Greetings Telegram 19

When I was young, and it was a long, long time ago, one used to send greeting messages by telegrams. You do remember telegrams, dont you? There used to be a list of standard phrases for the greeting telegrams, each given a code or a number. For example the code for the message "A Happy New Year to You" was '4'. So instead of sending the message which consisted of 6 words one could send the same message by writing '4' as the message and specifying the category of telegram as 'Greetings'. This way one was charged only for one word, of course the words for the adressee and the sender being extra.

Comiing to today- the Republic Day, the standard message was "Sincere greetings for the Republic Day. Long live the Republic" and its code was '19'.

So may I say Greetings telegram-19 to you all!

PS....Though I have used the past tense in the narrative, I understand that this facility is still available accross tthe post offices in the country, albeit rearely used.

Gandhian Anna Hazare will give a slap on the face....

Dont you vote for a corrupt person, or else...

Or else, what?

'Gandhian' Anna Hazare will give you a slap on the face...