Mumbai Meri Jaan....

But for a brief visit to IIT, Powai at Mumbai, soon after completing college at REC Trichy, I did not know much about this city. All fantasies and memories of this great city was through Hindi movies and I particularly remember Johnny Walker's song & dance in the 1956 yesteryear hit movie "CID" - Yeh hai Bombay Meri Jaan....!! Incidentally, Johnny Walker (nee Badruddhin J Kazi) was a bus conductor in BEST, Mumbai and was spotted by the great actor of Waqt fame: Balraj Sahani, who then recommended him to Guru Dutt. Johnny Walker went on to entertain people in over 300 movies.

I wasn't able to get a seat in an MTech program at IIT, Powai, but was offered a seat to carry out research in the Chemical Engineering Dept. as an Asst. Research Associate - it did not sound exciting and I politely declined. Eventually I went on to join Graphite Industries Ltd. at their Bangalore unit, which I had been offered through a campus selection program. GIL manufactures Graphite electrodes for melting iron & steel scrap in Electric Arc Furnaces. Calcined Petroleum Coke (CPC), the raw material for manufacturing these electrodes is a waste product from the petroleum refineries - solid carbon remnants after extraction of various grades of oil from crude petroleum. This was my first exposure to an industry and so was my tryst with pollution control equipments in this factory.

On my 23rd Year and on the 23rd of April 1982, I left for Mumbai from Bangalore and joined Batliboi Ltd. in their Air Pollution Control Division, hoping to make a career out of cleaning polluted air. We were a batch of 16 trainees and after the initial orientation in the Head Office at Mumbai, we were packed off to Udhana, a suburban extension of the diamond & textile city of Surat. Although the word 'attrition' was unknown those days in the industry, Batliboi took extra care to induct their Graduate Engineer Trainees under the supervision of a very experienced and retired trainer. Any 25 year old young engineer would have paled in front of this energetic septuagenarian. His energy levels and worldly knowledge was absolutely amazing!!

The training and induction program was spread across 3 full months and included all aspects as was necessary to make us complete and whole human beings. We brushed our 5 years of engineering in the relevant fields required by this industry, learnt a great deal on written and spoken communication skills, besides getting sound advice on everything that would make us good human beings first. The experience was refreshing and wholesome, and my only regret was that I lost 3 of the 14 weeks program. Surat used to be a notoriously filthy city in the state of Gujarat, known for breeding and spreading all kinds of diseases. I was forced to return home to Durgapur to recuperate from a severe bout of jaundice.

Unlike my other colleagues, who went back to their home cities post the training, I was the odd one detained at Mumbai, since the Pollution Control Division operated only out of Head Quarters in Mumbai. It was a bit of a shocker as I had fancied myself returning to Bangalore. It was a double whammy of sorts, as I had to move out of the company provided accommodation to something of my own, as well. With help from my father's batch-mates and friends at Durgapur Steel Plant, I was able to find myself a shared accommodation at a place called Laxmi Nivas in Matunga. An exotic name of the Indian Goddess of Wealth given to a 4 storied chawl having 15 to 20 rooms in each floor. The then booming cotton mills in Mumbai attracted people from far and distant Indian states and these chawls served as a low cost abode for families. More fashionably known as studio apartments now, this kind of building construction is pretty common in Dubai as well, the only difference in luxury being common vs private washrooms. People living in chawls have little or no privacy, but the proximity of rooms lends a friendly atmosphere with support networks similar to familial relationships. This urban landmark has been glamorized in Bollywood movies like Katha, Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman, Chakra, Nukkad etc. The most significant contribution of these chawls has been the encouragement of a culture of tolerance amongst the various ethnic groups and people from different religious backgrounds.

Honestly, there would no wars or strife's if people across the planet saw the world as their Nukkad!! So much has been spoken and written about Obama bending backwards, while bending forwards to bow as a mark of greeting and respect when he recently visited some Asian countries. Why on earth would that be considered a weakness!! From his position of strength as the first person of the worlds strongest and most resilient democracy, the humbleness with which he is addressing vexed issues, made complex by the short sightedness of a group of stray human beings, is extremely commendable. Barriers break when we talk with humility!! Hopefully, the ideals of our very own Father of the Nation - Mahatma Gandhi, will be President Obama's guiding light and bring him the elusive success, we the ordinary mortals living in every nook and corner of this world deserve as a fundamental right - the freedom to lead a peaceful life of co-existence.

Back to my Matunga days, this was also the time I started visiting the Kannada Association and enrolled myself as a tabalchi. I had learnt to play this Indian percussion instrument during my school days upon the insistence of my father. I never guessed how useful this fine art would turn out to be when I was grudgingly attending the weekly classes conducted by the "School of Music" at Durgapur. By playing a musical instrument or being a percussionist, one could become an instant success in college cultural festivals and get catapulted to instant fame!! It had the same magical effect in Kannada Association; we formed a small troupe and this ensemble would end up giving 30 minute capsule programs on all the festivals. We also landed ourselves a chance to record a 15 minute capsule program for Bombay 'B' services of All India Radio. The recording was later broadcast on a late Sunday afternoon. For once, we could call ourselves as Radio artists.

Another good thing about this Association was the arrangement to run a canteen at a no profit, no loss basis. The food was tasty, suiting the taste bud and the wallet. Quite a few of us bachelors would gather every evening, spend time at the well stocked library, mingle amongst familiar faces, have a nice sumptuous meal and head home. It had become a routine of sorts.

The suburban trains are the lifeline in Mumbai. The Central and Western railway networks are perhaps comparable to the main arteries in a human body. The entire city can come to a grinding halt if these two networks suspend operations for whatever the reason. So extensive are the routes and its usage that it is shut down for track maintenance work only for 3 hours in a 24 hour cycle. Only the taxi operators exceed this by making themselves available 24/7/365 days. My memories of using the services of taxi in Mumbai has always been pleasant. First, they would never refuse to accept a passenger, no matter how near or how far the destination. Second, they would go strictly by the meter. Their meters were quaint and ancient with steps of 10 paisa. The local corporation would determine what would be the multiplication factor based on the prevailing fuel costs. Although, each of the cabs carried a chart with an old vs new rate, it wasn't really necessary as the calculation was simple. The beauty of the system was no cab driver asked for an extra buck even if the travel was at an unearthly hour, when typically the suburban trains would come to a brief 3-hours halt. Though this rule did not apply to the passengers boarding a cab at the International airport, by and large there were little or no issues with transportation at any point of the day or night. Salaam to our Mumbai Taxiwala's!!

We were in for a major surprise....sometime between October and December of circa 1982. We suddenly faced a complete power black-out in Mumbai and its suburbs. We eventually understood that the state of Gujarat had overdrawn from its assigned quota of power on a particular day from the Western Grid and this led to a drop in the frequency of power - beyond the specified variation of +/- 2.5 Hz. Once it falls below the allowable range, the power plants automatically shut down to save itself from extreme damage. One of them shutting down has a cascading effect on all the other power generating stations. Within matter of minutes all the power stations came to a grinding halt.

With roughly 8 to 15% of the power generated in a Thermal Power Plant being consumed for running its own equipments; to re-start, these thermal power stations need external power to kick them into action. It is then left to Hydel stations to supply the starting power. With power from Tata's Khopoli Hydel Station (last of the 6, 12 MW generators was commissioned in circa 1911), the thermal power stations were brought back to life one after the other and power was restored eventually to Bombay and its suburbs between 12 and 24 hours.

With no suburban trains, the buses and taxis were bursting at their seams. Mumbaikars, with their large hearts decided to take this in their stride...and walk they did to home sweet home. Matunga for me was just 15 KM's from the Fort area where our office was located. It was a cake walk compared to the other folks who must have trudged 30 odd KM's to reach home. No one was complaining...the next morning we had all the people reporting into work. Trains were back on their tracks, as power was back on its lines.

We should shower praise on Mumbaikars on their professional and clinical approach to issues. Out here, people look for opportunities to bring everything to its original state of equilibrium. The city is a perfect picture of an organized chaos. A newcomer may wonder how things ever move at this place...one may wonder how could anyone get into the already overcrowded train...Well! It is a matter of positioning, you see!! One needs to plonk oneself in the sea of humanity that is waiting to get inside a local train and that's it. Although the halt is brief for 20 or 30 seconds at each station, the positioning finally matters. One of life's most important lessons is taught in a train ride: Ride with the wave and not against and you will be at peace with yourself.

We have completed one year of freedom from the dozen odd terrorists that stormed this wonderful city. After loosing a near and dear one, it is absolutely incorrect to say that the pain will go away with time...the scar remains forever like an indelible ink. Perhaps, the pain just becomes dull by getting spaced apart in time. People have to get back to their routine and restore their equilibrium and try and pick up the threads of their life once again. Like the lifeline suburban trains of the city, after the brief halt at a station, one needs to re-start and pick-up speed to do a catch-up.

And, that is Mumbai, Meri Jaan!!

Salaam Mumbai!!

Emails...

When Keith Ferrazzi, Writer/Author of 'Never Eat Alone' and Who's Got Your Back' repute says emails are an opportunity to strengthen relationships, I would seriously urge people to give this a very serious thought.

Honestly, how many times have we sent or received a curt one-liner without a formal address and a signature line and compared such email communication to that written in a more formal tone and diction? Which do you think made a more positive and lasting impact? We would be doing injustice to ourselves if we, under the guise of being busy and perennially short of time accept that one-liner or brief messages creates a deeper impact.

I for one, would surely be faulted for writing elaborate emails with a formal beginning and an end, besides the mid-portion text containing the detailed explanation. My supposedly brief and to-the-point notes sent through "Short Message Service" or SMS, also tends to be very verbose and long. For sure, the telecom service providers must be thrilled at my 'not-so-short' messages that more often than not, reaches its maximum character limit, impacting their revenues in a positive sense.

Just a decade back, when I started work in the BPO industry, I copied the email form, written and practiced by clients. There would be no pleasantries and the messages would start and stop abruptly. This was a complete departure from what was followed internally. The client was not complaining and as long as my emails with the client did not get shared or copied internally, I was on a roll.

This caught notice of one fire-brand HR folk and I got a dressing down. I was caught unawares and so much was my surprise, that I was tongue-tied and did not know how to react. Nevertheless, I mustered some courage to defend myself saying that I had picked this style from clients. This irked the person all the more and I was further admonished for not respecting the organizational culture of writing emails in a very formal note and tone. I sulked for a full day before deciding to gather my thoughts together and give the feedback its due attention. I did go on to change my style and there has been no looking back, since.

Here are a couple of tips for developing and building a lasting relationship for mutual benefit.

• It pays to make your subject line catchy, attractive, short and meaningful to the context of your contents. Conversely, never leave a subject line blank as it communicates sloppiness, laziness or a lack of respect for the reader's time. Also, take care to change the subject line if it has a trail of three or more subjects or if the status has altered.
• A slick 'thank you' note at the end of your visit to whomsoever you have met with a mention of a list of things discussed along with a list of things that you wish to achieve with time lines, post your visit is always greatly appreciated. This may also be followed at the end of an important call.
• Nurturing and maintaining relationships is of paramount importance. You may be writing to the same person over and over again; show respect at the beginning with pleasantries and include a salutation or a simple 'thank you' at the end. Read and re-read your emails and edit before sending.
• Replying to emails on your blackberry on the go can be a different challenge altogether. More often than not, emails are read in a hurry, understood partially and replied without giving adequate thought. There is a good chance in giving an incomplete reply with scant regard for language and spelling, giving the message a sloppy look and feel.
• While an email is a great medium to send a compliment and more people must adopt this in their everyday life; one needs to exercise caution. There should be a genuine, from the bottom of your heart compliment and most importantly this message should be a one-on-one. A 'reply all' takes away the charm of the compliment - the focus shifts to self rather than the recipient as it becomes a tool to impress rather than express.
• When using abbreviations or acronyms, be sure your audience has knowledge of the same, else, as a matter of courtesy expand for easy understanding.
• Use blank lines to separate paragraphs and do not use tab key when you start a new paragraph.
• Your writing style says more about you than you realize. Your composition skills are quite reflective of your knowledge and abilities. If you are consistently making typo errors, using unconventional punctuation, spelling words incorrectly and so on, you will not come across as a person who knows what he's doing. Neatness counts!

Lastly, using the inverted pyramid is the best form of writing. Your most important statement should appear in the first paragraph, followed by supporting details.

Cheers!!

Dear Dad...

It seems like yesterday that dad replied to my very first letter to him...I started my letter with a simple Dear Dad...!! It was a term that I myself was not familiar with!! Those days, the influence of the West was more through books and magazines, not movies or travel. It was hence strange to start with a set of alien words to me as we, my sisters and I usually referred to my father as "Anna", or elder brother in Kannada.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I had decided that I would be an obedient son and write at least two, if not three letters a week. Dad & mom suffered from lack of communication from both my sisters when they graduated from school to college and moved to Mysore and Kolkata. I would watch them silently suffer from the lack of communication. And so, deep in my mind, I was firm that I would not like them to go through a similar pain. I decided to fault on excessive communication instead.

It was quite an interesting day when I entered the college to get admitted, all on my own. Parents of my fathers generation, I guess, were far more adventurous and willing to take chances, than parents of today. Why else would my dad leave me on my own to join the college at Tiruchirapalli, 1,600 KM's away from my cozy home at Durgapur? Not knowing the language was another hurdle that I had to cross. It was a nightmare during broad daylight as, after getting down at the station, I had to switch buses at the Main Guard Gate (City Center) to reach college. After meeting the Principal and later the Registrar, I was asked to join by filling a set of myriad forms and pay up the fees. To my utter disbelief, when I submitted all the relevant forms and triumphantly handed over all the money I had, the cashier nonchalantly said that it was short by Rs. 40 from the bare minimum of Rs. 960, which included caution deposit and the annual fees. My heart just sank at the prospect of being denied a seat in the most prestigious college amongst the REC's for want of Rs. 40. Although at my wits end, I gathered enough courage to ask the cashier for a hand loan of Rs. 40 with a promise that I would repay as soon as my dad sent a money order. My logic was innocent and simple: I would any way be a college student and the cashier could always trace me from the college roll number assigned against my name in the register. Well, to my bad luck he politely refused saying that I would have to try my luck elsewhere at borrowing money. The only positive thing was his promise to hold the seat and the roll number until I returned with the balance.

I sat at the footsteps of the imposing Admin. Building for a good 30 minutes wondering 'what next' and faintly recollected my father speaking about a colleague of his at Durgapur getting transferred to BHEL Tiruchirapalli. BHEL's Boiler Division, manufacturing seamless stainless steel tubes was situated just 4 KM's from my college, but towards the city. I decided to give it a try and locate him at the plant. I was stopped at the main gate being still a minor at 16. The Chief Security Officer was a big help as he quickly located the name and telephone number of my uncle (any colleague or acquaintance of my dad was always referred as an uncle!). With bad luck, now firmly entrenched on my back, the CSO informed that my uncle was away on an official tour to New Delhi. Having come this far, the last thing I wanted was to give up! Quite often I had heard my dad talk about his own PA a number of times and decided that my uncle, who was in a fairly senior position, should be having one likewise. I made another request to the CSO asking that he allow me to talk to his PA, all the while praying that he be available at his desk and not disappear for lunch. The CSO must have wondered who this rudderless and wandering teenager was and who he would con next. He however masked his emotion pretty well and with a somber expression on his face readily obliged. He must have been gleefully thinking that this call too, would fetch no results, like in the past. This time, aha! I was lucky and Bingo! I was talking to my uncle's PA. The excitement and relief at my new found victory was so strong that what came out of my mouth was a confused string of words that sounded like gibberish and made no meaning to the PA. He was however patient and took control of the call by asking some basic and simple questions. Having satisfied himself with my identity, he asked me to pass on the phone to the CSO and left instructions that I be given Rs. 100, on a returnable basis of course! Triumphantly, I walked back to the campus and the rest is history.

This was the story of my first letter to my dad - not that I wanted to move him to tears, but tell him that I was able to find a way out of a situation. Ten days later I received an MO from my dad for Rs. 250 with a short congratulations note on having successfully crossed life's first hurdle. My predicament coupled with the cultural and language shock must have shook him too, as my mom summed up years later that she had seen tears in his eyes when he read my first letter.

My dad's command over English was pretty well known amongst his friends and colleagues and after he died while still serving at the steel plant, I heard from his PA that his dictations were absolutely immaculate; perhaps the best amongst the various people he had worked with. There would be no shorthand and no draft...it would be a direct dictation with his steno-typist hammering the keys of the typewriter and churn out letters that required no correction. Compare this to the ease with which we make corrections while typing on the computer keyboard these days! Have clarity in your thought process, my dad would repeatedly say, with a single minded determination to do it right the first time!

It was an absolute pleasure reading his letters. His lucid style of writing and the easy flow of words, the choice and diction seemed as if he had planned long hours before penning those letters. I tried imitating his style and the best I could achieve was to copy his hand writing and not his style in writing. I had carefully preserved all his letters during my 5 year stint at the college, but lost the entire bunch when we moved from the old house to the new one at Durgapur. This has been singularly the biggest loss in my life so far.

I started my career with Graphite India in Bangalore, moved to Batliboi in Mumbai and finally settled at Kolkata for 10 years. While I lost all his letters written to me during my college days, those written during my early working life are safely preserved to this day and with technology advancement, I have even scanned these and stored them in the hard disc of my computer. To this day they are a big source of inspiration.

I consider letter writing as the best form of communication, as one gets to understand each other so well. Indeed, seven years of our letter writing brought us very close as we learnt to express our feelings and thoughts; something that seldom happens between a father and son. This made us respect each other that much more! I understood him first as a person and then more as a friend than a father.

As a kid, the earliest that I remember of him was the time he would teach me arithmetic and algebra in particular. It all seemed so easy when he would sit down with me, trying to help me understand, that forming an equation and solving for particular conditions was more a test of English than just mathematics. While it was cool with him by my side, on my own I would get that sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach when I couldn't make sense of the English, let alone complex quadratic equations. Never known to be harsh to us kids, he would loose his patience when he found that I could not find solutions to simple equations and a whack on the back of the head would be his fitting finale, summarily dismissing me as a 'good for nothing idiot'.

I used to be a quiet, insecure and immensely shy person as a kid. Being a no. 3 can have its own challenges when the two above are talkative girls, one very smart and intelligent and the other having the gift of the gab. If asked a question by any of the visitors to our house...and this is quite common in townships when friends of parents drop in to spend some time in the evenings, I would either remain mum or look the other way. It kind off conveyed the impression that either I did not care or was an absolute dumbo...my dad used to get upset at this behavior. He did question me a few times but then just gave up saying some kids are good at talking and some good at writing...but I was good at none!! I would become a recluse was his final verdict, if I did not make the right efforts!

He would review our performance by going through the question paper after each examination and ask questions about our answers. During one such review I got a whack for a true/false set of question. Our teacher had cleverly used English to confuse the students...lucky for me I had got it right, but while reading the question my dad got it wrong! I mustered enough courage to point this out to my dad but got a second whack on the back of my head...he said "this is for taking back the earlier whack!" That was the first time I realized, what's laughter with tears in the eyes!!

My eldest sister had picked up his reading habit and I in turn used to copy my sister...I would try and read what she read. I tried my hand at reading Hindi novels too...those written by Gulshan Nanda...some of his stories were later made into Hindi movies as well, Kati Patang, a yesteryear hit released in 1970, is an example. With no TV and computers around those days, books and comics were a favorite pass time. Tarzan, Mandrake the magician and MAD were my favorites. Enid Blyton and Capt W E Jones were my favorites authors during childhood and later Agatha Christie, Nick Carter, Earl Stanley Gardner, Alfred Hitchcock to name a few...Radio Ceylon was another attraction those days and the Wednesday 8 PM slot lasting for an hour was the most widely heard radio program called "Binaca Geet Mala and the RJ was the inimitable Ameen Sayani. His voice had a magical lilt and his talk show interspersed with the weekly hits or chartbusters was a treat to hear. The beauty of this show was, if a song appeared in this show for 18 consecutive weeks, it was given a grand sign-off as a sartaj geet with a signature tune played on the trumpet. Another typically Radio Ceylon thing was renowned K L Saigal's a song played as the last one of the 30 minute "Bhule Bisre Geet" every morning and "Loma Time" being announced precisely at 8 AM. Loma used to be a brand of facial moisturizer, available in the 60's and 70's...I don't see it on the shelves of the malls these days.

My reading habit continued during my college days, RE Trichy had a very well stocked library and through a close friend and batch-mate got introduced to A J Cronin, Somerset Maugham, Daphne Du Maurier, Taylor Caldwell, Mario Puzo, Ayn Rand, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Lawrence Sanders, Isaac Asimov, Alister MacLean, Fredrick Forsyth, Irving Stone etc. My father suggested that I read Nevil Shute's books. In a couple of his books the main characters were engineers and this made a special appeal in my mind. His novel 'Trustee from the Toolroom' and 'No Highway' are by far the best I have read so far.

All the same, I felt my dad was the greatest when it came to writing. I remember reading his reply to my sister's yet-to-be-father-in-law to the subtle question on the height difference between my sister and her would-be husband: 'So what if she is short, I'm sure she will reach great heights!' He had carefully selected a birthday card for my eldest sister - his favorite child and it read: 'Whenever I build Castles in the Air, there will always be room for you.' He went through considerable pain when my sister was adamant on pursuing BA in History when he was more than willing to put her through a medical college. I recollect the heated arguments that each would put forth at the dining table every night and with neither relenting, both failed ultimately to achieve their objective. It was a historical blunder trying to impose his academic pursuits on his rebellious daughter. With this experience fresh in his mind, he completely relented to the wishes of my 2nd sister who not only got what combination of subjects she wanted, but also the city of her choice - Kolkata. when it was my turn, he was quite thrilled when I told him that I would follow his footsteps and get into the engineering field. Being No. 3 had its advantages too...learn from the others mistakes!!

My dad was not in favor of the private sector; he had a socialistic bent of mind and was an admirer of Indira Gandhi and the politics surrounding nationalization of the industry, banks and insurance companies. He firmly believed that only the Govt. had the money muscle to invest on developments and that the private sector was just bent upon hoarding and amassing personal wealth. It used to be interesting to sit with his friends in the evening hours after their return from the plant listening to them talk of the Govt. Politics, Development, Education, Movies and Books. There was never a dull moment or boredom. My dad was also a great admirer of Lal Bahadur Shastri and his slogan "Jai Javan Jai Kissan" created during the 22-day war with Pakistan in 1965 had caught his fancy. During the food crisis, while leading the country as the 2nd Prime Minister of India, to encourage people to evenly distribute food, he urged his countrymen: If one person gives up one meal in a day, some other person gets his only meal of the day. My dad, a true patriot, decided for all of us that we should forgo dinner at least one day every week, on a Saturday and so it was...!! Apart from emphasizing a green revolution, Lal Bahadur was also instrumental in kick starting the white revolution. Based on the success of AMUL in Khaira district of Gujarat, he was instrumental in the formation of NDDB - the National Dairy Development Board.

Just recently, as I went through the motions of performing his annual ceremony, these bits of random thoughts kept streaming in my mind. More a friend than a father, he would ask a few pointed questions during my weekly visits home to Durgapur from Kolkata, and patiently listen to whatever anecdotes or stories that I told him from the events in the past week at office. Reflecting on this part of my life, I feel that it is important for us to have a mentor who will just give a patient ear, listen to us when we pour our hearts out and not use it for any manipulative purpose. How I wish I could write to him again the same three letters that I used to write every week and eagerly await to receive his reply; as always starting with: My dear son.......