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Respected Professor GPS:
I have very much enjoyed reading your booklets which you very kindly gave me. To some extent the descriptions of IITKGP equally hold for IITM also.
So, all Campuses share certain features that are not very apparent in city life.
The first one is Curiosity.
Curiosity is good, if it is not aggressively overt. All progress in pure sciences is due to curiosity.
Kids are by nature curious. Here I recall a Reader's Digest joke of the 1960s.
The other day I accompanied my family to the Airport to see off our relatives who were here on a short holiday-jolly-day. And we lingered on a little in the airport after we saw them off. Then I saw a man rushing in with a huge potbelly.
And I touched my own potbelly and felt pleased. For, I have developed a pretty cute one in the past three months for one reason or the other....and people are commenting on it.
The RD joke goes like this:
A middle-aged potbellyed man was peeing against a wall. And found that he was being keenly observed from below by a 3-year-old. And he called and gave the child $1 as a gift for:
"Seeing something I haven't seen for ages"
Women are but children as far as curiosity goes...they never age.
Last year we rented a 3-bedroom flat in a posh NRI Township here housing more than 2500 families. But no one expressed any curiosity about us all those 11 months we stayed there. Except (mildly) this Marwari Lady who was often manning a nearby Uncle-Auntie-Beti provision store. And I was a regular visitor there in my good old Maruti with a sticker on the windshield announcing proudly the name of the Township (for entry and parking reasons). And I was often found by the side of my son in his sedan. And while others were buying in grams I was buying in kilos (we were a family of 5 unlike the average 2.5). And the Auntie behind the counter concluded that we were big-gun owners of that apartment which cost Rs 70,00,000...an amount I can't even dream of. Anyway she gave me special attention till after 11 months I announced one day we were quitting her neighborhood and moving to our own humble flat farther away.
And she felt cheated:
"You never told us you were tenants!"
with a spin on the word 'tenants'.
That is how cities are...curiosities are always there but subdued and inferential.
Not so in the IIT KGP Campus.
Here is an example:
Within a couple of years of my joining there, this gent, about a decade older to me, appeared to be curious about me. One fine morning he couldn't contain himself and asked me:
"Are you a Research Scholar?"
"No"
"M. Tech student?"
"No"
"A Teacher-Trainee?"
"No...I am an Associate Lecturer"
"Why didn't you tell me all these days?"
"You never asked me"
"Then you are a regular faculty...within a few decades you will be a Professor...I am only a clerk in the Accounts Section. All I can hope is to retire as an Assistant Registrar. Where are you living?"
"Faculty Hostel"
"I am coming to you next Sunday"
"Welcome...but is there any specific purpose?"
"Oh, I will bring my niece's photo and horoscope"
"Oh, sorry...I am not in the marriage market for a decade at least"
"Why?"
"Never mind..."
And then after a decade of my joining there, my sister, a decade younger to me passed her M Sc in Physics and was sitting at home at Gudur waiting for the Public Service Commission Teacher Interviews a year away. So I asked her to come over to IIT KGP and do a one-year Post-M Sc Diploma that was then offered with a huge stipend that rose to Rs 400. And she did come over and joined the course. Since she had been staying in the hostel during her M Sc in Tirupati, I thought she would like to stay in the Girls Hostel at KGP. But she declined and asked me to take a Qrs so we can stay together, cook together, and go to college together...for company.
And then I shifted to Qrs C1-97, a huge affair, from my own hostel.
And folks who saw us walking together side by side to the Institute, Tech Market and Club were curious naturally and I could sense it. But they couldn't contain themselves and I had several frontal attacks launched on me. One Professor of Mining, who caught me alone quipped:
"GP! You cheated us by not inviting us to your marriage"
And our Library Assistant, Chanda Babu, whose main avocation was LIC, found us together at the Library Issue Desk and formally congratulated us:
"Made for each other, eh?"
with a cheeky smile.
And so too the wife of an EE Professor in our neighborhood spread the false message far and wide.
I was so embarrassed that I felt like hanging a slate around my neck with the prominent legend:
I am sure this would never have happened in Hyderabad.
In the 1960s and 70s IIT KGP Campus was a desolate place...sans telephones, sans eateries, sans transport other than the pushbike.
And everyone was bored and hungry for news of all kinds...useful, useless, salacious and malicious.
Most of the ladies were housewives and since there was neither TV nor much of a radio they had to rely on their neighbors who depended on their neighbors who depended on their neighbors...like the Chinese Whispers.
It was then that news used to get among males who spread it in their departments with the inevitable distortion, amplification and attenuation as the case may be.
A good news-agent needs lots of qualifications. On the other hand there were a few spies who were soon discouraged. For instance, one day I got terribly bored and spent a lot of money buying a National Panasonic Cassette Recorder-Player, one of the many foolish things I did in my long life. The next day, Prof V of our Department accosted me in the corridor and said:
"I know you bought a Panasonic from Midnapore yesterday"
"Yes" (He expected me to ask, "How did you know?" but I didn't give him that pleasure)
"How much did you pay?"
"Rs 1000"
"I got it from Calcutta for Rs 700"
"Good!"
Then on I cold-shouldered him since I didn't like the way he went about it frontally. He lacked the finesse required to become a popular newscaster.
On the other hand, a good 15 years after I joined IIT KGP, Prof R, a youngster a decade younger to me, joined us. And within a year he became immensely popular with students, teachers and the administration. He had a charming smile and a great good helping heart. He had a nice family with three cute kids who were all likable. And naturally, I too liked him.
After a few more years, I discovered that Prof R had a weakness for collecting the Campus News and disseminating it among his large circle of friends. He himself was the nicest person and soon became my collaborator and we got to publish a dozen articles here and there and one fat Lecture Notes as well.
I found his news reliable and harmless. By then I was gradually withdrawing from the Departmental Meetings but needed to know what was going on so that I am prepared for any contingency. So, he used to visit my room after everyone left for lunch and we used to discuss some physics and then adjourn to Harry's for a cup of coffee and gossip before dispersing to our homes.
I asked him once why he takes the trouble every morning at 6 in sun, rain, and cold to walk a couple of kilometers to the Khatal (Buffalo-Farm) to collect his milk, while I always depended on my gowala (milkman) to deliver it at my home...infinitely diluted. And he said that collecting milk was secondary to collecting the overnight news....fresh from the Farm. For, a dozen professors and technical people collected their milk there every morning without fail and exchanged the latest news...all of them part of the core Campus News Network (CNN).
He was also a perennial Warden since that entitled him to a telephone at home.
One evening I was sitting, as usual alone, in the Tech Market on the wooden bench of the Lav-Khush Tea Stall sipping my glass of lemon tea. And Prof DPR of Civil Engg came and sat beside me. He was ten years senior to me and the only interaction we had was a decade ago when he arrived in my room and said his son, Ashok, wanted some help in physics. Otherwise we were strangers.
Prof DPR then told me a propos of nothing that my Friend was high up on the panel for appointment as Deputy Director (DD). I nodded my head and asked him how Ashok was doing and where he was employed.
A few days later, a new DD was appointed who was not my Friend DPR cited. And I kept quiet. After less than a month of this, I got an early morning phone call in our drawing room and when I picked it up, it was Prof R (fresh from the Buffalo Farm) informing me that the newly appointed DD had a massive heart attack and passed away the night before. I was sad and was musing:
"Here today, gone tomorrow, all flesh is as grass"
And then I knew that Prof R didn't know what I knew from DPR...obviously.
In a few minutes my wife walked up to me from her kitchen and asked:
"What was that phone call about?"
"My Friend is becoming DD"
Some time later early one morning, my wife told me that Prof X's house was burgled last night. And I wanted to give Prof R a surprise and called him and told him:
"Prof X's house was burgled last night"
"Is it? None of us in the Buffalo-Farm knew it!"
Later in the day, while Prof R and I were sipping coffee at Harry's, Prof X joined us and told me:
"My house was burgled last night...of course we lost nothing much"
"Yes, I know"
"Who told you? Prof R?"
"No, it was I who told him"
"Then, who told you?"
"Guess again!"
"I give up"
"My wife"
"How did she get to know?
"By the Maid Servants Internet (MSI)"
When I joined IIT KGP in 1965, telephones were as rare as lady students...you could count them on the fingers of your hands and toes on your feet.
We did visit a curiosity called the Manual Telephone Exchange which was housed in what turned into the site of the mammoth Kendriya Vidyalaya. And we had glimpses of a cute system like this:
with the difference that the person manning it and pushing and pulling jacks with an elastic cord into the sockets of the Board was like me...and not like her as above.
Like that British Army Officer who had gout and was advised by his doctor to drink donkey's milk; and he ordered his peon to fetch a 'gadha'; and was angry when his peon fetched one; and scolded him:
"Mera jaisa gadha nahin...memsahib jaisa gadha lao"
("Not a donkey like me but fetch a donkey like my wife")
Only the Director and HoD's had telephones like this in their Offices:
You push your forefinger and rotate clockwise for "343" (the only number that works). You do the fingering once and nothing happens except a beep-beep-beep sound. And you try again and again and again and finally if you are lucky you hear his gruff voice:
"Number boloon?"
None of the twenty or so telephones except the one in the Director's Office had the facility of trunk-dialing for long-distance. The rest were Campus.
By and by the telephone exchange was shifted to its own building when it was upgraded to what was called a Strowger facilty. The difference was that now the Senior Professors also had free telephones in their offices but strictly Campus; and they could dial other 3-digit numbers too and eliminate the operator's nuisance. And the forty or so Senior Professors were toying with them like their birthday gifts and were enamored.
My Guide SDM got so few gossip calls that he was waiting and waiting for the instrument to ring; and when it did ring...ultimately....it was a wrong number...
Once I visited his Room and asked him to tell me the name of a good book which gives the Heisenberg Inequalities for the EM Fields. He jumped up and said:
"Look up Heitler's Quantum Theory of Radiation. There is only one copy in the Library and it is in the Reserved Section"
"Thank you, sir!"
"No, no, don't go away...after you find that book, you go to the Librarian's Room. Although he is not a Senior Professor like me, they have given him a telephone. You ask him to dial my number 232 and tell me in his presence if you could find it in that book. Understand!"
"Yes, sir!"
So, I had to wait outside the Librarian's Room till he returned from his tea-break, and beseech him. And he scowled:
"Whom do you want to talk to?"
"Prof SDM of the Phy Dept"
"But his room is only one minute walk from here...why were you waiting half an hour for me?"
"He asked me to..."
A few weeks later, SDM rushed into my room excitedly and announced that Prof KGC of the ME Dept rang him up and asked me to return the worm gear I had borrowed long ago from him immediately. I replied that I have no more use for it now that I have abandoned my Experimental Research and assured him:
"I am going at once to him with his (lousy) worm gear"
"No, no, no, no...you come to my room along with me and talk to him...he is waiting for you on the line"
So, that was how prestigious telephones were.
Much water flowed by 1989 by when I became a Professor myself and our Exchange was upgraded to Digital and I had a piece installed in my office as well as home...but still strictly Campus (for my wife to talk to her neighbor about how to make idlis). No long-distance except for incoming calls through the Operator...the same old guy.
And my didi arrived for a fortnight's holiday at KGP from Delhi along with her school-going son. My IAS B-i-L launched her on the Neelachal Express and, for all I know, forgot about her ;)
It was summer vacation and I received her at the Station and kept company with her. As soon as she finished her ablutions and breakfast, she said:
"I want to call my husband and tell him that we arrived safe"
"I will give him an Express Telegram"
"NO, I want to ring him up from your phone"
"Sorry, my phone doesn't have outgoing long distance facility"
"Then take me to the nearest Exchange"
So, I had to carry her on my scooter to our IIT Exchange in its new building and ask the operator to connect the Delhi Number. And my didi said:
"Lightning Call please!"
It was 10 O'clock in the morning and I knew that the Lightning Tariff in Prime Time would burn a sizable hole in my pocket. But, I don't blame my didi...my B-i-L had opted for Free Telephone at home rather than Free Transport and so she was never aware of the four or five slabs...after 7 PM, after 9 PM, after 11 PM or worse...
So, I was a mute spectator and the Operator was so impressed...he never knew there was something like a Lightning Call...
And I could hear my B-i-L's cheerful voice from his Office...his Secretary connected him and possibly was eavesdropping too.
And my didi was telling him where to find milk, curd, eggs, rice and asking him if the maid turned up and telling him what a wonderful Bungalow her brother (me) has at KGP and describing all the banana, guava, mango, lemon, kariyapatta, cotton and more trees I had in our God-forsaken garden and the birds, the bees, the flowers and so on....while he must have been telling her how he outwitted his Boss by this nice misleading marginal note...
And my pulse was racing....
Finally she asked:
"Prabhakar! Do you want to talk to your B-i-L?"
"No...no...nooooooo!"
The Bill came to Rs 1000, and post-paid as a cut from my next month's salary.
So, the Rs 1500 I reserved for gifting her a Bangladeshi Jamdani saree got downgraded to Rs 500. And I could only gift her a Tangail Cotton saree...which she liked so much she bought a dozen of them (from her own purse) for her extended family and friends.
And while leaving, she gifted me a princely briefcase (got as Diwali gift for IAS chaps) that I still use...
All's well that ends well...
...Posted by Ishani
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Curiosity
Don't snicker.
The male potbelly is as American as apple pie,
as diverse as our great country (Girth of a Nation?)
and is cultivated with pride by the aficionado.
I have very much enjoyed reading your booklets which you very kindly gave me. To some extent the descriptions of IITKGP equally hold for IITM also.
So, all Campuses share certain features that are not very apparent in city life.
The first one is Curiosity.
Curiosity is good, if it is not aggressively overt. All progress in pure sciences is due to curiosity.
Kids are by nature curious. Here I recall a Reader's Digest joke of the 1960s.
The other day I accompanied my family to the Airport to see off our relatives who were here on a short holiday-jolly-day. And we lingered on a little in the airport after we saw them off. Then I saw a man rushing in with a huge potbelly.
And I touched my own potbelly and felt pleased. For, I have developed a pretty cute one in the past three months for one reason or the other....and people are commenting on it.
The RD joke goes like this:
A middle-aged potbellyed man was peeing against a wall. And found that he was being keenly observed from below by a 3-year-old. And he called and gave the child $1 as a gift for:
"Seeing something I haven't seen for ages"
Women are but children as far as curiosity goes...they never age.
Last year we rented a 3-bedroom flat in a posh NRI Township here housing more than 2500 families. But no one expressed any curiosity about us all those 11 months we stayed there. Except (mildly) this Marwari Lady who was often manning a nearby Uncle-Auntie-Beti provision store. And I was a regular visitor there in my good old Maruti with a sticker on the windshield announcing proudly the name of the Township (for entry and parking reasons). And I was often found by the side of my son in his sedan. And while others were buying in grams I was buying in kilos (we were a family of 5 unlike the average 2.5). And the Auntie behind the counter concluded that we were big-gun owners of that apartment which cost Rs 70,00,000...an amount I can't even dream of. Anyway she gave me special attention till after 11 months I announced one day we were quitting her neighborhood and moving to our own humble flat farther away.
And she felt cheated:
"You never told us you were tenants!"
with a spin on the word 'tenants'.
That is how cities are...curiosities are always there but subdued and inferential.
Not so in the IIT KGP Campus.
Here is an example:
Within a couple of years of my joining there, this gent, about a decade older to me, appeared to be curious about me. One fine morning he couldn't contain himself and asked me:
"Are you a Research Scholar?"
"No"
"M. Tech student?"
"No"
"A Teacher-Trainee?"
"No...I am an Associate Lecturer"
"Why didn't you tell me all these days?"
"You never asked me"
"Then you are a regular faculty...within a few decades you will be a Professor...I am only a clerk in the Accounts Section. All I can hope is to retire as an Assistant Registrar. Where are you living?"
"Faculty Hostel"
"I am coming to you next Sunday"
"Welcome...but is there any specific purpose?"
"Oh, I will bring my niece's photo and horoscope"
"Oh, sorry...I am not in the marriage market for a decade at least"
"Why?"
"Never mind..."
And then after a decade of my joining there, my sister, a decade younger to me passed her M Sc in Physics and was sitting at home at Gudur waiting for the Public Service Commission Teacher Interviews a year away. So I asked her to come over to IIT KGP and do a one-year Post-M Sc Diploma that was then offered with a huge stipend that rose to Rs 400. And she did come over and joined the course. Since she had been staying in the hostel during her M Sc in Tirupati, I thought she would like to stay in the Girls Hostel at KGP. But she declined and asked me to take a Qrs so we can stay together, cook together, and go to college together...for company.
And then I shifted to Qrs C1-97, a huge affair, from my own hostel.
And folks who saw us walking together side by side to the Institute, Tech Market and Club were curious naturally and I could sense it. But they couldn't contain themselves and I had several frontal attacks launched on me. One Professor of Mining, who caught me alone quipped:
"GP! You cheated us by not inviting us to your marriage"
And our Library Assistant, Chanda Babu, whose main avocation was LIC, found us together at the Library Issue Desk and formally congratulated us:
"Made for each other, eh?"
with a cheeky smile.
And so too the wife of an EE Professor in our neighborhood spread the false message far and wide.
I was so embarrassed that I felt like hanging a slate around my neck with the prominent legend:
"She is my SISTER!"
Campus News Network
In the 1960s and 70s IIT KGP Campus was a desolate place...sans telephones, sans eateries, sans transport other than the pushbike.
And everyone was bored and hungry for news of all kinds...useful, useless, salacious and malicious.
Most of the ladies were housewives and since there was neither TV nor much of a radio they had to rely on their neighbors who depended on their neighbors who depended on their neighbors...like the Chinese Whispers.
It was then that news used to get among males who spread it in their departments with the inevitable distortion, amplification and attenuation as the case may be.
A good news-agent needs lots of qualifications. On the other hand there were a few spies who were soon discouraged. For instance, one day I got terribly bored and spent a lot of money buying a National Panasonic Cassette Recorder-Player, one of the many foolish things I did in my long life. The next day, Prof V of our Department accosted me in the corridor and said:
"I know you bought a Panasonic from Midnapore yesterday"
"Yes" (He expected me to ask, "How did you know?" but I didn't give him that pleasure)
"How much did you pay?"
"Rs 1000"
"I got it from Calcutta for Rs 700"
"Good!"
Then on I cold-shouldered him since I didn't like the way he went about it frontally. He lacked the finesse required to become a popular newscaster.
On the other hand, a good 15 years after I joined IIT KGP, Prof R, a youngster a decade younger to me, joined us. And within a year he became immensely popular with students, teachers and the administration. He had a charming smile and a great good helping heart. He had a nice family with three cute kids who were all likable. And naturally, I too liked him.
After a few more years, I discovered that Prof R had a weakness for collecting the Campus News and disseminating it among his large circle of friends. He himself was the nicest person and soon became my collaborator and we got to publish a dozen articles here and there and one fat Lecture Notes as well.
I found his news reliable and harmless. By then I was gradually withdrawing from the Departmental Meetings but needed to know what was going on so that I am prepared for any contingency. So, he used to visit my room after everyone left for lunch and we used to discuss some physics and then adjourn to Harry's for a cup of coffee and gossip before dispersing to our homes.
I asked him once why he takes the trouble every morning at 6 in sun, rain, and cold to walk a couple of kilometers to the Khatal (Buffalo-Farm) to collect his milk, while I always depended on my gowala (milkman) to deliver it at my home...infinitely diluted. And he said that collecting milk was secondary to collecting the overnight news....fresh from the Farm. For, a dozen professors and technical people collected their milk there every morning without fail and exchanged the latest news...all of them part of the core Campus News Network (CNN).
He was also a perennial Warden since that entitled him to a telephone at home.
One evening I was sitting, as usual alone, in the Tech Market on the wooden bench of the Lav-Khush Tea Stall sipping my glass of lemon tea. And Prof DPR of Civil Engg came and sat beside me. He was ten years senior to me and the only interaction we had was a decade ago when he arrived in my room and said his son, Ashok, wanted some help in physics. Otherwise we were strangers.
Prof DPR then told me a propos of nothing that my Friend was high up on the panel for appointment as Deputy Director (DD). I nodded my head and asked him how Ashok was doing and where he was employed.
A few days later, a new DD was appointed who was not my Friend DPR cited. And I kept quiet. After less than a month of this, I got an early morning phone call in our drawing room and when I picked it up, it was Prof R (fresh from the Buffalo Farm) informing me that the newly appointed DD had a massive heart attack and passed away the night before. I was sad and was musing:
"Here today, gone tomorrow, all flesh is as grass"
And then I knew that Prof R didn't know what I knew from DPR...obviously.
In a few minutes my wife walked up to me from her kitchen and asked:
"What was that phone call about?"
"My Friend is becoming DD"
Some time later early one morning, my wife told me that Prof X's house was burgled last night. And I wanted to give Prof R a surprise and called him and told him:
"Prof X's house was burgled last night"
"Is it? None of us in the Buffalo-Farm knew it!"
Later in the day, while Prof R and I were sipping coffee at Harry's, Prof X joined us and told me:
"My house was burgled last night...of course we lost nothing much"
"Yes, I know"
"Who told you? Prof R?"
"No, it was I who told him"
"Then, who told you?"
"Guess again!"
"I give up"
"My wife"
"How did she get to know?
"By the Maid Servants Internet (MSI)"
Campus Telephony
When I joined IIT KGP in 1965, telephones were as rare as lady students...you could count them on the fingers of your hands and toes on your feet.
We did visit a curiosity called the Manual Telephone Exchange which was housed in what turned into the site of the mammoth Kendriya Vidyalaya. And we had glimpses of a cute system like this:
Like that British Army Officer who had gout and was advised by his doctor to drink donkey's milk; and he ordered his peon to fetch a 'gadha'; and was angry when his peon fetched one; and scolded him:
"Mera jaisa gadha nahin...memsahib jaisa gadha lao"
("Not a donkey like me but fetch a donkey like my wife")
Only the Director and HoD's had telephones like this in their Offices:
You push your forefinger and rotate clockwise for "343" (the only number that works). You do the fingering once and nothing happens except a beep-beep-beep sound. And you try again and again and again and finally if you are lucky you hear his gruff voice:
"Number boloon?"
None of the twenty or so telephones except the one in the Director's Office had the facility of trunk-dialing for long-distance. The rest were Campus.
By and by the telephone exchange was shifted to its own building when it was upgraded to what was called a Strowger facilty. The difference was that now the Senior Professors also had free telephones in their offices but strictly Campus; and they could dial other 3-digit numbers too and eliminate the operator's nuisance. And the forty or so Senior Professors were toying with them like their birthday gifts and were enamored.
My Guide SDM got so few gossip calls that he was waiting and waiting for the instrument to ring; and when it did ring...ultimately....it was a wrong number...
Once I visited his Room and asked him to tell me the name of a good book which gives the Heisenberg Inequalities for the EM Fields. He jumped up and said:
"Look up Heitler's Quantum Theory of Radiation. There is only one copy in the Library and it is in the Reserved Section"
"Thank you, sir!"
"No, no, don't go away...after you find that book, you go to the Librarian's Room. Although he is not a Senior Professor like me, they have given him a telephone. You ask him to dial my number 232 and tell me in his presence if you could find it in that book. Understand!"
"Yes, sir!"
So, I had to wait outside the Librarian's Room till he returned from his tea-break, and beseech him. And he scowled:
"Whom do you want to talk to?"
"Prof SDM of the Phy Dept"
"But his room is only one minute walk from here...why were you waiting half an hour for me?"
"He asked me to..."
A few weeks later, SDM rushed into my room excitedly and announced that Prof KGC of the ME Dept rang him up and asked me to return the worm gear I had borrowed long ago from him immediately. I replied that I have no more use for it now that I have abandoned my Experimental Research and assured him:
"I am going at once to him with his (lousy) worm gear"
"No, no, no, no...you come to my room along with me and talk to him...he is waiting for you on the line"
So, that was how prestigious telephones were.
Much water flowed by 1989 by when I became a Professor myself and our Exchange was upgraded to Digital and I had a piece installed in my office as well as home...but still strictly Campus (for my wife to talk to her neighbor about how to make idlis). No long-distance except for incoming calls through the Operator...the same old guy.
And my didi arrived for a fortnight's holiday at KGP from Delhi along with her school-going son. My IAS B-i-L launched her on the Neelachal Express and, for all I know, forgot about her ;)
It was summer vacation and I received her at the Station and kept company with her. As soon as she finished her ablutions and breakfast, she said:
"I want to call my husband and tell him that we arrived safe"
"I will give him an Express Telegram"
"NO, I want to ring him up from your phone"
"Sorry, my phone doesn't have outgoing long distance facility"
"Then take me to the nearest Exchange"
So, I had to carry her on my scooter to our IIT Exchange in its new building and ask the operator to connect the Delhi Number. And my didi said:
"Lightning Call please!"
It was 10 O'clock in the morning and I knew that the Lightning Tariff in Prime Time would burn a sizable hole in my pocket. But, I don't blame my didi...my B-i-L had opted for Free Telephone at home rather than Free Transport and so she was never aware of the four or five slabs...after 7 PM, after 9 PM, after 11 PM or worse...
So, I was a mute spectator and the Operator was so impressed...he never knew there was something like a Lightning Call...
And I could hear my B-i-L's cheerful voice from his Office...his Secretary connected him and possibly was eavesdropping too.
And my didi was telling him where to find milk, curd, eggs, rice and asking him if the maid turned up and telling him what a wonderful Bungalow her brother (me) has at KGP and describing all the banana, guava, mango, lemon, kariyapatta, cotton and more trees I had in our God-forsaken garden and the birds, the bees, the flowers and so on....while he must have been telling her how he outwitted his Boss by this nice misleading marginal note...
And my pulse was racing....
Finally she asked:
"Prabhakar! Do you want to talk to your B-i-L?"
"No...no...nooooooo!"
The Bill came to Rs 1000, and post-paid as a cut from my next month's salary.
So, the Rs 1500 I reserved for gifting her a Bangladeshi Jamdani saree got downgraded to Rs 500. And I could only gift her a Tangail Cotton saree...which she liked so much she bought a dozen of them (from her own purse) for her extended family and friends.
And while leaving, she gifted me a princely briefcase (got as Diwali gift for IAS chaps) that I still use...
All's well that ends well...
...Posted by Ishani
***************************************************************************************************************************
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