form of addressing

I was watching Anniyan movie again when it was telecast last month in sun tv... there was a scene in which Vikram complains about the food quality in the train... one thing i found interesting was that when vikram is talking to the guy passing out the food, he used the familiar form of addressing saying "ennaiya saapadu ithu?"... but when he talked with the train ttr officer, he uses the respectable form of addressing asking "ithellam check panna maateengala?"... the ttr guy is probably older, i admit, but even the worker seemed a little old, he was bald... vikram in the movie is probably in his 20s... so the worker should be older than him...

in many cases, formal addressing is used for people based on their position and not their age... this is especially true for servants in the household... i am not saying people should address their servants with "neenga", "vaanga", "ponga" because it does seem a little weird... but if it was me personally, i would probably use the formal addressing even for servants unless they were people whom i knew really well or if i didn't really respect them...

one movie that this topic comes up in is kadhal kottai... when ajith addresses the auto-driver with sir or something like that, the auto-driver says "auto-driver-a sir pottu kupta muthal aalu neenga thaan"...

i guess i noticed this because a similar topic arose with a friend, whether we should use the formal way of addressing or not...