Summary: पिन्कोड्-प्रवर्तकः, महान् संस्कृतज्ञः
Ameya is going to the post box to send a letter to his uncle in Bengaluru. Gaurav wonders how a Kannada-reading postman will read an address written in Devanagari. Ameya points to the number at the end: the PIN code. Gaurav adds that PIN codes are needed for online shopping and for finding ATMs, hospitals and other services in an area.
PIN = Postal Index Number, a six-digit place code written at the end of the address. It was given to the nation by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at the Independence Day celebration of 1972.
Its creator was श्रीराम भिकाजी वेलणकर, a postal officer, Sanskrit scholar and mathematician. While working as a director of the postal department in Kolkata, he met a sad Kerala soldier who had had no news about his parents, because a letter from Kerala to Arunachal Pradesh sometimes took more than a month.
Bad handwriting, many regional languages and incomplete addresses slowed letters down. Using mathematics, Velankar divided the country into eight zones and numbered their sub-divisions district by district — that is why letters reach us quickly even today.
He loved discipline and music, played the violin and tabla, wrote a Sanskrit treatise on music, 'गीतगीर्वाणम्', and many stories, songs, children's songs and dance-dramas. Playwriting was his favourite; he did everything himself, so he was called 'सबकुछ श्रीभिः'.
Key points to remember
- पिन्कोड् = PIN — Postal Index Number, six digits
- Launched in August 1972 by PM Indira Gandhi on Independence Day
- Inventor: श्रीराम भिकाजी वेलणकर — postal officer, mathematician, Sanskrit scholar
- Trigger: a Kerala soldier waiting a month for news from home
- Problems: दुर्बोधं हस्ताक्षरम्, भिन्नाः प्रान्तीयाः भाषाः, अपूर्णः पत्रसङ्केतः
- Solution: India divided into 8 zones (अष्ट विभागाः), then sub-divisions by district
- PIN is also needed for online shopping (सद्यस्क-क्रयणम्) and to find ATMs, hospitals
- Velankar: violin and tabla player; wrote 'गीतगीर्वाणम्' (music treatise in Sanskrit)
- Favourite literary form: नाट्यलेखनम्; nickname 'सबकुछ श्रीभिः'
- Over a hundred Sanskrit works — plays, poems, songs, dance-dramas, palindrome poems
