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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:
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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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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