How would such an indirect hint work?
For a better understanding of the issue, I am pleased to introduce a favorite of mine, Guldjemal by name, a daughter of my neighbor couple Takhir and Djemile with whom we are long-time friends. Formerly, she often used to forget to say “salam” or even did not notice a somewhat gloomy neighbor while running across nearby due to a girlish absent-mindedness. A teen is a teen, especially a shy girl. Whether she was too much concentrated on her inward thoughts or had been absent-minded, the result was the same: she just missed greeting an old (in both senses, direct and figurative) acquaintance.
That is why one day I stopped her, as she was hurrying by, stretching both hands out for a handshake and firing rapid questions: “Salam aleykum! How are you, how is your father? Are your kids in good health? What’s about cattle?”.
Here I should hasten to shake away some possible bewilderment of a reader: why did I ask such a row of questions? I will explain further about this special greeting style called “Anyrsyny byarisini sorap salam bermek” (“to greet by cross-questioning”).
Good for her, Guldjemal learned the lesson momentarily, at once and forever – over a decade that passed since this brief interaction, she never missed to let me hear her tender voice “Salam, Gochmyrat-aga[8]!” during every next meeting.
Naturally, that is a matter of good breeding by one’s parents and there would be a space for an opposite illustration when the method was not effective at all. When about at the same time I tried the trick on my own nephew, the only reaction that I could get from him was a lopsided smile for a beginning and nothing further.
“Let you not be tired…» (or while working)
A different form of a greeting is used depending on situation.
The following case is kept in the depths of my memory in bright colors since my serene childhood, for a few decades already. Then, I was seriously confused and embarrassed by my own lack of knowledge of the elementary politeness. On the other hand, what else would be expected from a town lad, who has encountered such a form of a greeting for the first time in his life?
In addition, one should know that this greeting could vary according to a real situation.
My father was born in a tiny village Sandy-Kachi of the Mary Velayat, Turkmenistan. He has left the place to study in an agricultural college and did not come back, moving from one job place to another wherever a veterinarian should be sent by the state administration. My uncle, his older and the only brother, continued to live there for a long time, till end of 90s. For me, a teenager, spending vacations there it was like a journey to a wonderland – the Murgab River, surrounding hills, sheep grazing, and the formerly famous fruit gardens.