The Greek Alphabet

 

It was 1980. I had just joined Systronics, a company of the Sarabhai group of Industries, as a rookie sales and service engineer in their Bombay (It was still called so then) offices. The company now seems to have only analytical instruments in its product range. In those days it had a Test and Measuring (T&M) instruments division (multimeters, function generators, pulse generators, frequency counters timers, oscilloscopes) too. Apart from these it had an agency division selling high end centrifuges, chromatographs, and so on and also Sony professional and semi-professional video equipment. Before joining Systronics, I had had one and half years of experience which was totally worthless. At Systronics I learned a lot about T&M instruments, became adept at their use and also fell in love with oscilloscopes – the queen of analog instruments, which has now gone completely digital!

I told you all this only to tell you that I was unsure of everything having gone from the small city of Mysore to Ranchi for my first job and then had jumped into this mega city. At the office I had talked only to a few colleagues from the T&M – Abhyankar, Sakhalkar are two names I remember. I was also very shy and since I had to learn a lot I read all the manuals and worked with the instruments in the lab to get to know them.

One day, one of the typists in the office went around giving invitations to her wedding to all the colleagues. I had never talked to her and did not know her name either. I did not expect her to invite me but to my surprise, she came to my desk. I stood up. She handed over a cover and invited me too. Without even looking at the card I said, “I am sorry, I don’t even know your name”. She smiled a friendly smile and said “I am Alpha Gamma”.

I thought that this big city girl was pulling my leg having found a small town simpleton to have some fun at his expense. I guess I blushed. To call her bluff, I took out the invitation card from the cover and took a peek at it.

Her name was Alpha Gama