BLURRED VISION: GRATITUDE - Letters from a Grandfather to future generations.

PREAMBLE revisited

Having got through narrating the story of my work-life in the early years, a realization dawns that what I pen here should be of much interest to future generations. I address those of you in mid life mid career now and others who are just embarking on their careers. You need to know that success in life is a function of one’s own effort aided and abetted by fair minded and generous people one befriends on one’s journey. You need also to accept that a bigger force dictates many a turn in our life. And, Be assured that good things happen to good people. I do thrive on the interest that some of my friends in real life and Social Media are taking in my life’s story and I am encouraged by their response to carry on the task.

I am therefore redirecting my effort:

GRATITUDE – Letters from a Grandfather to future generations.

Chapter 11

My dear GenNext:

In this chapter I shall speak of a great friendship that I made in the course of my work. And how the Hand of God guided my progress.

During my assignment on Refinery Public Relations, I became very good friends with the well-known Industrial Photographer Mitter Bedi. Mama ji’s family knew the Bedi family well enough. He turned out to be the Refinery’s official photographer. I learned the basics of photography from him. We became good family friends and he introduced me to the Advertising community. Unfortunately he passed away at a relatively early age. The business still stands in his name.

As the years progressed, the writing on the wall was very grim for the private oil companies. The State owned Indian Oil Corporation was growing at their cost. Therefore within the Marketing Organization also there was a embargo on further recruitment. The company launched on a novel internal recruitment drive to fill Supervisory vacancies. Aptitude and other relevant tests were administered to all those who volunteered. The qualifying office staff and operatives, were selected as Draftsmen, Depot Supervisors, Aviation Refuelling Supervisors and so on. From the Refinery, among others, Ramu had been selected for Aviation and Santosh Wadhwani for Depot Operations. I had to bid au revoir to two good friends and colleagues. Not good bye; for Ramu and I remained in touch and I have recently revived contact with Santosh.

In course of time, I also got my own transfer orders.

After conclusion of the Long Term Settlement at the Refinery, I was transferred to HQO aka General Manager’s Office.

Now…..

Boys, girls! Tighten your seat belts.

It was an earth-shaking Day, 11^th Dec 1967. An earthquake of 6.5 magnitude hit the town of Koynanagar and caused much damage to life n property. Its reverberations were felt in faraway Bombay. And that was the day I reported to GMO for my new assignment.

I was assigned as Position Analyst. First off I was asked to formulate proposals for negotiations of Long Term Settlement in the GMO. That was familiar territory for me. The core of my job, however, was to prepare job descriptions and evaluate jobs for classification. Esso operated merit based system for Management Personnel without guaranteed periodic increases in salaries. I was also to draft salary review recommendations for Management personnel, based on their performance appraisal and Merit salary review policies. It was a valuable addition to my skill n knowledge set.

On the family front, as Mickey was growing up nicely, and years were going by, we started to think in terms of having another child. Our second son, Vicky was born on 12 July 1968.

Soon thereafter, Alwyn D’Souza and I were nominated to attend Compensation Workshop at Bangkok, conducted by the Compensation head in New York Office. It was my first overseas visit and I happily combined it with a visit to Malaysia, where a branch of our family was settled. They were the step-siblings of my Bhayya ji. They were prosperous Landowners and their offspring were Lawyers n Doctors. Two of their sons, got admitted to Khalsa College and got close to us. In later years, I got to know well enough Dr Ranjit Singh, n his wife Saro and we are in touch till this day. After Penang I visited Singapore, from where our family had repatriated to Quetta Baluchistan in the wake of WWII. I could even locate the Showroom of Nahar & Co. at Raffles Square where Papaji had worked. On later visits to Singapore in the 1980’s there was no sign of it and the landscape had completely changed.

Folks, let me retrace our Family’s journey through three quarter of Century n more. It has indeed been a very long journey and our Members have left global footprint:

Sialkot >Lahore>Singapore>Quetta Baluchistan>Peshawar<

Sialkot>Dehra Dun>Poona>Bombay/Assam/Delhi>

Saigon/KL/Dubai/BKK/Jakarta/Toronto/Philly>

Bangalore> Delhi> Bombay. I may have missed a stop or two.

My role in Management Compensation brought me in close contact with Senior Managers in the GMO and I learned the mores of operating at that level. I needed a combination of solid preparation, tact and willingness to learn and change in my future assignments at senior levels.

I shall write more about my work in Esso HQO in the next Chapter. Meanwhile, please remember my motto:

Live n Learn. Don’t ever stop learning.