BLURRED VISION: GRATITUDE: Letters from a Grandfather to his Future Generations. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Dear Family n Friends:

I am sorry that I missed last Thursday release. I was laid up with fever and congested lungs. My current Consultant had not realized that his line of treatment was not working and a new angle needed to be explored. I have shifted over to another well known Chest Physician. He suspects that I don’t have bacterial infection but rather fungal.. He also thinks that mine is not (any longer) a case of CPOD but allergic Asthma. He may be partly right. I do believe I have obstruction. I have gone thru the tests, he prescribed and await results.. Meanwhile, the medicines provided by the good Dr Sajnani seem to have worked and I am well out of this episode. I only hope that like the last four, this episode does not telescope into another episode. Hope in my heart and prayer on my lips.

It was nice to have Simran over for a few days. I wish I were in better health to do justice to this once a year opportunity. However we managed to do what we could. Thank you family for joining the lunch. We missed those who were out on a holiday. Next time.

With Harkirat going to University, Rajbir has shifted back to Jakarta. Happy Reunion, Venus n Mickey, after seven years dedicated to the boys’ education. Well done!

Well, let us get back to the Forbes story.

My boss, Girin Khandwala aka GK laid a lot of emphasis on education to bring about change within the Group. He was looking for me to play an important role in this endeavor. He arranged for me to study at the Columbia Business School for a couple of weeks on 2-3 occasions. They issued me an ID: “Visiting Scholar”. Alas! I have not preserved it.

He also negotiated with the Dean, Boris Yavitz that Professors from the School will come out to India and conduct workshops for our Senior Executives. He had got the Dean himself to kick start the process at Tata Management Training Centre.

Mr. Uday Malik, the Deputy Managing Director of Goodlass Nerolac was the in house marketing Guru. He was deputed to Columbia to prepare the workshop outline along with Prof Bill Brandt. I had befriended the Prof during my visits. The workshop was held at Udaipur. It was a great learning and bonding opportunity for Senior Managers of the Group.

Next on, Mr. CT Ghadhiali and CG Shah were deputed to brief a Professor of Corporate Finance. Likewise I was asked to visit the Yale School of Business and brief Prof Victor Vroom the Human Resource professor. A common workshop was held in Mahableshwar; first half Finance and then Human Resources. This must have been early1982.

Towards end of 1982, we had worked on bringing in a Professor on Strategic Planning. The workshop was held at the now defunct Sea Rock Hotel early in 1983. Remember the serial bombing history. The Hotel was one of the Bombing sites. We in the Human Resource Function were a little concerned that GK had lost his enthusiasm on the eve of this workshop. We were not to know at that time, but he had more important things on his mind.

I mentioned CG Shah. He was heading the Finance function of Gokak Patel Volkart and had to keep track of the Indonesian venture. He was a soft spoken but competent CFO and commanded respect.

Another financial expert in the Group was MD Kale. He was the CFO of IVP and assisted GK with Project Finance. In later years he was the CFO of Eureka Forbes.

While on the subject of Education, Khandwala continued to nurture his dream of setting up a Forbes University. The Group had formed a Trust for this purpose. During the Conference in Mahableshwar, he led a delegation of few of us to look at a plot of land between M’war and Panchgani for setting up the University. He had also summoned the Group Architect, the late Mr Lokhandwala. It was a beautiful site on a hill overlooking a dam below. It was his dream that water supply could be pumped up from the Dam.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that my name had been suggested for heading IVP, and he was reported to have said that he had ‘other plans for Raj”. I guess that his plans were in the area of Education. He would often say ‘you will be the Vice Chancellor of Forbes University”.

Plans of men n mice. Suffice it to say: It was only a few years ago that the Trust was liquidated.

I mentioned Uday Malik. He was Dy MD of GNP and headed the Marketing function. He and the MD Kothari were two different types of persons and would often come into conflict on decision-making jurisdiction. Uday, a product of Doon School liked organization lines to be respected.

On one of their visits, the overseas directors of GNP, asked me to conduct an organization study of GNP and suggest ways to remove the friction between the two. We were trying to resolve a “Personality and Style’ problem by redrawing the organization. The obvious answer was Divisionalization. Now GNP was essentially a single business company: Paints. It had another business; Pigments, but it was relatively a v small operation.

After doing a lot of detail work with different levels in the organization, I recommended that Uday be made in-charge of the Paints Division and DMK apart from being the MD, take charge of the Pigment Division. I don’t think any of us had our heart in it. Yet the proposal was implemented. It did not remove the style conflict. In course of few years, Uday left GNP and took up an assignment with another Paint Company.

Uday was a good friend of our’s. I mentioned that we had a few HR n operating personnel who would meet socially. We would drink, eat and play cards, by turns at each other’s home. Of course many of them would smoke and I was oblivious to the damage their second hand smoke was doing to my Lungs. The bill came much later. Uday was a regular fixture in that Group. He n his wife Vimla were great hosts too. Others in the Group were Dilip Haji, now in Singapore; Gupte, now retired and, of course the late Joglekar, Khanapurkar , Sujan, Gokhale of Greaves, lawyer PK Rele. I may have forgotten one or two of the ‘card group’ members.

I said Gokhale of Greaves because, we had Bal Gokhale within the Group. Long before I joined, he was in the Finance Department of Forbes but had left. Sometime in 1981 he was recruited to head the Forbes Engineering Divisions as General Manager. He was given General Manager’s designation and director level remuneration. Management had to apply the same to some existing Executives. Bal again left the Group. He was recruited for the third time as Deputy Managing Director in GNP after Uday had left. More of him in future Chapters.

The Group had another major activity: Shipping agency. Late Mr. NM Mehta led the FFC agency of American President Lines n Recruiting agency for Mobil Shipping. TV Mahadevan led the PatVolk agency of Mearsk n some other lines. In the days of the Foreign exchange controls, these were cash cows, since they required v little capital, but handled a lot of cash on behalf of Principals. In course of time, NM retired n was followed by N Mahalingam. TVMahadevan also left some years later. I have lost track of them and many other colleagues from those days.

.....oooooOOOOOooooo.....

Picture Gallery Follows

Pls pardon any caption errors.

Pls do point out any errors.