Aamchi Mumbai

The Legendary RK Laxman and the ubiquitous 'Common Man'

My next career move came in February 1979. It wasn’t anything spectacular.

The day was just routine, like any other - mundane, lethargic and devoid of excitement. I was called in by the Personnel Manager and told that there was a requirement in Bombay (The Maximum City was still known as Bombay, then), the Western Regional headquarters of the Marketing Organization. They were sending me there to take charge of the Personnel and Administration function. I was to ensure smooth and proper recruitment and handle contract labour matters, court cases and routine administration.

I took the offer with three considerations in mind. Firstly, I would get a chance to move out of the stale Kolkata office atmosphere. Secondly, the job would involve travelling across Western and Central India and meeting newer people. Thirdly, and most importantly, I had gathered that Mumbai had opportunities for part-time studies in Management and Law and that could keep me engaged and would broaden my learning and development.

I landed in Mumbai on a rainy morning and headed to our Guest House in Cuffe Parade, a posh and upcoming locality in Colaba, South Mumbai. I wondered how a Public Sector Guest House was in such an affluent locality, especially since the real estate scene in Mumbai was ruled by construction conglomerates and financing mafia, where black money was the King. In the Emergency regime, the real estate kingpins were under strain and pressured to sell space to PSUs and the Government at a ‘fair price’, and through full white money transactions. 

Our office was in the prestigious Express Towers at Nariman Point, the Indian equivalent, although a pale shadow, of the famed downtown of Manhattan in New York. Nariman Point was a concentration of skyscrapers, clustered to form an urban illusion amidst a vast sea of slums, filth, chaos and screams. No wonder Mumbai was called a city of stark contrast, a messy urban agglomeration. Mumbai has always been many worlds telescoped into one frightening entity, especially for first-time visitors.  As for me, it was a return to the city in which I had had a first, brief encounter in the near past.

What a contrast that Mumbai had dual philosophical messages to inhabitants – for the ordinary folks huddled together, in pouring rain, under tarpaulin-covered makeshift pavement huts, the tantalizing and glitzy apartment blocks around triggered dreams and fantasies; at the same time, for those living in the apartments jutting out like semi-open matchboxes perched menacingly, the sight of the squalor and chaos below were humbling alarm-bells on life’s frailties and unfairness.

 Ramnath Goenka of the Indian Express Group of Publications had antagonized Mrs. Gandhi in her heydays of Emergency rule through his anti-authoritarian journalism and his open support of the resistance movement against the excesses of the regime.  It was natural to expect the axe of regulatory pressure to fall on him. A few of the Express Towers floors were commandeered by the Government and ordered to be let out to Public Sector and civic Departments at what seemed like ‘throw-away’ rentals.

With the induction of Wadud Khan from the House of Tatas as the Executive Chairman, SAIL was going through an upgrade in internal culture and style of functioning to become a bit more commercially focused. There were still too many umbilical cords to be snapped for a PSU to morph into an autonomous and professional way of working. 

Our office at Express Towers perhaps was the first one of SAIL that broke the mould of staid, uninspiring décor that was the hallmark of the Government buildings and interiors. Surely, that was a far cry from the dingy offices of 2, Fairlie Place, Kolkata where the Marketing Head Office was located.  To work in such an office, though just covering half a floor measuring around 5000 sft was prestigious and mood-elevating. We were targets of envy by the larger public sector fraternity.

When I joined my new Mumbai Office on transfer, the Express Towers was hosting Jaiprakash Narain, the national hero, who played a key role in galvanizing the resistance against the Emergency regime, in the penthouse as a guest of Ram Nath Goenka. I remember, on many days, while waiting for the lift at the parking lobby, seeing the frail, old veteran being wheeled in and out for his routine dialysis sessions in the hospital.  Before long, JP passed away in Patna as his damaged kidneys and weak body could no longer withstand the strain.

Those days, accommodation in Mumbai was scarce, expensive and in great demand. A decent apartment was beyond the means of a public sector executive, to tell you the truth. Many of our colleagues were staying in illegally sublet Central Government Quarters in Antop Hills in the Sion-Matunga area. It was not uncommon to find employees arranging accommodation, courtesy of the customers who were keen and willing to help out given the hot, monopolistic ‘buyers’ market’ that iron and steel enjoyed.

Steel was in short supply; sales and marketing function was just a euphemism. What went on was nothing but rationing and distribution according to government guidelines and in line with allocations by the Iron and Steel Controller of the Government of India. Even the private sector player, Tata Steel, was bound to follow Government diktat. 

The first lesson from my days at the sales office was that scarcity marketing was a breeding ground of corruption, nepotism and adhocism.

At every level of the supply chain and logistics, involving transportation, storage, issues and dispatches, there was rampant corruption. Sleaze and speed money oiled the distribution machinery all the way. It was a commentary on the ethics and ethos of the time that the handful of honest officers were not only not appreciated and encouraged but were often butts of jokes and authoritarian vengeance.

I remember a classic case of unashamed corruption and ineptitude that happened in one of the stockyards of SAIL. It was rainy season and the stockyard, by the side of a river, was flooded. A few months later the internal audit team inspected and verified the stock viz-a-viz the records; they found a significant quantity of structural steel missing. The issue was flagged and as expected an enquiry committee was set up to investigate and report. In the proceedings that followed, the stockyard-in-charge reported that in the heavy rains, the steel would have been carried away by the inundating water! To top it all, another official, responsible for record-keeping took the alibi that the compound wall was damaged by the flood waters and subsequently before the wall was repaired stray cattle ate the stock records of the concerned item. No wonder, the PSU jokes and folklore were ever juicy and rich. No soap opera could beat the stories of mismanagement, lethargy and apathy in the PSUs. 

I managed to get a leased accommodation in the distant Western Mumbai suburb of Malad, courtesy of one of our officers who moved to a company accommodation allotted to him. By the time I vacated the Guest House and moved to the Malad flat, I had lived there for about three months. I developed a close friendship with Dipak Bhattacharya, my roommate. He was a senior colleague who was also on transfer from Kolkata. He told me stories about the firebrand rebelliousness and ideological tussles he witnessed and took part intermittently in at the prestigious Presidency College of Kolkata.  Years later, on leaving SAIL, he went on to become a senior lawyer in the Supreme Court of India, joining the long list of elite Bengalis who settled in the fertile ecosystem of Delhi, pregnant with huge potential for strategic networking in high places. Dipak played a role in giving me a touch of sophistication, a significant makeover for a young man from a mofussil town, deep down South India.

Mumbai always had a charm and an influence that grew on those who migrated to that city. The greatest contribution that Mumbai makes to one's life is to provide role models, anecdotes and opportunities to encourage you to strive for success and breakthrough. To me, Mumbai beckons everyone with the short, sweet message, “Keep Smiling, BE Positive and Be Prepared to Perspire”

I achieved two personal breakthroughs during my stay in Mumbai. I had two spells in Mumbai, the first of five years from 1979 to 1984 and the second one from 1989 to 1993.  I shall touch upon the two experiences that helped shape my outlook, competence and confidence.

Firstly, I enrolled for my Master’s Program in Management through part-time evening studies at the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies in 1979. I met with many classmates, who were from civil services and the corporate sector. Our faculty was comprised mainly of practising managers who had the passion to teach and mentor along with their busy work routines. All the interactions, co-working project assignments and case discussions, enlarged my perspectives. I learned to see problem-solving as a secular capability that could be applied to diverse situations and within varying constraints. The universality of the management approach of identifying, analysing and interpreting issues and strategizing solutions fascinated me.

As I went through the six-semester course, step by step, I could feel the change happening within me; I sensed the enhancement to my ability to comprehend issues, situations and people, to critically examine problems and to develop objective and dispassionate solutions. The difference between legacy academic programs and professional courses is in the latter's focus on learning by practice. Learning from the past is good, but learning by doing and exchanging ideas, feedback and critiques is better than the typical instructional method in traditional academic studies.

At the end of my Master’s, I could feel the change within me and the buildup of my competence and confidence as a manager. The ability and confidence to transfer learning to a wide range of contexts is what changes us as we go through management studies.

While in Jamnalal Bajaj, I met Uday Kotak, a smart, handsome day scholar in the MMS program when I was pursuing the evening program. He topped the program and won the University Gold Medal.

Legend has it that he approached the scion of the Mahindra family, Anand Mahindra, who even at that young age displayed extraordinary ability to support and mentor talent. With Anand’s financial and mentoring support, Uday Kotak started his financial services company which later grew to become one of the most prestigious banking and financial service companies in India, Kotak Mahindra in a full-blown partnership with the Mahindra corporate house.  Every time I hear about Kotak Mahindra’s success story, I recall the spark of genius and the sparkle of confidence that I witnessed in Uday Kotak’s eyes back in the days at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute. I passed out with creditable grades in the program. The peer group networking and the upgrade to my profile that the program provided me stood me in great stride in the years to come.

My second breakthrough in Mumbai was the writing stint I could launch. I contributed articles regularly on management topics and these were carried by prestigious publications Time of India, Economic Times, and Financial Express.

I also wrote creative stuff including stories and poems. One of my early poems was chosen by the multifaceted genius, Nissim Ezekiel, who dabbled in a wide range of creative writing and was published in the PEN Magazine which he edited. I was literally on Cloud 9.

I always believed that I was a raw stone, and it was Mumbai and the diverse opportunities the city gave and the windows it opened that completely transformed me from a tentative novice to a confident professional and author.  Now with two books already published and with a consistent presence in social media and online publications, I am ever grateful to Mumbai for making me what I am.

Let me end my recounting of the immersion years of my life in Mumbai with the recollection of an unforgettable experience I had.  Since I was a regular contributor to Times of India, I used to visit the ToI headquarters located in the majestic, legendary gothic-style building nicknamed ‘The Old Lady of Bori Bunder’. One day I rushed in and was searching for an Assistant Editor with whom I had to discuss an article under submission.

I just flung open a corner room, careless enough not to tap or even look at the nameplate on the door. What a stunning surprise I had! I was face to face with RK Laxman, the creative genius who was at work giving a finishing touch to the next edition’s ‘Common Man’ caricature. He raised his head and gestured inquisitively, irritated for sure but restrained.  I apologized profusely and blurted out that I was looking for the editorial desk associate. To my bewilderment, Laxman got up, smiled, took me to another room a few meters away and told me, “Go in, this is where you should have rushed in”.

As I sat down across from him, the associate murmured, “You know, Laxman Saab has a really short temper, especially when someone disturbs him at work. You were lucky to survive his ire”. I told myself, “Yes, I was indeed lucky to have run into a giant in Indian journalistic caricature. I shall never forget this experience”.