On his birthday and Gadea Batea, guests of his age invited at dinner were led to an adjacent room before dinner to serve them with a drink of country liquor in a ‘Kenzie-khoues’ (Alloy cup with stand to hold). The turbaned guests in pashmina ‘pheran’ used to stretch the narrow and long sleeve of the pheran to hold the cup. Early sixties, the country liquor was @ eight annas/quarter. To discourage consumption of liquor, the government used to hike the price annually by two annas.
1960, I was preparing for my final degree examination with A course & B course Mathematics known as Double course Mathematics as two of my four subjects. One evening, my father an employee of the excise department gave me a statement to total its columns. Each column had 30 entries and the figures in the column were repetition of the figures, 1, 1/2 and 1/4. Hours together and I was still on the job without the final result and submission of the statement. Surprised, sarcastically my father addressed me “Oh Double Course student, what are you doing? Why a job of seconds has taken you so much of time?” I said: “For addition of fractions one has to find LCM of the denominators first.” To my surprise, he scrolled each column within no time to arrive at the correct result. He said, while scrolling read 4 for 1; 2 for 1/2 and 1 for 1/4. 1+1/2+1/4= (4+2+1)/4= 7/4. 1 was for one bottle of liquor, 1/2 was for a half bottle and 1/4 was for a quarter.
1963 after post-graduation, my friend J L Pandita retired DIG, joined as UDC at AG’s office. His academic record was meritorious. While the seniors were dressed in old ut and old fashioned garments with head gear a turban, the handsome Pandita was dressed in a blue blazer coat with colour reading College proctor. Necktie added to the grace of his youth. After passing DCT (Departmental confirmatory test) he was posted in the Book section, where he had to total columns of statements. The young, handsome and meritorious Pandita could not do the job in hours that the seniors finished in minutes. While scrolling, the seniors, simultaneously used to recite “Ramea lagaie chanie leelaiay- Ramea lagaie chanie leelaiay” and give tick marks intermittently. Sarcastically, looking over their spectacles, to tease Pandita, they would say: “Pandita Sabh, are you really a first class graduate with Double Course and MA pass. In real life experience matters more than LCM and academic qualification.
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