When it debuted in 1957, India’s 1-(naya)paisa was the smallest sub-unit in its newly decimalized rupee, and I wonder, when this little 1972 paisa entered commercial channels, if the linguistic usage reported by letter-writer Hurmuz Kaus in 1965 was still current: “In spite of using Decimal coinage since a decade [sic] there are thousands and thousands of people—both literates and illiterates—who think and act in terms of Rs., As., and Ps...If a Physician is asked as to how much improvement there has been in the condition of his patient, he replies, ‘about four Annas in the Rupee,’ in other words about 25 per cent. If an Engineer is asked as to how much work has been carried out...he replies, ‘about eight Annas in the Rupee,’ in other words about 50 per cent. And so things go on in different runs of life, in terms of” Rupees, Annas, and Pies.
I wonder if the intervening half-century has extinguished the usage?
v.