Me and Kolkata Book Fair

My romance with Kolkata Book Fair started  from 1995, i had just moved  in Kolkata in October 1994 for my 6 years stint  on behalf of BHEL. Those days our office used to be in Chatterjee International building which is bang opposite to the venue of book fair for more than 30 years. So for me going to the book fair meant just crossing the sreet .On an average i read more than 20 books a year so i can never miss the opportunity of such a book fair which is considered to be largest by the crowd count.

Those days Rana Bose,  my PA Late S N Bose and sometimes DP and Mukho would accompany me. Of course Rana and Bose accompanied me to all the fairs till 2000 when i left for BHEL,Bhopal for my new assignment.

I am witness to the fire which engulfed Book Fair in 1997 and destroyed most of the stalls. From my chamber i could see the fire starting and then spreading to the most of the stalls. It was devastating sight watching book sellers trying to save their stalls by throwing the books in ponds. Something like 100,000 books got gutted.

 In 2004 it was decided to shift book fair venue  to Salt Lake Stadium.It was cramped for space and not a right place for a book fair. With the gutting down in 1997 the original mela spirit died , lot of restriction was put from the point of view of fire and finally shifting out of maidan did the rest of damage. Still book lovers flocked and i too kept on visiting every year till 2000 when it was still in maidan. The smell of the new books, the sight of young boys quickly finishing a story in the stall itself, seminars on books, artists doing on the spot portrait paintings, small rock groups, the aroma of coffee and food still linger in my mind.

I always had the ambition that i should release a book here in book fair. Well God listened to my wish. I guess my transfer to Bhopal was to enable me to fulfill my that wish. BHEL,Bhopal had brought out a book on Transformer in 1987 and it was never been revised. I advised my transformer group to update that book. It was duly done with a chapter written by me and P T Deo. Tata Mac Grew Hill was the publisher. In January 2003 i came to the Kolkata Book fair from Bhopal to release that book "Transformers". It was televised and got News paper coverage.  

At Bhopal my good friend G G Subhedar encouraged me to write a management book capturing my experiences. I wrote one in anecdotal fashion in English which was titled "Take it or leave it " and then published in Hindi, the translations was done by our BHEL office staff Pramod and Binodanand Jha. It was published by Manjul Publishers of Bhopal who were the publishers of Dominique Lappiers book " It was 5 past midnight in Bhopal.

The title of my first Hindi Management Book is "Management ke Saral Nuskhe."

 I retired in 2003. In the Kolkata Book Fair of 2007 i was going round the fair and was pleasantly surprised to find my book is being sold in the fair, i was thrilled like a child and took snap of the stall and the rack. Later on i was told that the 4th edition of the book has come out, yes i got some royalty for my book.

Subsequently after my retirement i wrote another book which was again published by Manjul in 2009. It is known as "Management ke sabak."

Now i keep writing blogs and micro blogs, stories .....have a plan to bring out the compilation in English if God wishes....

I must admit that the Kolkata Book Fair spurred me in writing articles, stories then everything else started falling in places. Yes one has to start then only things can take shape.

Below is the link of Kolkata Book Fair 2016...

Budhang Saranam gachchami

Budhang  saranam gachchami

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We were following this group of monks to the Mulagandhakuti  Vihar in Sarnath. It is excavated site of a temple complex.. From the description written could know that this historical edifice was built during Gupta period. There are remains of original Ashoka pillar built in 272-233 BC. A visit to such ancient site always makes me wonder about the life style of that period when modern mode of transport was yet to be invented. My imagination start running riot associating people and the place. The Ashoka pillar is made of Chunar sand stone, the broken pieces have been preserved in a glass enclosure..  The monks were led by a stout gentle looking ever smiling person in a gerua habit of a monk. He along with one of his followers climbed an elevated place and started chanting some hymn. I asked one of the monks about their country of origin.

“Thailand.” He said.

“Who is that monk?” I asked.

“Arthit.He is a great saint with spiritual power.”

I was curious; I asked my wife and brother in law to wait and climbed the ruin to reach Arthit.

He turned towards me and smiled.

I did an elaborate namaskar with a bow, he acknowledged that. I praised his country for maintaining a large Budhist complex in Sarnath.

‘Yes, counties like China, Ceylon,Japan too have temples of Budha here.” He informed.

“But your one is the largest.”

He smiled and spread his hand and said,” This is the original one and the largest one. What a pity this has not been maintained and allowed to get withered.”

“The Turkish plundered this complex in 12 th century. Yes it should have been restored subsequently.” I said.

“Imagine in 230 BC when Budha gave his first sermon here and then Emperors of Gupta dynasty built this complex, the land was donated by the king of Benras.Emperor Ashoka organised this complex further. Then of course this place was known as Isipatana. The Chinese traveller Xuanzang who visited this place in 7^th century had noted that there were 30 monasteries and 3000 monks were staying here.” He enlightened me further about the Mulgandha Kuti.

While talking he touched my shoulder and turned me towards the ruins, I felt as though a mild electricity has passed through my body. I looked around where my wife was standing but instead I found a tall rectangular structure standing with thick walls . It was made of brown Chunar sandstone and there was Ashoka Pillar in the front. I could see shadowy people moving around. I was looking at the original temple built during Gupta period . The Dhamekha Stupa had vanished. Along with temple complex there were other connected rectangular smaller structures. I could guess those were the quarters for monks to stay and the stupa was not constructed by then. I was watching a full complex bustling with activities. But I got worried not seeing my wife and brother in law and that broke my trance. Now I was looking at the ruins and my wife was calling me to come down.

I turned back to thank Arthit for transporting me to that era in 200 year BC and giving me a glimpse of the temple when it was freshly built but he was not there on that mound. I felt cheated that I could not have more time with him to learn something more about Budha and his teachings. I climbed down asked my wife, “Did you see that monk? Where did he go?”

“Which monk?”

“The monk with whom I was talking.”

“You were alone there, yes you spoke to a group here but they left long back.”

I was sure that I was talking to a human being in flesh and blood. His gentle voice was still ringing in my ear. He had definitely touched me and after that I had that divine experience but then ,” What happened?’

I have heard about the mystic powers of monks and I think I met one there in Sarnath.

 Note: The above article is combination of facts and imagination.

My tryst with smartphone

My tryst with smartphone

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After started playing golf I realized that the shabbily dressed caddy in Hawai chappal is a better player than me….why me only? Better than most of us… we go for the best golf set, proper golf shoes and all whereas my caddy in barefoot with one size of club can almost hit anyshot much better than me…we call ourselves golfers and they are caddies as they carry our golf bags and searches out our lost balls from the shrubs …whenever I hit a good shot I look at my caddy for appreciation and not at co-players…. .

During the last few days I discovered that like caddy knowing golf better than me all other people lower in social ladder know more about smartphone than me…..

My Smasung Note 2 had become moody so wanted to have an alternate cheaper handset….shared my thought with my driver Gopal.

“What is your budget? “He asked.

“Something below 10,000.”

“Your this Note 2 is with 1.5 GB RAM you can get a handset of 3 GB for that cost.”

Then he rattled some brands which have higher RAM. I was totally flummoxed, when he started explaining that with higher RAM my phone will work faster, he advised I must purchase a phone which is 4g enabled too.

Keeping his above advise in my mind I trawled the net but chose something similar to my existing one (for ease of operation ) but a cheaper one with less memory, less camera pixels, 1 GB RAM but 4 g enabled. While purchasing the phone I asked the sale girl whether the phone which I was purchasing has NFC. She knowledgably told me ,”Sir, there are many apps available for sharing, so don’t bother about NFC.”

After doing the purchase my next stop of lesson was from the guy in front of Park Street Post office who sells the covers for phones. I told him I have Samsung Galaxy J 5 ……he looked at the phone and said it is J2 and started looking for the cover suiting to the set. He knowledgably informed me ,” sir, it is a good phone, it used to cost 8,500 but you got a good bargain at 8,1000.  Samsung is the best brand now.”

I came back to my office and tried to put the SD card in my new phone, I could not locate the slot. Gopal was in my chamber then stacking my files for shifting to new office. He was watching me fiddling, he said,” wait I will call Tanmoy,the security guard.”

“Tanmoy, what does he know?”

“He is expert on mobile phones.” Saying that he called Tanmoy.

Enters Tanmoy, opens the cover of new phone and confidently pushes the SD card in.

“Please switch on the phone and unlock the screen, so that I can check whether SD card is showing in the system or not.” He said.

I did as advised and he checked the storage area for extra storage created by SD card. Then he went on to show some more functions of the phone.

I have often heard people saying that their son or grandson guided them in resolving their phone related problems. In my case it is people like Gopal or Tanmoy or that 40 plus footpath vendor guided me in the nitty-gritty of smartphone…they have better data base by virtue of helping each other in resolving not only problem related with phones but any other issue unlike us privileged with egos don’t reach out to others…

Electron phans gaya tha. एलेक्ट्रोन फंस गया था

Electron phans gaya tha

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The electronic equipment of modern age has its own mind. We feel the switch is in our hand forgetting that coming to life is in the mood of the gadget. The behavior of mobile, phablets, tablets cannot be taken for granted.  The other day I got a ring in my mobile and then it stopped. It was a known number so I gave a call back to him, he said, “ Sorry I did not call, but something is wrong with my mobile it suddenly calls on its own and it is mostly the last number called.”

All of us who have mobile know that suddenly everything freezes, then it won’t work, so take out the battery , put the battery back and hey presto…it starts working normally as though giving us warning that ," Don’t treat me lightly, I have my moods.”

In an army establishment it so happened that the wireless set was not working. It was those days when wireless was supposed to be the ultimate in electronics. The army engineers were struggling to make that work. It won’t budge, no statics at all. A sardarji jawan who had handled this equipment in field was called. He fiddled with the knobs, no sir….it would not work. He got frustrated and gave it a kick….lo behold it started working. The jawan nonchalantly looked at all the bystanders who were awed by the miracle. They asked, “How did it work?” He replied,” It is nothing who ek electron phas gaya tha, lath mara who nikal gaya.” Saying that he walked off.

I think that electron theory still holds. I had this problem with my Samsung Note 2 on 15th January, Neither i could charge it nor it could be switched on. It was dead for all practical purposes. I did all the drill of taking out battery, sim etc and then putting those back. It still did not work.On 16th January I sent it to Samsung service center on Loudon Street for diagnosis . I was told it’s motherboard has damaged and I have to pay Rs.10,500 for replacement as per their claim number 351064521770. I decided not to get it repaired instead go for a new one. Was doing some research for the brand, got advise from my son Anish and nephew Monish. Was about to go for on line purchase but remembering “ the prophetic electron theory” so I opened the mobile took out the battery,put my sim card back and hooked up the mobile for charging through my computer…..surprise of surprise….the indication light came on for charging which was not coming since yesterday…allowed it to get charged up to 5% and made a few calls…all fine so far…so the electron theory still holds….all of us slap the remote a number of times when it does not work even after removing the cover and replacing the battery…yes you guessed it right it is the ubiquitous “electron” is the culprit....it suddenly chokes the system....

Disclaimer: This is written in a lighter vein about a common problem of electronic gadgets which require booting and rebooting repeatedly.

 

Sourcing of crowd

Sourcing of crowd

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The idea is to take work and outsource it to a crowd of workers. Well that is the classic definition of crowdsourcing. The irony is  India which is thickly populated country but still enough crowd is not there when you really need them.

Remember in the film Chaudvin  ka chand or is it Barsat ki Raat where Johny Walker is a shire but he would not get any listener to appreciate his sher so he would say ,” Come to my house for my latest sher, oh! There are snacks too!” Well the snacks would be incentive enough to draw a crowd.

I was President of an electrical society for two years, after my retirement. Amitabh my old colleague and others organized good lectures on latest topics but with great difficulty could fill the front 4 rows of the hall. At the end of my tenure of two years on the last day it was my turn to give a “ good bye” lecture, having learnt the trick from the film Chaudvin ka Chand I organized a sumptuous snacks from one of the popular outlets of Kolkata, “Gangaur” and it was quietly informed to all concerned about the food packet . The hall was nearly full and packets were regulated by my friend Gyana and my driver Gopal.

In Delhi I know a guy called Ravindra Mohan who informed me that on a short notice he can organize a crowd of 150 any day.

Now supposing I want to launch myself as Guru Samaranand then I have to hire a hall put on Geruwa attire and ask Ravindra Mohan to supply crowd, put up a banner with miracles performed by me. In India a crowd works like a magnet, the onlookers will get attracted by the crowd and will curiously follow the crowd in the hall. My chelas in Geruwa who are again hired will be chanting some bhajan which actually is a recorded one. Now me sitting on the stage will call one from the crowd and perform a magic which as most of you know I am perfecting. It could be with vanishing water trick or one of my magnetic tricks. My hired crowd would clap by the miracle, the onlookers will get hooked. I will pick up any topic randomly and will give a lecture by stringing that topic with some mythological event or some past event from my stock of stories.

Now I have the attention of the audience so can carry on the charade next day too. The crowd will swell because by this time by word of mouth the miracles performed by me and worldly prabachan has spread because my people have gone round to all nearby pan shops,tea vendors etc and discussed about my divine power. On the third day I perform a few more tricks and my people come to the dais and thank me for healing them of some imaginary disease. In the meanwhile the stall outside is selling the healing medicines, people are giving money in the hundi kept by the side of the stage. By the way I have kept the local constable in loop. Initially I may not make much money as I have to pay to some journalists in vernacular papers to write about me also have to fix up some local TV channels for some live telecast. Before starting the endeavor I have already honed my gift for gab and also brushed up my knowledge of Ramayan and Maha Bharat. Initially I have to spend money to launch me, looking at the reaction I will launch a trust when as you all know the process of converting black to white for all those rich devotees will start. The hundi will come handy for taking care of unaccounted money. My trust will gradually start producing healing medicines from common herbs; here I will go for crowdsourcing. As I will be located in semi urban area with the help of local leaders so will utilize the panchayat to distribute the production work among the villagers. It is a win win situation with villagers as part of my devotees and propagators also they earn on the go. Getting formula will not be difficult with mushrooming Ayurvedic products coming up I have to only hijack one of those chemists working in those spurious setups.

I got the above idea when I was going on gabbing with the local tuk tuk drivers at Taki and a small crowd had gathered around me. Then I told my nephew Shuvo ,” look if I want I can start preaching by putting a geruwa dhoti by keeping beard. Look at these people; they are ignorant about outside world. Whatever I was sharing with them they were gulping those down literarily.”

This article is soft launch of guru Samaranand.

Here is a sample of miracle

Supply of losers.....a business

Supply of losers…….a business

Yep, it is! In one of the social gathering I could know Hemant much better though I knew him since long. He was sharing his diverse interest like collection of antiques, spotting rare paintings, horse racing etc, mind it these are other than his regular business interest. He told me about his collection of rare stamps and coins. When I was talking to him then he just purchased a bronze ensemble of gods in Udaipur for something like 17,000 bucks. He explained that he just chanced upon this antique piece and predicted that the market value will increase over the time. So it was one more collection or shall we say one more asset added among many in his collection.

I was more interested about his horse racing endeavor which he pursued a few years back. He told me he used to own 3 horses in Calcutta race course.

How much did you pay for those?

I paid something like 1 and half lacs for each.

I was pretty surprised by the cost, it appeared to be a paltry sum, I had imagined the cost would be 30/40 lacs or more for each.

Further I asked.

Where did you stable your horses?

I was keeping those in the stable of Calcutta Race Course for a monthly charge of 11,000 rupees per month per horse.

I told him, “ At 1 lac or so you certainly did not purchase a thorough bred winning horse. Then how did you cover your cost?”

Who said about winning? Look every time a race is on they require many horses to run so that it appears it was a well fought race. As you know the betting crowd wants thrill of the race and my horses provide that by getting defeated. After all winning horses have to defeat some. I used to supply those losing horses. I would bargain with the owners of winning horses in advance and recover my cost of maintenance of horses plus my profit.

It makes business sense.

No wonder in golf tournaments golfers like us we who don’t win but play for the fun but are given a bagful of goodies to encourage us to take part in the competition. We are those losing horses.

 

Lost my way

Lost my way

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Who doesn’t know the story of the cat and the harassed man? The man used to hate the cat of the neighbor which would often stray in his house. His exasperated wife asked him to take care of the cat. Dutifully he caught the cat and put it in a bag and left it in the nearby market place. By the time he returned home the cat was back already. Next day he took the cat boarded a bus and dropped him after a few stops and returned home by bus. Lo behold the cat was back after a few hours. The guy was furious so next day he boarded a taxi with the cat and got down at the outskirt from where a dense jungle starts and walked with the cat in the bag for more than one hour deep inside the forest and released the cat. His wife was worried as hours had passed but the guy was not back. In the night the guy returned looking haggard. On inquiry he said he lost the way and finally could come back home by following the cat.

Something like this happened to me.

It was my third visit to Oman for Hubara project where BHEL was building a gas power station for PDO (Petroleum Development Oman ).

I had gone to Hubara in Oman earlier occasions but was always accompanied by my colleagues. We would to take the charter flight from Muscat booked by PDO( Petroleum Development Oman), a joint venture with Burmah Shell).The boarding ticket would be a plastic thing given at Muscat airport on the production of Authorisation by PDO.It was a regular charter flight to cart experts required for their petrol and gas fields. From my last two visits I knew that Hubara was the next stop after Muscat. The airport of Hubara is a standard bare minimum structure in the desert , at the center of nowhere with miles of sandy dunes. Our office people would come to pick me up as otherwise there was no other conveyance available at Hubara.

This time i went alone. I deposited my luggage and boarded the low flying viscount plane. I think it was an old turbo prop plane flying at a height of 10,000 feet or so.The plane took off and gained height within minutes. The cabin was hot because of flying at that low altitude over the Sahara desert. I think it flew for about 45 minutes or so and then landed. I could see the Airport in the desert, a lone structure with some vehicles parked outside.

A few of us got down .I walked down to the airport and looked for familiar faces from our site office. I could not locate any, slowly the other passengers who had got down with me went out of the security gate, i could not see any vehicle outside. It was an unnerving situation for me; imagine me standing in a deserted airport without a clue. The plane was getting refueled.Luckily i had not gone out of security enclosure.

Suddenly i got a bright idea. I rushed back to the plane with my boarding pass. I scanned the luggage which was unloaded and waiting to be carted , my suitcase was not there among those. The luggage compartment was at the rear of the plane. I could see my suitcase sitting happily inside. I enquired from the steward where that particular luggage would go. He informed me that next stop was Hubara and that would go there. I let out a sigh of relief and boarded the plane back. All the small airports in that desert look alike because of standardization and because it is bang in the desert so there is no associated landmark to identify. The name of the airport was written in Arabic so i could not read that.

I was later informed by our office staff that alternate days the plane directly comes to Hubara from muscat and i must have taken that flight on my last two visits.

So like the man following the cat I was guided by my suitcase to my destination.

Me and Khap panchayat

Me and Khap panchayat

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This happened in Panipat sometimes in late seventies. I was posted from BHEL for commissioning of Panipat Theremal Power station of Haryana Electricity Board  . We were staying in a township which was about 20 kms away from the power station. This township had predominantly jats and  Punjabi refugees. My house owner was Thakral, a teacher who was a  Punjabi refugee. This small hamlet had it's own socioeconomic dimension of rural plus urban. It was a common practice to own cows and buffaloes by the inhabitants in that area, it was common sight to come across some tau type with hookah basking on khatias/charpais and chatting away with neighbours  .Where i was staying i was the only one having a black and white TV set, yes those days BW TV sets were the only one available. On Sundays my drawing-room would become a cinema hall at 6 pm, when Hindi film by Doordarshan would be telecast-ed. My house owner with his family and neighboring friends would come to my house for watching movie. We would organise all available chairs and spread durries in front of the TV set.We did not mind, initially my wife would serve tea but then my house owner advised us not to bother. The life went on beautifully well with my project job and these rustic interactions.

We had an engineer named Ramloo whose wife was quarrelsome, she would often fight with her neighbours, whereas Ramloo was a meek guy like a sheep. They were staying in a house which was shared between them and Grover, the site inchrge of Genlec. Grover was on first floor and Ramloo in ground floor. It so happened that our site in-charge Shamnani who is no more now was on leave so i was holding dual charge of erection and commissioning both. During that period it was reported to me that there had been a serious fight between Ramloo's wife and Mr.Grover. Grover had used abusive language to Ramloo's wife, i knew Grover well and could not believe that he could do that. I was pressurized by my colleagues to resolve the issue. In the evening I rushed to their house in the township  . I could see people from adjoining houses coming out with charpais and proceeding towards Ramloo's house. Lot of people were already  there with their wives on their individual charpais  in front of Ramloo's house. I asked my people to find what was going on. They informed there would be a panchayat where Grover had to stand trial. It appeared Ramloo's wife had made such a ruckus in the area that elders of the area had decided to call a panchayat meeting. I spoke to them, they insisted that Grover had to be punished for misbehaving with a lady.

I went inside Ramloo's house, his wife was crying away and shouting at the ceiling, it was directed at Grover upstairs. I called Grover, he meekly came down. I inquired his version. He said after doing the cabling work whole night he was sleeping in the morning when this lady in her usual style was going on shouting at her kids, that noise disturbed him. He came down asked her to stop shouting and that led to war of words between them. I asked the lady what did she want from Grover, there could not be a police case as panchayat was already there. She haughtily informed me that was the reason why she called panchayat. That was a cheeky one by a South Indian lady in a North Indian town. I took a hard stand and told brusquely to forget about panchayat  and let us resolve the issue like two matured educated families. She went on insisting for Panchayat i asked Ramloo to control his wife. Finally she said let Grover ask for pardon by touching her feet in front of that gathering outside. It was too much for me, i told Ramloo either he was controlling his wife or next day i would transfer him out of Panipat and his kids would suffer as it was middle of academic session. Grover was in tears fearing that he had to face humiliation like that, which probably  would compel him to leave Panipat but then the project will be hit by his departure. Whereas that was the time when the commissioning of the thermal power station was in peak.This conversation was going on for about one hour but in the meanwhile the charpai crowd outside was swelling. Finally i brokered peace by asking Grover to apologize in front of us inside by folding hands.  Ramloo was under pressure from me, he explained the danger in his native Telugu to his wife, she reluctantly agreed. So the crisis was avoided.

I came out with Ramloo family and told the crowd that dispute had been resolved and requested them to go back to their respective houses. They were not happy about the resolution because they could not take part in the song and dance of a Khap panchayat court and met out judgement. They were robbed of their fun.

Copycat

Copycat, We Are All Aping USA

Our clothes, our language, our movies and our music- our way of life –are more powerful than our bombs wrote American writer/ journalist William Broyles. Yes that’s right not only we but throughout the world every one is trying to copy USA in every respect of life.

You come across American sounding avenues in Gurgaon; our own Bollywood is rampantly lifting from Hollywood movies. Ash Bhonsle in one of her interviews said that R D was so fond of English music and we know why. I don’t want to discuss about likes of Pritam or Anu Mallik. At least R D gave some lilting original tunes like the ones in Love Story, 42.

Our TV channels are looking towards America for inspiration the refined word for lifting. Be it “American Idol” or “Are you smarter than a 5th grader”.

Even news reporting format are those of CNN.

The other day I read in news paper that it was revealed that more and more research scholars in India are copy pasting the research work of American researchers…thanks to internet.
A pair of jeans has become a favoured outfit for guys and dolls, thanx uncle sam for that.

At the same time we are claiming the end of white rule, certainly through copy pasting route you can reach the mass production level as China is doing but intellectually you are a slave to those original thinkers or the creators.

During my  visit to China I noticed the presence of those American iconic out lets like Wal-Mart, Mac Donald, KFC etc. The young generation there is on black dress behave like westerner. The English songs are played in hotel lobbies. In 1998 when I visited Tokyothen one of Japanese business associates informed me that among the Asians it seems Japanese are more like Americans.

Left may shout hoarse in condemning anything to do with USA but we are already invaded and captured in every sphere of our life. If Dollar sneezes our Rupee tumbles.

We have not arrived; we slowly got sucked in what is loosely termed as western culture which is in reality American culture. We have followed the policy of “If you can’t lick them then join them.”