thinner like a size-zero heroine. And tended to jag itself away or blunt the nib of the pen...the form became 'green' and came on recycled paper...and the clerks grew grumpier.
I recall that once, to make it easier for the clerk and speed up the waiting line, I filled in every detail that I could in the space meant to be written in by the babu behind the counter, leaving for him only his signature and the thud and the coded serial numbers in red ink.
And when he saw what I did, he was enraged and said:
"Leave me some work to do too!"
instead of thanking me.
During my long tenure at IIT KGP, my students somehow realized that I was sort of a helpful goat. A couple of years after they left IIT for their US dreamland to do their graduate studies, helped somewhat by my famous recos, they would remember me suddenly when they needed duplicate degrees or transcripts from the Academic Section. And seek my help which I invariably rendered out of goodwill.
Once I got a mail from an ex-student asking me to go to the Academic Section and get a copy of his transcript which he had misplaced and send it to him via Air Mail and give him the bill. As usual I went straight to our super-efficient Tapan Babu and showed him the mail I got. He asked me to sit down and got the necessary forms filled, with me as a proxy, and asked me to go to the Cash Section and deposit maybe 500 rupees and bring him the receipt and he would do the rest.
This called for climbing a couple more of arduous floors but there was this Swapan Babu, brother of Tapan Babu, who was equally efficient and courteous. He filled in the cash-deposit forms for me, took my 500 and gave me the third foil of the receipt...I don't know where the other two went.
Back to Tapan Babu who miraculously got the transcripts signed by the concerned dean or whoever, took the money receipt and handed me the thing my ex-student wanted...all with a minimum of speech...he was the least garrulous among the bureaucrats.
Then I traveled to our campus post-office and did the labor there and sent the transcript to the student in the US, who, after getting it safe, asked me for my bill. Which came to around Rs 600...without my labor charges ;)
Within a fortnight I got a cover enclosing a dollar check which I deposited in my savings account in the campus SBI. And they took more than a month and a hefty 'bank commission'.
Finally I discovered that the amount that got credited to my account is a hundred rupees more than what I had spent. I didn't like to pocket that money and since I couldn't get dollars for my rupees (it was an irreversible process) I wrote to the student asking him what to do with his hundred rupees. After a couple of reminders he sent me the postal address of his father living in a small village in Bihar.
And I went to the post-office and bought a money order form but was unequal to the task of filling the payee's address in the tiny space provided...it had his long name, the name of his village, the nearest Branch PO, its taluque, district, state, and the PIN.
I then asked the babu what to do and he suggested that I write the address on a white paper and paste it on the reverse side that contained the Hindi version. Somehow I liked the pleasant task of defacing the Hindi script.
Finally the unspent money was duly sent but I was dubious if it would reach the said remote village during my tenure at KGP.
But, lo and behold, within a week, I got an e-mail from the student in the US that he rang up his father and found that the money order was received safe....perhaps with a small tip to the postman which no one grudged...money talks as you know...
...Posted by Ishani
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...Form-filling, even with the old money order form with its payee and remitter (instead of receiver and sender), has been a trying business, always making one pause to wonder whether one was a payee or remitter, but with Hindi text on it, it is becoming impossible to get through any business at a post-office counter nowadays...
...RKN
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If there is one facility of the Government of India that has retained its efficiency over all of my 70 years, it is the Money Order...I must have sent a couple of hundred of them and none missed its goal.
Of course it doesn't mean it hasn't become more and more of a headache, as RKN says.
I recall that, during our Imperial days, the money order form came in a long broad size and it was free. The text was in English and the unlettered in English had to seek the help of a learned person to decode its lingo and fill it up for them. The form was thick and easy to handle. It had ample space for the addresses of the payee and the remitter and for the message that could be written below the form which was divided into four or five units with arrows showing their demarcation, and slicing.
Then came the imposition of Hindi on the unwilling. The size of the form remained the same but it was now in the 2-language formula with the Hindi version of every item below its English version. Naturally it became crowded and clogged up and the space for addresses and the message got impossibly reduced.
Then some clever babu (a rare species) realized that every form has two sides and so why not use the obverse for the Hindi version. But by then the addresses became too involved due to the healthy explosion of the number of post-offices in the country, with all those PINs that arrived; and the space for the message got reduced progressively.
And it became too expensive for the Government to dole out their precious forms for free and so they came at a nominal price...you needed to carry rare small change like the 10 paise coin...or buy and hoard them in bulk. And the form got thinner and thinner like a size-zero heroine. And tended to jag itself away or blunt the nib of the pen...the form became 'green' and came on recycled paper...and the clerks grew grumpier.
I recall that once, to make it easier for the clerk and speed up the waiting line, I filled in every detail that I could in the space meant to be written in by the babu behind the counter, leaving for him only his signature and the thud and the coded serial numbers in red ink.
And when he saw what I did, he was enraged and said:
"Leave me some work to do too!"
instead of thanking me.
During my long tenure at IIT KGP, my students somehow realized that I was sort of a helpful goat. A couple of years after they left IIT for their US dreamland to do their graduate studies, helped somewhat by my famous recos, they would remember me suddenly when they needed duplicate degrees or transcripts from the Academic Section. And seek my help which I invariably rendered out of goodwill.
Once I got a mail from an ex-student asking me to go to the Academic Section and get a copy of his transcript which he had misplaced and send it to him via Air Mail and give him the bill. As usual I went straight to our super-efficient Tapan Babu and showed him the mail I got. He asked me to sit down and got the necessary forms filled, with me as a proxy, and asked me to go to the Cash Section and deposit maybe 500 rupees and bring him the receipt and he would do the rest.
This called for climbing a couple more of arduous floors but there was this Swapan Babu, brother of Tapan Babu, who was equally efficient and courteous. He filled in the cash-deposit forms for me, took my 500 and gave me the third foil of the receipt...I don't know where the other two went.
Back to Tapan Babu who miraculously got the transcripts signed by the concerned dean or whoever, took the money receipt and handed me the thing my ex-student wanted...all with a minimum of speech...he was the least garrulous among the bureaucrats.
Then I traveled to our campus post-office and did the labor there and sent the transcript to the student in the US, who, after getting it safe, asked me for my bill. Which came to around Rs 600...without my labor charges ;)
Within a fortnight I got a cover enclosing a dollar check which I deposited in my savings account in the campus SBI. And they took more than a month and a hefty 'bank commission'.
Finally I discovered that the amount that got credited to my account is a hundred rupees more than what I had spent. I didn't like to pocket that money and since I couldn't get dollars for my rupees (it was an irreversible process) I wrote to the student asking him what to do with his hundred rupees. After a couple of reminders he sent me the postal address of his father living in a small village in Bihar.
And I went to the post-office and bought a money order form but was unequal to the task of filling the payee's address in the tiny space provided...it had his long name, the name of his village, the nearest Branch PO, its taluque, district, state, and the PIN.
I then asked the babu what to do and he suggested that I write the address on a white paper and paste it on the reverse side that contained the Hindi version. Somehow I liked the pleasant task of defacing the Hindi script.
Finally the unspent money was duly sent but I was dubious if it would reach the said remote village during my tenure at KGP.
But, lo and behold, within a week, I got an e-mail from the student in the US that he rang up his father and found that the money order was received safe....perhaps with a small tip to the postman which no one grudged...money talks as you know...
...Posted by Ishani
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