Lesson of life

Lesson of life

Our learning does not stop , begins from the time we are born, those who are observant they learn more about life.

The above observation was by Samarananad , my alter ego on the ghats of Varanasi.

“Yes” I said and added “After graduating from IIT my real first hand lesson was learnt in Indian Oil Company’s Barauni Refinery from my workers and officers.”

-Is It? Give me some examples, Samaranand smilingly asked.

Ok, here are some which I vividly recall.

Kedar Singh…our jeep driver

He was a ruffian but was the best person around for emergencies. He would not attend his duty regularly, leave the key of the jeep with the officers and he would vanish. I remember it was a club night day, the Last Saturday of the month, I was a bachelor those days. I was tending the bar, it was about 10 in the night, Kedar Singh came laughing to me at the club and said,”There is breakdown of a pump motor in OMS (oil handling station) and no standby so I better rush.”’

There was no choice I got up in the jeep and asked him to start picking up riggers and technicians from their quarters or shanties. Picking up rigger from a slums near the refinery was the toughest. It was summer time and all were sleeping on charpais in the open and to escape from the bites of mosquitoes they were all wrapped in sheets from foot to head. Kedar Singh nonchalantly started lifting the sheets of those sleeping toughs from one end. Abusing us those guys would shout at us but no effect on Kedar he would just say,”Ok,go to sleep yar!”’ then proceed to the next. This way we could ultimately locate Amar Singh and Sucha Singh from those wrapped up bodies which were looking like dead bodies lying in a row.

Yes, we finally managed to drag a spare motor, removed the failed motor by working whole night with Kedar Singh giving hand to the riggers, a total team work.

This taught me that though Kedar Singh appeared to be a wayward fellow but at the time of emergency he got transformed to a work devil.I guess everyone has that good and evil both in them, it all depends on us to churn out that good .

Chaubey…the boiler operator

He was through and through a crook from UP. Those days I was a shift charge engineer of the captive power plant. It was my turn to prepare quarterly shift rota of operators. A complaint came from all the boiler operators that why Chaubey should not be given duty on Sunday, all the operators get their weekly off days by rotation from Monaday to Sunday. On checking I found that by showing a reason that he had to attend some Ayurvedic course on Sunday he wanted off and which was agreed by the rest 3 shift charge engineers. So I told all other operators “ You guys don’t want him to enjoy Sundays, is that the case?”

-No,Sir you have not caught the design of that wily character, by taking off on Sunday he makes sure that he is on duty on declared holidays so that he gets 4 times his normal wage as overtime than 2 times the wage on other days as overtime. There were 10 holidays in a year those days so his getting double overtime was certain, as holidays are declared on working days.

I started scratching my head when I understood the game plan, it was diabolical.
Apparently it looked that he was pursuing higher study but the devil had his ulterior agenda. 

So I learnt, what you see on the surface is not the actual, one has to go  deeper while dealing with human being. I guess that is what human engineering is all about.

AP Sahay….smooth technician

He was a typical smooth guy with ever smiling attitude. He would sell clothes at half the cost to his fellow workers. I asked him how he managed to do that. He told in hushed voice, “That’s a secret Sir, I can’t divulge.”

Later on some other operators told me that he had a relative who worked as a salesman in a cloth store in Patna.He would go to purchase cloth in that shop when his that relative would cut some extra cloth and pack the same with his purchased cloth. A simple stealing. Knowing this I shifted him from a job where he was fleecing the truck drivers to some inocuous  post in a substation. After a few months I got a feedback that there too he was making money. I asked them how it was possible.

-Sir, a new cable is being laid by a contractor and there he threatened them he would cut the supply to the temporary construction switchboard if he was not given money.

So the lesson is simple a crook with greed for money would always find out a way, or a dog’s tail cannot be straightened. So no use wasting time to correct such characters.

Bishwanath Prasad….Electrician grade 3

The most reliable technician I ever had. He was good in tracing fault in control circuits. In his locker he would keep copies of all vital circuit diagrams plus all kind of spare contactors,relays,jumpers etc so that for any minor repair he  would have those handy at odd hours when the store would be closed.

This practice of Bishwanath helped me to solve bigger problems. In my office I would keep copies of all circuits plus in the almirah would store fast moving spares like bearings, sleeves etc. other than electrical items.

Of course i must admit one particular lesson told to us by our GM Mr.R N Bhatnagar still lingers in my mind and which i have practiced maximum. He told, " If you find a man not suitable for his job then find a job for which he is suitable. His not delivering the task is the fault of manager!"

‘’True all those characters you mentioned are specimens in their own genre and roughly get classified for future reference. These observation of human nature are very important while dealing with people.” That was the stoic response of Samaranand.

-I must admit that at Barauni i became a professional before that i was living an extended student life as a Trainee Engineer of the refinery.May be in next meeting I would share more of my people observation, saying this I got up and started walking towards the boat in Dashashwamedh ghat.

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Dead Firangee's overcoat

Dead firangee’s overcoat

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The months of December, January ,February would be very cold in Barauni Refinery and on the top of that attending night shift would be an ordeal. This happened sometimes in 1974 or so. I was posted as shift charge engineer for running the captive power plant of the refinery. The shift charge engineer would make round of the power plant starting with turbine hall,boile,water treatment plant, fuel oil station etc. These rounds in morning and partly in evening shift during winter was tolerable but in the night shift when temperature dropped to 4 something then taking round becomes a torture. The shift charge engineer is the lonely guy who makes a few rounds to check that all the equipment are running and operators are not sleeping during duty hours.

During winter I found most of the workers and officers would come wearing overcoat for shift duty. On inquiry found out that there was a guy called Bhagat who arranged those garments from Nepal. On checking I found those were to be second hand. To hell with second hand I too ordered one against all protests from my wife, I reasoned with her that such overcoats were not easily available in India and that too I would be wearing during night shift and keep that in my office almirah.

That guy got one grey colored tweed overcoat for me, it looked new. My operators joked with me saying now I too would be wearing a dead firangee’s overcoat. I should be careful that firangee should not claim his coat. No such thing happened to me, no nightmares or shadowy figure looming by the side of me during night shift.

One day I was on my round and reached the fuel oil pump house which was the farthest then, the operator Prasad got up and said, “Anything wrong?’’

“No ,why you ask?”

“One hour back I saw you going to the tank area.”’

“What nonsense! I have come now only.Have you been taking ganja on duty.’” I was irritated. Frankly one hour back I dosed off while reading a novel which I brought to keep myself awake.

Next night while I was taking round of water treatment plant then the operator came running, “Sir, everything is alright. You can see both cation and anion filters are ready after flushing.”

“Yes I have checked the water quality so what is your worry?”

“No sir I saw you near the tank half an hour back so thought something is wrong.”

“You saw me half an hour back? Are you mad, this is my first round.’

I did not bother much but then next week too the same story was repeated, that is seeing me in the plant when I was actually in my office. They remembered me wearing that overcoat walking around the plant. I discussed this with my operators, they advised me to keep Hanuman Chalisa in my pocket. One of them had a spare copy of chalisa and gave that to me.

Next fortnight there was no sighting of me and I was also using the overcoat sparingly. From the shift charge engineers room to the turbine hall there was á running verandah and it was a short walk I so would not be wearing the overcoat while going to turbine hall. My overcoat would be slung on my chair. During one of the  night shifts I was returning from my round of turbine hall walking towards my room, from the verandah one could see the desk of shift charge engineer through the window of the shift charge engineer’s room. I could see someone wearing the overcoat was hunched on my desk. The sight made me to stop on my track, I was getting shivers. I slowly walked towards my room which was adjacent to the main control room. I called out the name of my A grade operator Ansari from the central control room. Both of us stood at the door of my room. There was no one and my overcoat was hanging at the back of my chair as I had left. I was shaken so I went with Ansari to the control room. Was I hallucinating? I called some of the prominent operators for a discussion on this strange happening of sighting me when I was actually not there and then my seeing someone wearing my overcoat hunched on my desk. S P Singh declared everything was normal in my room who in the meanwhile had gone to my room to check.

The big question was should I get rid of the overcoat. I decided to sell off the overcoat to H P Sahay at half price. Nothing happened after that, I started bringing a woolen wrapper which I would wrap around my jacket during night shift. I spent my 3 years of shift peacefully without any abnormal sighting.

I resigned from refinery to join BHEL, during the farewell H P Sahay came to me with a big smile and said, “Sir I am not wearing that overcoat, we never wanted you to wear an old coat so we all planned to fool you in believing that coat was cursed. So the operators at various points were coached to say that they have seen you. That day when you saw someone sitting at your desk, that was me. By the time you came near the room I hid below the desk, Ansari was waiting for your call. I hope you will pardon us for the prank we pulled on you so that you don’t wear someone’s discarded overcoat. We believe that those foreign tourists give these away to the locals who in turn wash and spray essence to make these attractive.”

I let out a sigh of relief as the happenings of those nights would have still haunted me.

I patted H P, I knew he was a mischievous fellow and I had to upbraid him for his naughty actions against our Chief Engineer Subramanium but that’s another story for another day.