Deadly Endearments

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Had a hectic but pleasant day. 

My younger sister, V, a good decade younger to me, the one who studied at IIT KGP during 1974-75 for her post-graduate diploma in Industrial Physics, and her husband bought a villa at the other end of Hyderabad and today they were celebrating the house-warming ceremony. And we were invited.

The road map they had given would have entailed a 2-hour drive in hectic city traffic covering a distance of about 60 km each way on two legs of a right handed triangle.

But my son found using Google Maps that a hypotenuse exists and it is just 47 km and all of it on a well-maintained state highway with little Sunday traffic. 

So, it took slightly more than hour's comfortable tension-free drive.

Hats off to Google Maps!
 
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The other evening I called Professor S. H. Rao's home in Hyderabad wanting to speak to him and his Mrs, after about a year. Prof SHR, a decade older to me, had retired after working at IIT KGP for 40 years (like me) and settled in Hyderabad. He had the biggest home library at IIT KGP which he shifted lock, stock, and barrel to Hyderabad. A born book-lover and Chairman of the Central Library at IIT KGP.

As expected, Prof Rao was busy reading and his Mrs lifted the phone. They were our back-yard neighbors at KGP, and my wife and Mrs Rao used to swap my infant son over the common fence. They are distantly related to my wife. And were intimate friends.

The moment I announced my name, Mrs Rao said:

"I was just re-reading one of the Ishani booklets when your call came...telepathy"

For folks like us who spent all their lives in the KGP campus, the Ishani booklets are heavily nostalgic and filled with auld lang syne senti.

Anyway, telepathy or not...it was a proud moment for me...the Achilles' Heel of every 'author'  ;)

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There is a district called East Godavary District in AP with its erstwhile capital at Rajahmundry, a historic town on the banks of the broad river Godavary just before it merges with the Bay of Bengal. The town dates back to a thousand years at least and was the cradle of the Telugu language and literature. Also home to Vedic scholars, schools, and Sanskrit literature.  

But it has a unique feature:

People who are born and brought up there, particularly of the Brahmin high caste, hurl mouthfuls of curses at each other. And all of them have to do with death or disaster.

Now, many languages, say, Punjabi have unbeatable and juicy curses of the vilest lineage.

But the specialty of Godavary District is that often these curses are used between close friends and relatives, siblings and family members, when one of them does or says something spectacular or extra-smart.

And they are used almost as endearments. I don't know if such a practice exists in any other language.

Here are some samples:

1. "Nee munda moyya" ("May you get tonsured like a widow")

2. "Ninnu tagaleyya" ("May you be cremated forthwith")

3. "Nee paade katta" ("May you be tied to your bier")

4. "Nee thadu tega" ("May your mangalasutra snap...may you be widowed")

5. "Nee dumpa tega" ("May the bag of your balls snap")

6. "Nee paasu kala" ("May your tract burn")

and so on and so forth...each oath followed by an embrace...queer!

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Howdy?

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In our School Final, my Father taught us the correct way of responding to one to whom we were introduced:

"How are you, Sir?"

"I am well; how are you?"

We were quite happy with it since we knew the different meanings of 'well'; although it took me 50 more years and a stay in Hyderabad to discover that 'well' has a noun-form (that my Father didn't know for sure). It is called:

"Wellness" 

and I learned it in its use in Health Farms, Country Homes and Spas. At first when I heard it I was much amused since it recalled Alice's:

"much of a muchness"

When I went to KGP, my US-returned seniors told me that the right American response was:

"I am fine, thank you! How are you?"

Fine is fine, although PGW uses the pun in the courts of law:

"That's all, Your Honor!"

"Fine!"

"Thank you, Your Honor!"

"Nothing to thank me for;...$50"

Nowadays I am told 'fine' isn't fine anymore and the mod answer is:

"I am doing good!"

although it is left to our wild imagination whom he is doing good to...the inveterate do-gooder.

'Good' always intrigued me since I read in my RS Days at AU in a book:

"Spin is a good quantum number in hyperfine interactions"

I never could guess what it meant and why spin is good and others bad. It took me twenty years to figure it out when I started teaching QM at IIT KGP from Mathews and Venkatesan who say, in a footnote, that 'good' here is as in:

"He left India for good"

meaning 'forever'. Good quantum numbers are supposed to be those of conserved dynamical variables commuting with the Hamiltonian...their expectation values stay good during the interaction (?)

In between, the day I joined my University at Vizagh, I was told by my seniors that when introduced I have to say:

"How do you do?"

and not expect the answer:

"Oh, well, I had two loose motions this morning"

On the other hand the other chap has to respond by the counter-question:

"How do you do?"

This always recalled the gag:

"Why do you answer every question of mine with another question?"

"Why not?"

We now come to letter-writing during our school days in Telugu on a post card on which space was limited. The rigorous way was to start like:

"Dear Father:

I am safe here. I hope all are safe there..."

and then come to the brass tacks. But busy people used to cut short the pourparlers of safe-safe and just say:

"Ubhayakushalopari Taruvata"

meaning:

"After the safe-safe gag.."

It got even shortened to:

"U-T"

Typically it went like this on the post card:

"Dear Father:

U-T

Send by urgent express telegram Rs. 100. The last day for paying the exam fess is next Monday...."

The chap however is silent that he spent the Rs.100 already sent for this purpose last week by M.O. on eating masala dosas and drinking Espresso Coffee and smoking Charminar cigarettes and watching Sangam three consecutive nights in Leela Mahal.

We then come to the telephone protocol. I always thought that one should start off:

"Hello! Hello Hello!! Hello Hello Hello!!!"

till I accompanied my friend V to Cal in 1967 when he was about to leave for the US on a Fulbright Travel Grant. He took me to what he called his Travel Agent in Park Street by the high-sounding name: Trade Wings (it is still there).

I thought it would be a big hall like the Reserve Bank of India which was our earlier halt. But I was astounded to find that it was just a cubicle like the ones in Central Library at IIT KGP. There was only one chubby chap sitting in a revolving chair in front of a table that had three telephones of the Alexander Graham Bell vintage and a world map with airline tracks on it.

Then a phone rang and he picked it up in style and barked:

"Sinha"

That's it...no hellos...I was terribly impressed. But it took three more decades for me to get a telephone on my office desk. By then I had my standard reposte for all incoming calls:

"Boloon!"

That always worked.

When my son was in Boston about 4 years back, he wanted to meet up with Edwin Taylor who had sent him gift-books when he was a kid two decades ago. Apparently he picked up the telephone and called Edwin's number and said:

"Hm...Could I speak to Edwin Taylor?"

"This is he!"

During our boyhood and youth (maybe even now) the Posts & Telegraphs Department had a public convenience called Greetings Telegrams with code numbers like:

"6" for "Hearty Congratulations on the new arrival!" 

The idea was that you pay only for one word "6" and get a 6-word message through. Of course you have to instruct the man behind the counter that it is a Greetings Telegram; in which case will write GTGS in the appropriate space and send "6". The receiving clerk, if he were awake fully would decode the "6" and write the appropriate greetings message in full. Most often, however, your recipient would only get: "6" and has to make a trip to the Post Office to decode it by looking at the chart hanging there.

In 1957 my cousin (sister) got married at Nellore and her eldest brother at Madras wanted to give her a surprise. He posted a couple of wedding cards, one to the Prime Minister of India (Nehru), and the other to the President of India (Rajendra Prasad).  

And lo and behold, on the morning of the wedding day, there were two fabulous Greetings Telegrams addressed to my cousin and enclosed in two equally fabulous  Greetings Envelops delivered by hand by the Head Postman of Nellore, one from the prime Minister and the other from the President of India. There was a sensation in the marriage pandal and my cousin kept the telegrams in her purse for years together...not knowing of course that the sender was some Nair or Pillai, the concerned junior-under-secreatry-in-charge-of-greetings.

Here is a complete list of codes, in case you want to use them by India Telegrams...I get a kick just reading them:
 

TELEGRAM GREETING CODES

GREETING CODE NUMBER ARE GIVEN IN BRACKET

1. Kind Remembrances and all Good Wishes for the Independence Day (18)
2. Sincere Greetings for the Republic Day Long Live the Republic (19)

FESTIVAL

1. Heartiest Diwali Greetings (1)
2. Id Mubarak (2)
3. Heartiest Bijoya Greetings (3)
4. A Merry Christmas to you (9)
5. My Heartiest Holi Greetings to you (20)
6. Heartiest Pongal Greetings (26)
7. Heartiest Gur Purb Greetings (27)
8. Heartiest Onam Greetings (29)
9. Heartiest Ugadi Greetings (33)
10. Wish you a Happy Bihu (35)
11. A Happy Easter (36)
12. Heartiest Greetings on Buddha Jayanti (37)
13. Heartiest Guru Ravidas Purnima Greetings (39)

SPECIAL OCCASIONS

1. A Happy New Year To You (4)
2. Many Happy returns of the day (5)
3. Hearty Congratulations on the new Arrival (6)
4. Greetings on the occasion of Parvushan-a day of universal forgiveness (28)
5. Heartiest Congratulations on Greh Pravesh (38)

WEDDING

1. Best Wishes for a long and Happy married life (8)
2. May Heaven’s Choicest Blessings be showered on the young couple (16)
3. Wish you both a happy and prosperous wedded life (17)
4. Convey our blessings to the newly married couple (25)
5. Best Wishes on your wedding anniversary (30)

GENERAL

1. Congratulations on the Distinction conferred on you (7)
2. Hearty Congratulations on your success in the Examination (10)
3. Best Wishes for a safe and pleasant journey (11)
4. Many Thanks for your good wishes which i/we Reciprocate Most Heartily (13)
5. Congratulations (14)
6. Loving Greetings (15)
7. Wishing the function every success (21)
8. Many thanks for your kind message of Greetings (22)
9. Best Wishes for your successes in the examination (23)
10. Wish you a happy retired life (31)
11. Wish you a speedy recovery (32)
12. Congratulations on your victory (34)

 

 http://rourkela.com/2010/06/greetings-telegram/

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Animosity

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 Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad, Friday 26 October 2012

 Front Page News Item:

'ANIMAL SON' GETS LIFER FOR RAPING MOM

DC CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI, OCT, 25

A youth, who was acquitted by a city court for the offence of murdering his father and had raped his mother following his release from jail, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a city court after observing that he tried to "obliterate the line between a man and an animal".

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) XXX, while awarding life imprisonment to YYY, said he doesn't deserve leniency as the offence committed by the convict is the "gravest immoral act" any human being can commit.

"Abominable offence committed by the accused (YYY) is the gravest immoral act and accused deserves no leniency as he has tried to obliterate the line between a man and an animal," the judge said.

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 Dear Sir:

This is with reference to the front page news item quoted above from your esteemed newspaper.

The news item is utterly revolting and I am astounded, agitated, flummoxed, bowled, confused and dumbfounded by the above-quoted pronouncement of the said judge XXX in his references to the animal kingdom.

Murder and rape (of the single, serial, and mass variety) are virtues of the human kingdom along with such other trivia as corruption, money-laundering, intrigue, double-dealing and democracy.

They are unknown to the animal kingdom:

 

  http://tailgate365.com/2011/09/movie-review-disney-brings-the-fantastic-lion-king-3d-to-a-new-generation/ 

To the best of my knowledge, there has been no recorded instance of a judge in the animal kingdom (ZZZ)  obtusely convicting an animal (any animal, say, AAA) for murdering father and raping mother and for trying to obliterate the line between an animal and man.

Killing and mating are very much there in the animal kingdom...but they are quick, kind and needful....but not murder and rape.

I am sure your learned Correspondent has either misquoted the honorable judge (XXX) or quoted him out of context or the printer was in a hurry and made some copy-paste error.

In which case please trash this letter...which anyway will never see the light of the DC LTTE.

Regards

gps


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