BLURRED VISION: GRATITUDE: Letters from a Grandfather to his Next Generations. Chapter 19

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Chapter 19

Dear Family n Friends:

I am a bit late in completing this Chapter. We just completed Phase I of the Home Improvement Program. I am sitting at my customary desk after 6-7 weeks. And the apartment looks good n well worth of the slumming we went thru. Phase II starts after Simran visits us later May. Waiting, Simran, waiting.....

Let me tell you, how Sukhjit and I became globetrotters. Some time in 1979, our MD Girin Khandwala sat me in front of him in his corner office and gave me the good news: that I had done well in the organization, that I was getting a salary boost and that I was being authorized to make a prolonged overseas trip to meet up with the various Foreign Associated Companies. For good measure he added that Sukhjit could accompany me for a check up for her bad back. Some of you might remember that Sukhjit had got caught in a stampede and had injured her knees n back.

As was his wont, he called Sheila McGready, his secretary and dictated a letter spelling out all this. We kept chatting till the letter was brought typed in. Khandwala signed it with a flourish and handed it over. I am sure he would have recorded this with the FFC Board at some juncture.

Folks, there was an important aspect to this trip. Khandwala was keen to import American best practices to the Group. He took the Education route. He was an alumnus of Columbia Business School and had invited Boris Yavitz, the Dean of the School to India and held a Workshop with him for the Group at the Tata Management Training Centre in Pune. During my travels, he wanted me to spend some time at Columbia Business School and learn a few things in Management.

Now this was something: My first prolonged overseas trip along with Sukhjit. We went west to Volkart HQ at Winterthur, Switzerland. We had a young trainee as our escort: Thomas Daetwyler. He was the son of an old India Volkart hand. We became friends n kept in touch. In course of time he left Volkart and joined another Swiss Co: Baur n Co in Ceylon. He rose to be the Chairman of the Company. We are in touch to to date. Next was England and Ireland to meet the Goodlass bosses. America! you were next. We spent some weeks in New York at the King’s Crown on the Columbia Campus. I did some intensive study under the HR Professors. Weekends we would hop a plane to Toronto and spend time with my cousins Kuku n Reena. We have fond memories of our time with them.

We went on to the Queens University at Kingston as guests of Prof Vince Gilpin, the Transactional Analysis Guru. We had become good friends on his earlier visit to Mumbai. He arranged for Orthopaedic check up of Sukhjit’s back. They said it wasn’t too bad. We came back home after five weeks of travel, duly relieved on her health aspect and got back to work. She to the School and I went back to the salt mines.

So then lets back to work too.

Those were the days of restrictions on growth n diversification of Companies that belonged to large Groups as well as those that had significant foreign shareholding. MRTP and FERA were bad words. Now Khandwala was a man in a hurry and was frustrated in his attempts to diversify and grow the businesses within India. Therefore he started to look abroad and attempted to create overseas operations mirroring the Indian Operations:

I am told that the Group was active in Indonesia even before I joined. They had wanted to set up a Textile Mill. However Management thought it fit that the Group should gain some experience in local environment before investing in a big way. They adopted the route of seeking Management Contracts. These were shades of the Managing Agency culture that was embedded in the Group. They did have one or two successful contracts and then proceeded to set up the Mill.

Source: Suresh Vaidya of the Gokak Mills who was involved in all this; albeit before my time.

The Group embarked upon setting up a Textile Spinning Mill in Indonesia: PT Gokak Indonesia. Some Indian businessmen in Singapore joined them as promoters. One of them was a branch of Thakral Family. In later years, Chinnappa and I worked for another branch of the same Family. A state of the art spinning Mill came up at Citeuruep outside Jakarta. The Group also set up a mini HO in Singapore and commenced Bradma and Latham trading operations in Jakarta. Management Team was hand picked from India operations: Jagannathan, Saby Chatterjee, Vijay Malik n many others. So Group personnel got a taste of Foreign work experience and life styles.

In course of time Chaterjee n Jaganathan left the Group. Chinappa of London office came on board to head the Mill. After some time he too left. In the decades gone by, BG Jain the CFO at Gokak was Mr. Continuity thru many ups n downs of PTGI. I had lost touch with Jaganathan; but remained in contact with Saby who was last known to be in Miami. We caught up with them on a Holiday in Florida in the 90s. Some other Team members stayed put in Indonesia on their own: Yogesh Dikshit, Hazuria. At some stage Sheila Raman, my admin, got married to Natesan of Gokak Mills HO and moved to Jakarta. I have had frequent contacts with them, ever since Mickey moved to Jakarta in 2006.

During the early years of the Overseas operations, I was a regular commuter Bombay-Singapore-Jakarta n back. It was interesting times.

The Mill survives to day – a tribute of Mr. Madan’s grit n BG Jain’s prudent management of shoe string resources. The Latham n Bradma operations were wound up a few years later.

In the midst of this, a surprise. No that is putting it mildly: Shock n Aww: Astad Parakh decided to leave the Group and set up his own business. It was an unthinkable news. Of course, he has done well for himself and we are in touch.

Astad’s departure left a big hole in the FFC Organization. I suggested to Management that Ranga would make an ideal President of Forbes. But then their worry was who would run IVP, where Ranga had started all new business of Foundry Chemicals. I suggested Ravi Marphatia, who was the Technical Director of GNP. I am sure Management must have gone thru some deep thinking and and serious negotiations but Ravi took over as President iVP. Word had come to me that my name had been suggested for IVP. But Khandwala ruled that out with ‘I have other plans for Raj”. Déjà vu. But thank God for that. Other plans have always worked well for me. There is somebody up there who is looking far ahead on my behalf.

As part of the reorganization, Amarjit Singh Puri joined as head of Lathan Div in FFC. They were the sales arm of typewriters made by Facit Asia.

Aha, Facit Asia and the Swedish Connection… Oh that is a long and interesting story. Shall we keep it for next time?

Picture Gallery Follows.

Pls pardon any caption errors.

But do pls point out the error.

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