It is the people

“What is your name?” the principal asked in English to the smartly dressed boy of class 5.

“Indraneel ,” was the smart and prompt reply .

Then the principal went on to ask some more questions in English and the boy replied in perfect English. Me and my wife were impressed by the English teaching standard of that school in Shivalaya, Gujarat. We had taken our son for admission to that school which had classes upto 8 and the building was not much impressive. I had my doubt about the school so I had asked about the standard of the school, it was the only English medium school in the vicinity of Wanakbori Thermal Power Station of Gujarat Electricity Board then in 1985. This was the only posting among my 8 transfers in BHEL where I went reluctantly because of no good school available for my only son to study. Later on I became close to Mr.Purkaystha, the father of Indraneel who was junior to me in IIT,Kharagpur. Mr.Purkaystha was site in charge of MAMC. When I narrated my experience with Indraneel to him and congratulated for having a son who spoke such a fluent English after studying in that ramshackle school in shivalaya. He laughed loudly and said that he had come only a year back and he had no other choice than put his son in that school, his son acquired fluency in English in his previous posting. Indraneel became a poster boy for the principal, whenever a new boy comes for admission then the principal does this drill of QA with Indraneel in front of the guardians to show the English standard of his school. Somehow my son completed one year in that miserable school and then me and my good friend M K Pathak, BHEL site in charge decided to try putting our sons in Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan at Baroda which was about 100 kms away. Finally in next year we somehow managed to shift my son and Pathak’s 2 sons to Baroda, all 3 boys were put in hostel.

Because of the school problem the guy who was to be posted in Wanakbori influenced management not to transfer him from Gandhinagar Power Station instead I was moved on my promotion to Gujarat after my brief 1 year tenure at Delhi,HQ. The township was at the center of nowhere, non veg items were available at labour colony market outside the township as nonveg was not allowed to be sold in the township. The only entertainment was a monthly cinema show by GEB for its employees.

In spite of all the drawbacks we had a very eventful stay at the remote power station because of close association with friends like Pathak, Late Rajaraman, Late Ramesh, Late KP Rao,Nanjundan, Shankarnarayan, Ashok, Satish, Anand and so many others. Pathak was a badminton enthusiast and so 4 sides covered badminton court was made behind his official quarter , I too love playing that game so evenings were engaged in playing shuttle. The ladies would play in the early evenings and we all would play in the late evenings after we would return from our field work. So our social life revolved around that game of shuttlecock , it was like Sanja Chullah for us and then other activities like New Year Eve, Diwali Meet etc evolved from the badminton court. I must admit my initial negative feelings vanished within next few months. This close bonding with BHEL and GEB employees resulted in various record breaking achievements in our work.

Lastly I must mention that we were lucky that Mr.Dharangdharia came as Chief Engineer of GEB replacing one Mr.Gandhi who was a good person but weak administrator. Mr.Dharangdharia was opposite of Mr.Gandhi, he was a tough administrator and quickly became our mentor. Here I must introduce A K Anand who used to host all our private parties with Mr.Dharangdharia in his house. Though Meena Ben , the wife of Anand was strictly a vegetarian but she would cook first class chicken and of course thin tawa phulkas. Because of our close social interaction ,Mr.Dharangdharia started having more faith on BHEL team  than on his own engineers.

So the life at Wnakbori became pretty eventful. Other than keeping ourselves busy in commissioning 3x200 MW the second phase of Wanakbori, the social events kept us occupied in the evenings. The cooperative movement in Gujarat is visible in every sphere of life, we were treated at par with GEB employees for cooperative procurement of wheat, peanut oil, mangoes and even fire crackers. They would visit our houses take our requirement and then all the items would be purchased from mandi at a bargain rates.

All those 3 years of my posting I did not take part in Durga Puja fully but enjoyed 9 days dandia in the township. Yes, me, Pathak, Dharangdharia would dance round and round of dandia circle in all the 9 days, It used to be so colourful and vibrant. Yes we became one with GEB employees, there were no distinction. As I said it is the people who make the place and not the facilities. When I was transferred to Vizag then Mr.Dharangdharia asked me to settle in Gujarat as my son was already in hostel and he would help me to influence BHEL management through GEB ,HQ but I did not agree as by that time die was cast , the transfer order had come. My posting at Wanakbori became the turning point in my career, I was made site incharge at Vizag Steel Plant within 6 months of my posting.

What to eat?

Till 1989 I was eating whatever I was getting excepting of course beef and pork. That time I was 46 yrs old posted at Vizag Steel Plant as Site Incharge for the captive power station supplied by BHEL.

It so happened the wife of horticulture incharge of the steel plant, Mrs Mitra had a mild heart attack, was admitted to the steel plant hospital and they were our neighbor. So me and my wife went to visit her in the hospital. After visiting her I found there was a nurse outside at the corridor with blood pressure measuring instrument. Just out of curiosity I had my blood pressure checked and by the way till then I never thought of consulting doctor for general medical checkup.

Lo behold my pressure measured was 160/110, the lady asked , “When did you stop taking medicine?”

I laughed and said,”I never started!”

She advised me to consult doctor immediately. Then my wife took hold of the situation and took me to the resident heart specialist of that hospital next day. I was given lot of medicine to control pressure and advised tests. Medicines were beta blocker, blood thinner etc and advised on diets.

Well folks that was when I realized that what to eat was no longer my choice but of the body. So went through the regime of low fat intake, controlled red meat, controlled egg etc. The pressure, cholesterol etc were brought within limits by regularly popping those tablets and controlling food habits with low carb, low fat.

But then last year onwards some new research items started appearing in newspapers, WhatsApp etc which stated that fat is not the real culprit but sugar is.It appears all these MNCs like Coke, Pepsi etc paid heavily to doctors to come out with report suggesting cholesterol,fat etc were the culprit for heart diseases and not sugar so that their cold drinks with sugar content get free run. So now it is no harm in taking ghee, red meat egg etc because sugar is the culprit. So I was back to square one. Now I apply thick layer of butter on my bread and take egg whenever I wish to eat. I am back on mutton eating but of course in a control way. This time control on meat stuff is not commanded by the doctor but the body or rather the ageing body, it says it cannot digest that fast as I was doing say some 30 yrs back. Three years back the doctor advised me to go slow on sweets, better to take tea without sugar and less of rice. So now again my food equilibrium was disturbed to control sugar. So now it is black tea without sugar, the coffee with milk but no sugar. Reduced the quantity of rice intake. But today I came across an article which says carb is as good as protein to block dementia. But now I take low quantity of rice in the morning, two chapatis at night to control carb and starch. So I am in a dilemma of deciding whether to increase carb intake to shield against dementia but then my ever expanding waistline will run wild, my belts have to have extra holes punched or maybe I go for free waistline pant with suspenders. I was cursing these medical researchers, pharmacists in short the whole medical fraternity for misguiding me and my food habits. Well readers I am sure you too will have similar tales to tell.