My near miss #metoo time

The lady was upset after all she was the central minister, how dare an ED of a PSU not attend her phone call, let it be Sunday, “So What?”

She thundered to her PA to connect the concerned minister MJ in Delhi as she was camping in Bhopal. MJ got an earful from the lady Miss UB. MJ gave a ring to KGR, the  CMD of the PSU. All this was happening on a fateful Sunday in 2002 .

The concerned ED ,SNR was busy playing his Sunday tennis with Anil and his friends in the officers’ club of the organization in Bhopal. SNR could see a bunch of retired employees shouting slogans in front of his bungalow. They were demanding that company should sell the surplus quarters to them where they were allowed to stay after retirement by paying a nominal rent. It is the real camel and tent story. First put the tail in the tent and then gradually the whole body.

When SNR returned home from the club through the shouting crowd then he was told by his wife, “ Someone from Bhopal was giving ring in the mobile.’ By that time he was told that there had been a suicide of a staff’s wife and he ought to attend that funeral. After taking a hurried lunch he left without the mobile. Once again the same ring came on his mobile and his wife informed the caller that he had gone out to attend the funeral leaving the mobile in the quarter.

The reader may note that two events are occurring parallel to each other viz SNR rushing and the ring from the lady minister coming which went unattended by SNR. By the time he returned an irritated CMD’s ring came in the evening who said settle the issue with Miss UB otherwise on her return to Delhi she would chew him. SNR called his PR and HR heads to fix a meeting in the evening but she had by that time gone out to Sehore and would return next day afternoon. Also it emerged the call was on the behest of those retired employees who had roped in some politician to reach that fiery lady.

Next day SNR arrived at the circuit house with his team where leaders of retired employees were already there in Shamla Hills. They smirked at SNR and loudly said, “Now he will get from her a mouthful!””

SNR and his officers huddled together started strategizing the response.

There was commotion, it was past 4 pm , the lady limping with a stick entered. SNR’s close lieutenant RG got up and contacted a staff known to him.

Suddenly a staff came and asked ,”Who is SNR, ED?”

SNR got up, others from his office too got up. That staff said ,”No, she would like to have one to one talk with SNR!”

That was the #metoo moment, knowing the temper of the lady through news channels SNR apprehended a stormy one sided session where he would be given an earful by the minister lady.

He opened the door and found that she was not alone, there was a volunteer from the political party massaging her calf which was dipped in a bucket full of warm water. He walked towards her , she glared for a moment but then her facial expression changed after looking at the face of SNR, she said, “I  called you alone as I wanted to scold at you in privacy but when I looked at your face then I realized there is some miscommunication somewhere. I can read faces, I read your face and found that you don’t have any crooked line on your face, it’s a smiling face. Why did you avoid my phone call. I am a cabinet minister so I called you if I would have been an ordinary MP then I would have gone to you quarter.” She offered him a chair to sit.

SNR responded, “Madame I am sorry if you thought deliberately I did not attend your phone call. It so happened that I got caught in some other semi personal business.” Then he explained the reason in detail. To cut the story short, she was satisfied by the reply. Then SNR cautioned her about selling official quarters to those retired employees as it was the subjudice as a few months back court has put a hold on a similar demand in Bhilai Steel Plant. Then she called her PA and asked the leaders to come, the officers who came with SNR too entered. She took the demand letter from the retired employees and handed over those to SNR requesting to look into the issue sympathetically. After everything was over she offered her ministry help whenever SNR needed.

Well folks by this time you know who SNR is but the rest names you have to figure out. But I must admit that before entering the room I was having nightmare knowing her mercurial temper.

Also I was pretty surprised she carried on the conversation in good English and the offer of her ministry help was a nice gesture. By the way during the conversation she said that she considered me as her elder brother, the partly greying hair and my portly look helped.

Learning

Learning

From my experience I can say that learning has no age and no teacher, one learns practically from everyone irrespective of his or her status. Here I am not articulating on learning from parents and teachers, apart from them the other tools of life we pick up by our observation and adopt by the flexibility of our intent to learn.

Yesterday I got the idea of writing this blog when I was posting obituary for my friend Arun Mathur who left for his heavenly abode on 6^th October. What did I learn from Arun? He was incharge boiler erection and I was incharge commissioning in Singrauli Super Thermal Power Station from BHEL way back in 1981. As commissioning activities were yet to start so I used to follow boiler erection jobs closely by going to field with Arun. He used to evaluate the resources of the subcontractor first thing in the morning and would prioritize those as per immediate and long term milestones and allocate accordingly. Having done that in the morning the rest of the day he and his erection engineers would keep close watch on each work spot by visiting those spots periodically. In my later years when I was made site incharge which was in Vizag Steel Plant in 1988 I adopted his style of monitoring of erection work , may not be to the last dot but the core issue was resource planning, which could be skilled man power, consumables ,hand tools or heavy duty cranes.

As a matter of fact, my first learning of BHEL make boiler was from Late Kandaswamy who was my boiler commissioning engineer. He would methodically take me through that mammoth structure which gets assembled in the field. I had earlier handled smaller boilers prior to joining BHEL but not of this kind of heavy duty. This learning was in Panipt.

I came across L D Nagpal in Singrauli sometimes in 1981 when he was posted as site incharge. There were many issues where we differed and which was an open secret with BHEL and NTPC engineers but then admired some of his managerial qualities which were like my first teacher Hajela of Indian Oil Corporation. In case of any kind of emergency Nagpal would be there, be it work related or personal issues. There was no day and night for him, he was available 24 hours. In a remote site like Singrauli knowing that there is someone to look after you was big thing, people were giving their best without any tension. So taking care of juniors in every way was the way to the heart of people. I am a people person so will not hesitate to admit that I added some tricks learnt from Nagpal in my management arsenal.

M Jagannathan was my boiler commissioning engineer in Vizag Steel Plant in 1986, he introduced me to management book by gifting me a copy of One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. After that there was no stopping me from acquiring other serious books of Drucker,Ghosal,Goldratt etc. So my reading horizon expanded from reading thriller,crime,adventure, romance etc to serious subjects. Thanks to Jagannathan.

Late G S Sohol was GM of NTPC in Farakka when I was posted there in 1991 as Incharge BHEL to complete 2x500 MW plants. I was moved overnight from Vizag to Farakka as NTPC had complained that BHEL was failing, the progress of work in 2 years was less than 7 percent. This was my first posting in Bengal when Left Unionism was in it’s peak. I consider this posting as the toughest, I was given a ramshackle team with key experts visiting from other regions. It was Sohol’s unstinted support and his handling of union deftly gave me strength to face the challenge. I learnt a trick or two in handling militant union from him which came handy while heading eastern region of BHEL ffrom 1996 to 2000.

Late S N Bose was my PA in Kolkata from 1994 to 2000, because of him around I could survive in that region. He not only kept me informed about various activities going on but often he would act in my absence and resolve issues beyond his power. He would only use my name for entry. This trick of acting beyond one’s power I learnt from him. I would jokingly tell our then CMD late RKD Sah that I freely use his name while dealing with various manufacturing units of BHEL. He would laughingly tell me , “ Don’t borrow money in my name!’’

In Bhopal my GM, G G Subhedhar guided me in material management. In any manufacturing plant controlling input cost of material is the key to control of operation. So he would guide in judicious buying and controlling the wastages. We all aimed to reduce so called technical wastages and succeeded to some extent.

I was not much in spiritual thing prior to my posting in BHEL,Bhopal in 2000. It was Vijay Joshi, GM (turbines) introduced me to spiritual lectures of various spiritual Gurus who often give prabachan in our cultural hall. He introduced me to Rajeswaranand who was Muslim converted to Hindu. These were no religious discourse but articulating incidences from the epic while comparing with our daily life, these discourses were more of stress reliever. This great man would quote from Koran and Ramayan in same breath leading to logical conclusion.

Then there is B L Choksi who would egg me to hold quality classes in shops and which we started with due seriouness. He had earned all possible Shram award in India and finally government conferred him Padamshree in 2004.

Finally I must mention about Vipin Rawat who was my TA in BHEL,Bhopal a MBA from IIM,Kolkata. During my frustrating hours of work, he would give calm advise of cooling down. He is much younger than me but his cool outlook would help me to cool down.

Well these are a few of my teachers who helped me during my service life in BHEL.

I am on learning trajectory as usual. Hyder, a caddy who was Amateur Golf Champion of India in 80s is my golf guru. His often used word “Eajy eajy” reverberates in my ears when I take a shot.

Finally the Guru of all Gurus is Google which is teaching me to paint and advising me not to cram when it is available there in the cloud.