Economic Newsletter: My Unfolding Voyage 55

Senior bankers had frequently been in need of assistance from economists. For long during the 19th century and first half of the 20th century banking industry attracted very little educated talent because of relatively low pay and long hours of work. Top management would generally be members or trusted relatives of industrial entrepreneurial families  Highly centralised decision-making called for banking technician operators to run the banks and their branch offices. Many of the middle and senior level managers would be the ones who joined as the junior most clerks, worked diligently, mastered the procedures and proved extremely trustworthy by the top management and owners. They had very little exposure to the outside world of business and economics except through the working capital facility relationship interaction they would have with their borrower clientele. High intellect and professionally qualified bankers were conspicuous by their absence in senior bank management even after two decades of India's independence. Except for the State Bank of India which regularly recruited fresh talent at the junior officers level and put them through rigorous managerial training and exposure, the induction of talents at the junior or middle management levels from other sectors was extremely limited. But bank top executives had to interact with the senior staff of the Reserve Bank of India and the government officials. So, the senior bankers felt limited in their capacity to track economic monetary developments in the economy in the second half of twentieth century. So, they recruited economists as part of the secretariat office of the bank chief executives. One or two economist with a good flair for writing on English and some exposure to deal with statistical figures were appointed. They would prepare the briefs for the Chief Executives for various meetings, especially meetings with the Reserve Bank of India Governor and other senior officials of the Reserve Bank, the ministers and secretaries of the Union and State governments as also for the Indian Banks' Association meetings, They would prepare the draft speeches to be delivered by the banks chief executives at various fora including meetings and seminars organised by chambers of industry and commerce and accounting/ management associations.

These economists were also expected to release brief educative and informative economic newsletters on a weekly/ fortnightly/ monthly basis to help the senior and middle level bank management executives to better appreciate the macro level business environment in which banking business operate and the competitive forces operating within the banking industry. Often, these economists would assist the top management in designing competitive business strategy and undertake publicity and advertisement campaigns.

Nationalisation of banks in 1969 gave a further impetus to the senior bankers to become economists by getting more economists to work with them. United Bank of India Chairman / Custodian, B K Dutta, wanted that each of his senior official has an economist secretary. Therefore, an economist in the bank had to get involved at some stage in the publication of the banks' economic newsletter and compile the directors' annual report. Writing for the economic newsletter helped one to master the economic and business trends, besides improving skills in drafting in English. I had studied economics for seven years in the school, college and university till I obtained my Master degree. As part of the study of economics, I had to cover a wide range of topics in what was called Indian economics. But it was at the United Bank of India, I had the real initiation in monitoring the Indian economy and banking on a regular basis - a boring job that helped build insights and an exposure that helps transform a business economists into amateur applied macro-economist. I would continue doing this job for the next three decades wherever I would get employed and which ever level of management I would operate at.

District Credit Plans: My Unfolding Voyage 54

Once the Lead Bank first round surveys were over, the nationalised banks were required to prepare five year district-wise credit plans for all their lead districts. This was a fairly easy but time consuming task. Easy because the exercise was essentially a wishful guesswork to start with as a Five Year Plan for Bank credit in a district would depend on the expansion of the bank branch network in the district, besides the potential for credit extension. Easy because no one expected that the credit Plans on their first cut would be realistic and implementable, but would provide estimate of a broad order of magnitude of the ban credit requirements of a district.

It was time consuming. Because another round of impressionistic survey would be required along with discussions with government officials and bank branch officials in each district would be required.

The data available on the sectoral outstanding bank credit for each district for past years were available but with a time-lag (compilation by RBI was not online as it may be today with Internet and high-speed computers with RBI data processing centres: those days bank branch offices did no have computers or Internet and statistical returns were compiled at the branch level manually from manually recorded ledgers). However, past data for the district was available. More recent data on the credit disbursements by the lead bank was available with the lead bank: one could get this data simply by visiting the few branches in the district (at most 10 -12 branches). The hinterland that each of these branches could cover was known. The information on the farmers, artisans, traders in these hinterland areas were broadly available from the Lead Bank survey. The districts in general had very little industry and seldom had any big industrial unit and setting up of new large or medium scale industrial unit was not a regular feature. Thus, what was needed is to estimate the credit needs of sectors like agriculture, animal husbandry and poultry, small business and trade, artisans and self-employed transport operators ans small and cottage industries. Rough and ready scales of finance per unit of land / unit were available for various economic activities sought  to be covered by bank finance. Total potential number of borrowers were known and was far greater than what the banks in the district could cover in 10 years even with a reasonably large expansion of the branch network. So, a reasonable target of new and existing borrowers were arrived at for each priority  sector/ sub-sector economic activity for the five year period. Multiplying with the average norms / scales of finance, the physical target of the number of borrowers would yield broad estimates of bank credit plan for each sector. Summed up, one gets to X crore of rupees as the bank credit requirement of the district for the next five years. Less any one would complain about bankers being too pessimistic, the credit plans were made on rather optimistic basis and related to various assumptions on the district administration's achieving certain milestones on rural road and electricity development, etc. No one would criticise later that the actual credit disbursements would be far lower that the credit levels planned for a district.

Economic development could not be achieved merely by planning ban credit. This would be understood soon and district-level coordination committees of bankers and state government officials at the district level would be formed. District Credit planning would therefore transform into a rolling five year plan prepared every year. But much would depend on the priority sector targets that each bank would be imposed every year by the Banking Ministry: as the targets increased, the banks opened more branches and sought avenues for credit growth in rural districts.  To enhance the speed of financing, the banks would formulate standardised schemes of finance for various activities. Scheme formulation would become a major activity in nationalised banks.

Surveying As The Leader: My Unfolding Voyage 53

When India won Independence from the British, the distinction between the Queen's Whites and Black Natives got replaced by the distinction between  Jubilant Native Rulers (J-NRUs)  and  Backward Mass (BM). The J-NRUs  class distinguished itself from the Queen's whites class by just one feature: while J-NRUs were jubilant in taking up the responsibility to  develop the  lot of BM, the whites were only interested in  exploiting and oppressing the BM. By 1969, the JNRUs had to nationalize the bulk of the Indian banking system to use it as yet another instrument of public policy to uplift the conditions of the BM.

The country's districts were allocated to the State Bank of India Group and the 14 banks nationalized in 1969. Thus each of these banks had become Lead Banks in respect of certain districts. United Bank of India, my employer was allocated about 14 districts as its lead districts. The Reserve Bank of India and the Finance Ministry formulated the Lead Bank Scheme. The Lead Banks were made responsible for ushering in economic development in their lead districts by taking the Lead and coordinating role in broadening and deepening the banking network. This would mean tapping unused/ idle financial resources to convert them into bank deposits and extend credit assistance to all kinds of economic activities in the rural areas. The Lead Bank Scheme became the focal point for formulating and implementing area development plans in the districts. But the first task was to know more about the disticts' economic status and condition and then formulate appropriate District Credit plans.

One of the task of United Bank's Research Division was to publish Lead District Economic Survey Reports. Being one of the officers of Research Division, I had been allocated a few districts for completing the Survey Reports.  For each of the lead districts certain information was already collected by commissioning the help of local college/ university professors. This had been done even before I had joined the Bank. Based on such information, the Lead Bank Survey Report on Tripura - a full-fledged State of the Indian Union, but a Lead District under the Lead Bank Scheme because the size of Tripura was relatively small then - was published by the Bank. That was given to me as a model to start with along with some 20 to 30 statistical tables compiled by the outside agencies on behalf of the Bank and the district gazetteer published by the State ( in most cases, these were not updated after Independence by the District Administration). So, the task was relatively simple. Most statistical data were either based on Census or surveys by State agricultural departments or the Annual Survey of Industries and very little of information was generated through primary survey. The task was ultimately to identify the growth potential of each districts. It was essentially a task of reducing big tabulations into analytical convenient smaller tables and writing a few pages of report in English and associated proof reading. I had to deal with two districts of Assam and two / three districts of West Bengal. These being in the nature of impressionistic Surveys, and there was very little time available before the Lead Banks were to complete the task, I was not required to even visit the districts on which I was writing out the survey reports, except in the case of Dibrugarh and Jorhat Districts of Assam as there additional information was needed to be collected. What the District Commissioners/ District Magistrate's offices should have done got shifted to the banks after nationalisation. That was part of the process that continued for long to ensure that the Government officials had hardly any work except conducting progress review meetings to monitor the work passed on to the  banks and other public sector agencies. Great Design.

For two successive days, I had to come back from the Calcutta Airport because the flight to Jorhat did not take off due to bad weather or availability of aircraft: those were the days when Indian Airlines was only carrier for domestic air travel. The passenger fare for the flights from and to the North Eastern States were concessional and the alternative of Railway travel would have cost more than 48 hours against just 2 hours by flight. That is the reason I was sent by my employer by air: normally a junior officer were not entitled to travel by air in those days of commanding heights of the public sector.

A Fokker friendship aircraft flight took of on the third day noon. My third journey by air in life. The flight to Jorhat was less than an hour. Tea and snacks were served soon after take-off. But before most passengers could sip their tea, the aircraft started jerking. The aircraft lost and gained heights suddenly and frequently with the tea cups and food plates jumping in the air and then falling back on the try-tables. This lasted for about ten minutes before the journey returned to normalcy.  We sagely landed in Jorhat airstrip, an air force base at that time  hidden on three side by trees on high table lands and rocks. The  troubles of the survey journey had not been over yet.

The elderly District Development Officer (DDO) of my bank came to receive me at the Airport. But to our utter dismay, I did not find my checked in luggage at the terminal. On enquiry it was revealed that the luggage was not offloaded in Jorhat and has gone to Gauhati where the flight was supposed to terminate and that I can hope to get my luggage only two days later when the next flight to Jorhal would come from Kolkata.
The District Development Officer's office had an an adjacent room to host guests. I was put up there and I had to prepare mind to the bright prospect of remaining in the same clothes that I was wearing for the next 48 hours. Soon after I had got myself settled in my room, I went to the District Development Officer's room to have a cup of tea and schedule my information gathering tour of the district over the planned seven days of my stay in Jorhat. The DDO would retire in a few years' time and he was very affectionate to me but he had a surprise visitor from Kolkata at that time. This elderly visitor, a Commercial general manager of Indian Airlines, had announced that he had come to meet me as well. Three of us spent about half an hour together before the visitor from Indian Airlines left. But he assured us that my luggage would be delivered to the District Development Office by afternoon the next day when the flight that comes from Gauhati (Capital City of Assam, now named as Guwhati) to Jorhat. We thanked him and the luggage did reach me as promised by him. It is only when I returned back to Kolkata after15 days that I learnt from my parents that the same person had visited them in connection with his search for a suitable bride for her daughter. We have not met at time later.

My bosses at Calcutta telephoned to Jorhat to advise me to cut short my stay in Jorhat and proceed to Dibrugarh where I would be spending another two weeks. On the fourth day of my stay at Jorhat, I took the flight to Dibrigarh - less than 30 minutes journey. The Banks DDO in Dibrigard was a middle-aged person but appeared very enthusiastic about his work and appeared smart.. He had arranged for me a small room in a (no-star hotel) near his office. Before I stated my visits to various government offices, farming centres and commercial offices including those of the oil companies, I had a daily meeting with him. The first and foremost question that he wanted answers to himself was the kind of respect and cooperation that he would deem fit for his so young a colleague from the headquarters. He wanted to place me by my level. He found out from me that I was in the same grade position as the one got promoted to a year back. He was thereafter generally very nice to me. But telephone from Calcutta rang again advising me to return to Calcutta at the earliest.  I returned from Dibrugarh to Calcutta after spending 10 days on impressionistic survey of gatherring information and having a feel of the district of Dibrurgarh. Within a few days of my return, the historic War of Independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan began.

Inflation-induced Prosperity:My Unfolding Voyage 52

What if one gets Rs. 815 for one's service contracted for Rs 754? This is exactly what happened when I received the first full month salary credit to my bank account on the last day of January 1971 at the United Bank of India, the one that was nationalized along with 13 others in July 1969. The reason for the increase was inflation: dearness allowance, a componet of the salary, was inflation -indexed and with a few points rise in the consumer price index, my compensation had increased. Since then I always wished inflation to continue and make me richer more frequently in a year. That was the first lesson that my voyage through working life unfolded. In just 72 months that I worked, thanks to high inflation (remember the first oilshock induced price rise in the early nineteen seventies) together with two promotions made be 100% richer - though in per capita terms ( a souse and two kids - counted as one), I was 33.4% poorer in those five years. Something else would come to protect me.

I had begaun the first few days in office wearing a newly stiched light blue stiped suit: the winter days passed off well before I could understand that a suit was not really necessary in the warm Kolkata weather despite the air-conditioning of the office in an organization manned dominantly by Bengali middle-class Bhadrolok ( gentlemen) many of whom still smarted white dhoti and punjabi. I adopted white shirts and black/ blue/ off-white trousers as the regular official dress. The headquarters of the United Bank of India was then located in a huge three-storied colonial type office building on the Clive Ghat Street a dew minutes walk from the Dalhousie Square, now called BBD Bagh (named after Binoy, Bdal and Dinesh - three freedom fighters of Bengal's armed revolutionary group who fought the British Rulers through sudden terrorist attacks on highly placed British civil servants), where the British fought the first war to set up its rule in India with Calcutta (or Kolkata) as the Capital of the British Empire, a status that Calcutta enjoyed untill 1911 when the British felt it prudent to shift the capital to Delhi as Bengal became too infested with armed struggle by freedom fighters. From my residence near Calcutta Airport, it used to take about 40-45 minutes by bus to reach Dalhousie Squate those days but soon the distance measured by travel time would progressively increase by 50% - 70%. That was the beginning of the seconf unfolging lesson: the distance between office and residence in metro-cities increases in terms of  both travel time and/or travelling cost notwithstanding all the efforts of the city planners.  A significant part of the unfolding working life would be taken up by the time spent on travel between home and office: a sheer wastage of productive man-hours of the nation and deterirating quality of life (leisure time and pleasure forgone).

I was recruited as an economist, though not designates as such, and deployed in the Department of Economic Studies, headed by Economist of the Bank, Mr. T. R. Shah, a B.Sc (Economics) from London, UK - the only Gujarati in a Bengali Executive Management. I was the sixth officer under the command of Mr.Shah in the Department dealing with what was soon to be called Management Information Services, besides Publicity, publication of an Economic Newsletter as also managing the Bank's Library.  All the  other officers were senior to me in age by 8-15 years: two were senior even in grade and only one  junior in grade who was looking after mostly administrative jobs. All the colleagues were very affectionate to this young new entrant fresh from the University. Two of them held Masters degrees in Economics and had earlier worked as professors, one was a brilliant academic career ending with a Masters in Statistics and another a professional librarian. Soon however, Mr. Shah got a promotion and became an Assistannt General Manager (those days, the Chairmen of most commercial bank was assisted by a single General Manager, about 3 or 4 Deputy General Managers. Then there were a number of Assistant General Managers folloed by Staff officers in Grade I and Grade II and officers in Grades 1, 2 and 3. Most bank branch offices were headed by oficers in grade 2 and 3 (those days head of the branch offices were called Agents and his deputy as the Accountant who would report also directly to the Bank's Chief Accountant in the rank of Deputy General Manager. while only a few of the big branches were headed by officers in grade 1 or staff officer grade 2. But being in the Headquarter of the Bank, even an officer in Grade 2 was at that time a priviledged occupation. Mr. Shah became in charge of a new Department called the Planning and Development Department with four divions withing the Department: Research & Planning Division (RPD), Agricultural Finance Division, Small Scale Industries  Finance Division and Branch Expansion Devision. RPD was nothing but the former Department of Economics with various sections like Statistics, Research & Planning, Library and Publicity and Public Relations. The functions of all these divisions and the sections within the divisions were evolving fast over time and  there was close interaction among the sections and divisions under the Department headed by Mr.Shah. His department was the key change agent to transform the culture and operational focus of the Bank in accordance with the objectives of ban nationalization in India: promotion of hitherto unbanked economic activities of agriculture, small scale industries, tiny and cottage industries, small transport operators, artisans, etc.

There was an air of economic development orientation to the nationalized banks in almost every aspect of bank functiong from raising deposits, lending, investing, branch opening, human resource development. It was new challange with great thrill and entusiasm for  being relevant to the society among the bank officers during that time: the number of new recruits - both officers and assistants jumped many fold every year. My Division, headed by an Assistant Economist (staff officer grade 2) saw the number of officers  increase from 6 to 18 in less than two years with brilliant post graduates in Economics and Statistics- all in officer Gade 2 except one who joined in officer Grade1. Our work expanded dramatically. But all these enthusiam was for the new recruit officeers and stypists, stenographers and assistants. Bulk of the unionised assistants of both clerical and lower category were more concerned with their benefits and overtime pay rather than office productivity. One sector in India which the unionised employees enjoyed working with low productivity per manhour, no transfers and high and increasing compensation per employee was the banking sector, thanks to the leftist trade unionism. Bank customers suffered for long, since 1951 till about 2001. When I had joined the Bank, I was enthuasistic and felt that my intelligence and smartness was better than the attending assistants. Soon after I had joined the Bank in 1970, I was given the task to organise 15 0r 20 copies of a 6 page Note to be arranged in an hour's time or less. The Final version of the note was typed on cyclostyled paper and tewnty copies were taken (those days, we did not have PCs or computer printers). We had 15 minutes left to complete making sets and staple them and deliver. I started arranging them myself and complete the task because I though the step by step scientific approach to the same work by a Daftary and a Peon would take a longer time. The Daftary and the peopn watched me complete the task in my own short cut process. After the task was over, the elderly Daftary told me with lot of affection, " Mr. Sen, please do not do things this way again. Arranging sets and stapling are not the work of officers but ours."  I replied to him that since this was a small scale task which I could complete more quickly than two of them following their normal peocess of using a wide long table, spreading out first the copies of different pages into different sets and then stapling them while I just divided the task between three of us as the Peon and myself making one set each and giving over to the Daftary for stapling. He said that was all fine. But the officers, as per the work allocation contract between the management and the employees union, could not involve themselves in any way in the task od arranging paper, making sets of notes and stappling them. I had violated the provisions of this understanding. And, if I and other officers did this again and again on the plea of urgency, there would be gfewer vacancies arising for employment of Daftaries and peons, besides cutting down the overtime pay for them. The incident helped me prepare for the unfolding voyage in dealing with office assistants, stenographers, peons and daftaries in the future years.

Exploring Phd Problem and Employment: My Unfolding Voyage 51

I was in a hurry to complete identifying a topic for my dissertation and identifying a suitble job. But along with some exploration in films and a bit of romance. The Naxalite problem was growing, the two fronth governments with CPM's Jyoti Basu was creating further mess with their inexperence with administration. Imposition of President Rule in early 1970 and the attempt of Congress to come back to power could only further complicate the chaos in the State and saw the beginning of the fast deteriration of academic envirnment and academic life. At least for a potential new job seeker, academics had lost its charm if one could get an alternative employment. I wanted to complete the process of idntification of the Phd problem for dissertation at the earliest and get  commercial job and continue my research outside the campus.

But I had also to satisfy my inquisitiveness about Cinema. I had gone to see films in theaters three or four times in my entire school life: one film was on ramayana in Hindi, Lalu Bhulu in Bengali and For Whom the Bell Tolls in English. During my college and University days, I had gone to see films for another four or five times. I wanted to know what is there in the films, what attract different people to see films and how can I learn anything from films. I had very little time to do that for I knew once I join a commercial firm or become a teacher, I would have little time for cinema. Like the way I read novels, detective books and short stories in the past through rapid reading techniques of my own (often I would read 6 to 7 short stories n a day or two big novels in a day: I would never read any story or novel spread over more than 36 hours), I planned for my seeing films. With about 15 days of general holidays and 104 Saturdays and Sundays, I had with me roughly 120 potential days of seeing films. Besides, I could arrange for another 10 days in a year from the week days. With an average 1.2 shows per day for 130 days, I could target seeing atleast 150 films in 1970 (on a number ofdays I saw two fils a day on two closeby theaters: an early morning or a matinee show followed by an evening or night show). I achieved my target. The cost of tickets, snacks and travelling would have amounted roughly to less than Rs 400 during the full year for 150 films.
I had ruled out seeing English films for I wanted know more about my country and countrymen and the behavior. I also wanted to see as many films as possible in Bengali starred by at least one of the following: actress Suchitra Sen or actor Uttam Kumar including those that were produced before I was born/ before 1970. I wanted to see as many films in Hindi as possible. I wanted to know especially if I could find any taste for the great fashion among intellectuals ot pseudo intellectuals in West Bengal of not going to Hindi films. Unfortunately, I did not find any reason to suspect that these Hindi films could anyway adversely the quality of whatever little intellect I possesed. I also wanted to know if there was somethinng great in the so-called intellectual / off-beat/ alternative / real-life films produced some of the renouned directors. Unfortunately, I found most of these films based on poor intellectual quality of the script writers, renouned directors and editors: these films were based more on imagination rather than reality as compared to the other entertainment films. I also wanted to practice seeing films in a manner that I can enjoy any film as I saw it in my own way rather than the way Director might have had planned: this was rather easy as it was possible give relief to my eyes in the dark hall for scenes that did not wish to enjoy at anytime and let others enjoy. I also wanted to ensure that films to do not keep me thinking about them once I am back home from the Cinema.

Going to all these films however did not always give enough enjoyment. Except for the old Suchitra-Uttam starrers or some 8/9 classics of Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and others: total 50 or so in number), I needed to get some company for  seeing films. Of the rest, about 80% were Hindi films, both old and new releases and 20%Bengali films, I had company. I had roughly four catsgories of film-going  company: one particular schoolmate who did not find another friend who would give him company, a group of 6-8 friends in the locality and members of our Kishore Sangha Club formed during our adoloscent period, my research student/ scholar friends and dadas, and finally a girl who seemed to be falling in love with me. Nobody knew about the affair with this girl till we agreed to end the five/ six month period affair when she disclosed that to a few common friends. Romance ended before it could blossom: she must have found my mind's addiction to freedom much stronger than my heart's ability to lose itself in the mysticism of love. The romanticism in me had to wait for it expressions in apprpriate environment later: but my mind had become still stonger than my weak heart.

Searching for job and Phd problem continued in the midst of Cinema and experiements in romance. The methodology of searching jobs was rather simple since I was interested in a job that is based in Kolkata. There weren't many such opportunities that were attractive enough. I did get offers in teaching in some colleges but ultimately declined them because of the distaste of the academic environment at that time. By simply writing to their chiefs, I lured an multinational chemical company and a foreign bank to give me a chance to get me interviewed though they were not looking for any person of my type at that time. They did not find me of any use. However I had interesting interviews as useful experience. In one of the interviews, I was asked a very innovative question " If there were two commodities milk and cigeratte, and smoking two cigarettes caused the same amount of negative satisfaction as would a cup of milk would give positive satisfaction, how would the map of indifference curves look like?" I still think about why micro-economics text books confine drawing indifference curves maps only in the positive quadrant on the graph paper. I also sat for an examinatuion in a small town in the adjacent state of Bihar and faced a drab selection interview in Delhi to get an otherwise attractive job in a public sector fertilizer company. But decided not to join because I had to go out of Kolkata if I had to serve that company. But I could suspect by that time that it was possible to get some interviewers get interested in you through the selection interviews without bluffing and with keen observation of what they are looking for as individuals or as a group. Interviewers are seldom a cohesive, integrated group and Chairman of the interviewer groups have different personalities. I would test my hypothesis in future again and again.

The search for Phd problem however demanded a different methodology. The objectives of  and constraints to the choice as also as a broad criterion of choice should be clear to one's mind: the preferences and comfort of the guide who would approve, the time and energy you can spend in reading books and identifying a set of problems to choose from, one's owm capability to deal with the problem in terms using data collection, data processing, mathematical modelling, the ease with which the compulsory chapter on literature review can be completed, the interest that one has in believing that there was in fact this problem that gives you great satisfaction on solving it and the alternative ways of looking at the problem, and the time and effort you would like to spend in future to increase your capabilities in solving the problem that you happen to choose. For me it was clear that I could not afford to spend much time on searching problems and that I could not spend time on acquiring fresh mathematical and statistical tools beyond what I had come to acquire by then. I first read some Phd thesis  of those who had completed their doctorate degrees in the past. I also read the phd dissertation based books like Choice of Techniques by Amartya Sen and  the one by Sukhomoy Chakraboty. All these made me clear as to what kind and quality of Phd dissertation that I could draft with my own capabilities. I read paper in economic jounals - mostly the concluding sections to get clues to finding problems. I read many issues of Engineering economist to find if I could find something there. But there were so many topics and so many problems: it was difficult to assess the relative worth of all those problems for me to make a decision. I thought to myself what interest me: my mind told me any problem that has an application in real life to test. Two areas appeared to me as most interesting and possibly within my capabilities: one, Cost Benefit Analysis and second unemployment and economic growth in India. The problem was the first related to micro-economics and the second to macro-economics. I thought to myself: probably these could be combined in to a problem. But I had to test the preferences of my guide. He encouraged me to write small notes/ papers on what ever I would read and thought that I could handle. He suggested that I could try to get interested in the possibility of a cost benefit analysis of a likely petro-chemicals complex in Haldia in West Bengal. I did study sme material on this and wrote a note but did not consider it as satisfactorily meeting my criteria/ objectivers/ constraints of choosing a problem. I wrote notes on unemployment, on pollution and the like. My guide went through these notes and encouraged me to read more and write more. At some point, I decided that the time has come to discard many of the areas. I finally decided that I will work on Social Cost Benefit Analysis and how creation of employment could be a part of such analysis. I was not sure that I could develop this into a full dissertation over the years: nor was my guide appeared that optimistic. But he was reasonable and agreed to end the search further and told me to write out a the dissertation proposal that had to submitted to the Institute for registration as asertation candidate. This was in the last quarter of 1970.

Earlier in April/ May 1970, I had happen to be attracted by a small insertion in the job vacancies page of the English daily: the single column 6/7 line classified advertisement sought applications from postgraduate economists giving a post box number. Fie months later when I had nearly forgotten about having responded to that advertisement, I received a letter from a Calcutt-based nationalized bank advising me to appear for interview. There were  five/ six gentlement sitting around a table opposite me to interview me. This session went for about half an hour. It seemed to me that the interviwers were impressed with the interactions with me and seemed not to have met such a candidate as I was for a long time. Towards the end, one of the persons (whom I later came to know was a Professor of Psychology) who asked me someting about econometrics and then something on small sample testing of hypothesis. All other interviewers seemed to be impressed by my answers but did not appear to understand what really the questions were or the appropriateness of the answers. One of my answers were evidently wrong on the choice of probability distribution. The Professor  in response to my answer asked another question and then I corrected my answer to the previous question with a smile, as if nothing bad had happened.
Within 7 days I received the appointment letter. This was in late October/ early November, 1970: It was just around this time that my inquiry into wi films and my romantic experiement came to an end. I went and discussed the job offer with my Guide. In three days, we finalized the Phd dissertation proposal abstract and submitted my application for registration of Phd to the Institute. In another 15 days, I got the approval of my Guide and exercised the clause in terms of which I could work elsewhere while continuing my Phd dissertation work at the Institute. By December 1970, I was off the Institute's campus. All four problems: cinema, romance, searching for Phd problem and searching for employment ended nearly simulstaneously,
All four tasks were well done as they ended well along with the end of the year 1970.

Exploratory Research: My Unfolding Voyage 50

The year 1970 proved to be the most diversified exploratory research activity in my life. I had to explore potential job opportunities and their attractiveness, the potential research topics for my Phd dissertation that would require approval of my Guide, explore potential romance opportunity in an academic environment, explore the fun that films, in particular Hindi films provided to the Indian masses, the potential of brilliant minds around to help one build some intellectual capabilities, and so on.
At the end, the year tuned out to be both eventful and successful.

We were four students in the Phd program: two were my former University classmates with quantative specialization ( both obtaied the Phds, joined as lecturers and became full professors in two universities in the State) and an electrical engineer from Jadavpur University with a few months industrial experience. It was great to have an electrical engineer as a co-reseacher in economics: are opportunity in those days. He was a Sen and I found out that his family origin could be traced back to a village in what is now known as Bangladesh, a village where my mother's family could be traced back. So, I started calling him Mama (maternal uncle), though he was of my age. My affection towards him spread over the campus: soon he would become popular as Mama among all students, officials and even researchers and Professors. We shared the same professor as our Phd guide, the then head of the Economic Research Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute. Mama was however required to take regular course in Economics along with first year M.Stat students. Mama was a very smart, intelligent, mathematics-strong and generous guy. He enjoyed gossip and intellectul debates. He did not continue with research for long. He was innovative: designed and built an electrical muri(puffed rice)-making machine and set up his own business within a few years. He probably did not like to be employed: he became an entrepreneur. After 1973-74, I met him once. In 2003, I searched his muri-factory out with a rough idea of its probable location with a radius of 2 kilometers and then taking clues about his residence met him, his wife and son (the latter two for the first time).

Four of us had to take courses in statistics (though three of us had already done such courses lready during our undergrdute and postgrduate economics programs, the Institute insisted we learn statistics again there: we hardly learnt anything new and passed the qualifiers). We also had lessons on Non-linear programming and advanced international economics. There was no problem in our fulfilling the course requirements in the first three semesters.

We were paid Rs. 250 a month as stipend. Research scholars used to get Rs 400 per month but apart from doing reserch, they had to take classes/ titorials for B.Stst students.  Though we were not scholars as yet, we were enjoying the same library and office facilities as the research scholars. Some people at the Institute did not find the idea of the new breed of research students with no obligations. First, someone had objected to the monthly stipend of Rs 250 per month being high for people without any obligations to teach or work on projects. The professors who were instrumental in introducng the course however did not review their decision in this regard. Second, the Library Assistants raised objections. One day they stopped us from getting into the protected area of book-selves (only research scholars and teacher had access to these areas but students did not). The assistants pointed out that we were students while we said we were research students. On the same ground they reduced our entitlement to borrow books and periodicals both for overnight reference and longer period study. I wrote a letter to the Dean of Studies: all four of us signed. Our library facilities were restored, After these events, the people who did not like us, stopped doing mischief. And, we found a special treatment from the administrative and library staff.

Three of us were alloted a single oblong-shaped south-open room with three desks with drawers and six chairs for use. Mama shared a room elsewhere with research scholars. In our Economic Research Unit (ERU), Diponkar-da, Pradip-da (who stood first in the MA Economics examinations the year before I obtained my degree from the same University of Calcutta) and Nirmal-da (an M.Stat of two year vintage from the Institute) were the research scholars. They were kind of our guide to the Insitute environment as also close, affectionate elder brothers. They would spend lot of time with us. They would accompany us to wayside tea stalls/ restaurants for a drink or snacks. Often, we would all go for lunch to the Insitute's canteen (some kind of Cafetaria) which sold food at subsidised prices. Sometimes, we would roam about along the pathways inside the sprawling campus with lot of trees and plants, especially around the Director, Prof Mahalonobis's residence-cum-office. Occasionally, we would cross over to Institute's guest house and Hostel campus where Mama used to stay (students/ research scholars) could get virtually free accomodation: many  of us with residence within the City or nearby suburbs, prefered to commute to the Institute. We were on the top floor of the main building (a new building came up a few years later where most of the departments shifted): we would sometimes go to the huge terrance to enjoy an overview of the surrounding area and the cool breeze. Besides, Mama and I used to waste lot of their time over cups of tea debating developments in the country and economic topics of common interest. The three research scholar 'dadas' had lot of hard work to do: take classes/ tutorials, work on research projects and work on their own Phd dissertations. Yet, they never showed any displeasure with our disturbancs and wasting their time.

They completed their Phd in due course. Pradip-da and Diponkar-da stayed back in the Institute as teachers and became full professors later: they retired recently. They had always been very affectionate to me. Padip-da would always show initial reluctance to open up into  discussion but then slowly help me understand what he knew about a subject. Dipankor-da was our gateway to application of econometrics and to getting data punched for processing by the Institute's Honeywel computer where he had access to. Nirmal-da had leftist leanings: purchased and read Arrow's Social Choce and Individal Values before giftong the book to me with great affection. He would soon join the A. N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies in Patna, got interested in societal issues, moved to South and later to Pune toas Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research by which time he became a specilist ecology / environment economist. I met him once in 2004-5 after we lost touch in the early 1970s. My contact with Pradip-da and Diponkar would remain strong until the early 1980 after which we would meet after intervals of several years.

At least once a month, Ramprasad-da, who stood second in the MA Examination with Pradip-da as the First and was then a Research Scholar at the Presidency College Research Centre, would visit us. He was a very well-read person already at that time. IU would look forward to his visits to listen to him and participate in the discussions he would have with all of us. He would tell us about his readings and assessment of the interesting controversies and debates among great economists (Schumpeter, Hicks, Joan Robinson, Keynes, Hayek, Kalechi, Kaldor,  Hicks, Friedman, Samuelson, Solow, Sraffa, and the like), among school of economists ( Classical, Neo-classical, Kenesian, Post Keynesian, Austrian, New Classical, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, Chicago). He had picked up from close association of our Calcutta University and Prsidency College Professors many entertaining anecdotes about foreign economists as well as Indian economists like Amartya Sen, Sukhamoy Chakrabarty, Jagadish Bhagavatii and Mrinal Dutta Chowdhury, besides our own teachers like Satyendra Nath Sen, Bhabotosh Dutta, Amlan Dutta, Alok Ghosh, Rakhal Dutta, Tapas Majumder, Dipak Majumdar, Mihir Rakshit and others.
Not that I understood all that Rmprasad-da discussed: but I was amazed with his capability to acquire so much knowledge about various issues in economics and the profile of so many economists. His interest in subjects other than economics was also quite remarkable. These four 'dada' research scholars proved to be a great resource to me for my intellectul expanse and my own preparatory thoughts regarding my probable dissertation. I was indeed fortunate to have the association of these four young brilliant minds at this critical phase of diversified exploration along my unfolding voyage.

Fun-filled Research & Teaching: My Unfolding Voyage 49

I went to meet and pay respect to my higher secondary school teacher in economics. He congratulated me for securing a Masters degree in Economics ad then sked if I would like to take a part-time evening lecturership immediately. Since I was still thinking about a research scholarship or a full-time commercial employment, I wasn't sure. Yet, I told him I am interested because his eyes told me to agree. He asked me to meet him at the school an hour before the school begins next morning.  I met him again and he took me a gentleman's residence nearby. The elderly gentleman talked to me for a few minutes, said he probably knew my father as one of first set of residenents in South Dum Dum. Then, he told me to collect my appointment letter from the evening college nearby next day. He was the secretary of the college and had earlier offered the job to my teacher who thought he would be proud to let me take up the assignment. I began teaching micro-economics and macro-economics to undergraduate commerce students thrice a week for a compensation of Rupees one hundred and fifty (roughly about Rs15 per hour). That was great money. A packet of 10 plain Wills Navy Cut Cigarettes cost 80 paise and a multi-purpose antisepeptic moisturizer cream called Boroline cost about 65 paise.  A chicken curry dinner cost about Rs Two. Overnight I felt rich. I would soon become much richer.

Teaching was fun. Commerce students in an evening college were mostly those who worked as assistents in various firms during the day (and generally elder to me in age) or did not find a seat in the day college. The quality in general were poor, though a few were serious students. One of them still has contact with me. Teaching a gathering of 100 such students was both strenuous and fun. A half of the students di not ant the classes to be held after the roll-call attendance. A quarter of the students would be natural noise or disturbance creating elements while the class was in progress. Very few could recall what they had learnt about graphs they were taught in the high school. Understnding of logic was of the sports-fan variety or leftist political consciousness variety. most did not understand lecture delivered in English. Some were just simply naughty and aimed at upsetting the teachers. I had to learn teaching economics in Bengali along with drawing simple graphs. I had to learn binding them to logic to stop them from bringing to the class-room their storm-over-a-tea-cup ideological emotions. For the college's magazine I contributed an article on reasoing and logic for testing Truth including illustration of such axioms as ' thusand examoles do not prove a proposition, but a single counter-example can disprove a proposition' - a sentence I had picked up from my teacher at the university who later would become the Finance Minister of Wet Bengal.

Dealing with a class of 100 students, most of whom were not particularly interested in lectures or not equipped to study economics was rather tough task. I had to learn to walk up and down the aisles of the seating gallery to keep a close watch on various rows to prevent potential disturbing elements from attempting to create noise and at the same time write on the black board and explain. I had to learn throwing questions to carefully selected student at different corners to keep them attentive and busy before they could think of creating mischef. And, I had to cultivate some students - both elderly and young to be my fans(one of them, Ranjit, came again in contact with me in the next millenium). I set some ground rules: the entrance doors would be closed during the class, anyone not finding interest in my class could leave the classroom as soon as the attendance roll call was over and without noise, everyone attending the class will be vurnerable to face my questions on what I would say or write on the black board during the class and answer correctly to avoid my comments that would embarrassment for poor response. Things worked out perfectly after a few initiall class sessions. It was a great learning experience on controlling crowds, keeping audience captive and attentive, exchanging entertaining interactions and developing a friendly teacher-student relationship while ensuring that most students understand even partially what they were exposed to in a particular topic during the class (either one understood or chose not be in the class). A very fun-filled experience that I used to look forward to every evening that I went to that college.

But another fun-filled experience was awaiting me. I had applied for admission to the newly introduced research course leading to Phd of the Indian Statistical Institute. What attracted me is the program's requirement for three-semester course work in statistics, mathematics (mainly Real Analysis) and Advanced Economics topics wth qualifier exams. ad most importantly selection of the dissertation topic in the during the 19th to 24th month after which one could complete the dissertation without being in the campus and working elsewhere.  But to get into the program I had t cross the barrier of an objective type of selection test and a selection interview. I reckoned my chance to get selected as very high: the Institute would find it difficult to prefer some one else over me given my past record in course work and clearing examinations and given that not many who would apply would be as strong in mathematics and statistics. But i did not want to take the exam. without knowing what it was all about. I talked to Punuda, my cousin in the neighborhood who after his Masters in Physics had dome a Statistician's diploma course from the Institute (before getting his Phd and joining the Meterological Department of the Government of India). He explained to me that these were called aptitude and reasoning tests and generally very easy: he gave me some examples and told me not to worry.

But I thought I should another person whom I had developed acquaintance with about a year and half-go. He was a neighbour of one of the magic medical doctors I have had attention from. This doctor was my maternal uncle's sister in-law's son who remained bachelor throughout and was senior to me in age by at least 10 years. He used to visit us when my maternal uncle and aunt stayed with us at our residence for about four/ five months.  Around 75 at that time, my uncle had taken considerable interest in my health and food habits. Given my thin body and probably reluctance to do physical work, he suspected that I might have some terrble disease which was yet to surface. He requested this doctor, Jhanti-da, to have a thourough examination of my body and treat me. Jhantui-da told me to come to his residence near Girish Park on the Central or Chittarnjan Avenue one morning and he took me to the Medical Research Centre and Hospital in Chetla where he worked. It took several hours to go throup various examinations at the hospital. After a few days, he called me again to his residence. He gave me the reports and said there was no problem suggested by them. I cam back home and showed all reports and papers to my uncle. He was disappointed and sad that the examinations could not identify the terrible disease he suspected me to have been sufferring from. Jhinti-da on his next visit convinced my uncle that there was indeed no cause of worry and he prescribed me a tablet (called Penta-something) to be taken daily for three weeks and a squeezed lemon jouice drink in the morning daily again for three weeks. It worked miracle: I had no further attack of cough, cold and acute voice-eroding sore throat pain that I used to suffer from once every 45 days and had to take a penicillin shot from my family doctor to recover from each such attack. I became a fan of Jhanti-da. It was he who introduced me to Dipankar-da, his neighbour and another fan. Dipankar at that time had already obtained his Masters degree in Economics from the my University and after doing some special course in Statistics was a Research Scholar at the Indian Statistical Institute. We had met at Jhinti-da's place a couple of times.

So, I telephoned Dipankar-da, an inetersting person who demonstrated to me many things including the use of "C' inplace of "K" and use of "OO" instead of "U" in the surname. He told me to meet me at the Institute when I would come there to submit my application form for admission to the Research Course. When  I met him he gave me a bok on Apptitude Tests that he borrowed from the Institute Library and advisde me to practice. I did not find the book very interesting and thought that these test were boring except for school students. Nevertheless, I practised for a few days and went for the exam. I did not think that I did good at the exam. ticking away boxes. But I got the letter from the Institute for the selection interview.  I suspected the Institute was preparing to select me: they may not have got better research candiates. I went for the interview even more casually. It went for 15 to 20 minutes. I think the interviewrs were seeking justifications for their selecting me and I was the most reluctant. But they might have found to of my responses somehat interesting. A professor (whom I found a great, insightful teacher later on when I attended his classes) asked me as to why Arithmatic Mean was used so much in Statistics despite its limitations to which my reply was that this was because the concept was easy to understand fom childhood, easy to compute from collected data and highly amenable to mathematical operations in the statistics text book chapters following the chapter on central tendency from correlation and regression to probability and inference. He probably did not get the answer he ha expected but seemed to enjoy getting my answer. Another interviwere, one of my former teachers at the undergradte economics college, was interested in my interest in data collection from proper sources. When I said I did not know the current trends in India's industrial production growth rate, he asked me to guess. I guessed a range too broad 5%-8%. He smiled and asked me if I had gone to the Library, how quickly I could find out more precise estimate of the industrial production growth rate? I said look for the Chapter on Industry or latest five year plan in the latest edition of the textbook on Indian economics authored by another of my professors at the University. He did not get the answer he wished and desereved, but probably enjoyed my reluctnce to think hard. I got selected: they must have found me a bet worth taking.

The research course was rather light. Examinations went off fine except that I had very little interest in using the Facit machines (those days PCs were not there and electronic calculators had not yet become cheap enough) for hours to work out the practical statistical computation sums Professor Adikary wanted us to do. More time was spent on intellectual debates with reseacher friends at the Institute, reading books and journl in the Library on a random basis and based on them writing out small notes that could help identify potential research topics for my dissertation, ad consuting my Professor guide on the subject.

 Bulk of the time however went for idle gossiping and brain storming tat were pure fu.

Beyond Masters:My Unfloding Voyage 48

Towards the end of the Masters degree program, the youngest professor made it compulsory for some of us to present in a class seminar to be presided by him on an economics related issue of our own choice. One day, it was my turn and I had about seven days' notice to write out the paper and present. There was a requirement that one has to complete his presentation of paper in 30 minutes so that there could be a question and answer session. Those days we did not have in the Department the facility of slide presentation using  projector,  PC/ laptop or Microsoft Power Point: we had to learn these in the management development programs at employers' staff training colleges or Institutes of Management. Presentation was basically reading out from the manuscript of the paper one has prepared. I do not exactly remember the issue that I had dealt with in my paper. But I had carefully chosen a topic on which the probabilty of classmates asking a relevant question was very low (no one would take the risk of getting embarrased in the class by asking irrelevant or inadequately framed question on a subject on which one had not read adequately). The topic was related to Indian planning and efficiency of resource allocation, and was in a sense arguing for proper use of market mechanism. These topics were not taught in the class: planning models and techniques were taught, general equilibrium models were taught, growth and development economics were taught, failure of market mechanism was taught and social choice problems was taught. But failures of national economic planning was not taught in the classroom. India had by that time experienced nearly two decades of State-dictated economic planning: national economic had become an addiction for Indian economists. But there were literature available on indicative planning in France, failures of economic planning in India and other countries, and gross non-performance of public sector companies. There were some champions of free enterprise still left in India. They gave sppeches and wrote articles on the serious adverse effect of economic planning on allocation of resources, on inefficiency of public enterprises, on wastage of national resources by the State, on deletorious effect of high taxes on economic growth, social justice and entreprenerial innovation.  The failure of agriculture and industry to grow adequately despite  planning was so evident. We were in the midst of an industrial recession: growing unemployment and high inflation were two bu-bears of Indian economic performance. So, I had chosen these issues as the subject, write and rewriting the article in a manner that I could read out the article in 30 minutes, skipping certain portions of the article that I had marked to adhere to the time limit. I had been a natural fast reader and speaker. This would create problems for me later and I had to change. But at that time I had to use this natural property to my advantage: most of the class would have difficulty in following the meaning of English sentences spoken loudly at a fast pace that would make them appreciative of my ability but prevent questions from arising in their minds. I had also planned the questions that I would like a logical listner to ask. After I had presented my paper, no student asked any question as I had anticipated. So, the Professor asked two questions that I had planned for. I had ready answers and read out from the unread portions of my paper. I had deliberately skipped these small paragraphs in my article that were in the form of defence of propositions/ statements mentioned in the last sentence of the immediately precceding paragraphs. By skipping reading these paras (of two sentences or three), I had deliberately caused a few logical gaps that would invite the attention of a careful listner. As anticipated, my professor got trapped into those gaps and asked the logically relevant questions that I could easily plant in his mind through my presentation. The seminar came to an end with an appreciation from the professor. But in the process I had learned to use some tricks for future application.
But soon thereafter I had trouble in filling logical gaps. In the MA examination, while attempting one question in one of the mathematically oriented papers, I got stuck just about six steps to the end of the proof of a theorem. I was unable to recall the particular mathematical transformation that I needed to use to proceed the next step. A classmate sitting behind had observed my discomfort and inquired if I had a proble. I whispered to her that I was stuck with question number x. She whispered back requesting me turn back to have a look at her answer to the question in her answerscript that she had kept open. I thanked her but could not make use of her offer: I could not see from that distance, nor was I inclined to copy. I therefore tried alternative of my own. I wrote down the last step by leaving some space and then worked backwards to the previous step and then the previous one. But the sixth step from the bottom still failed my memory. I had to leave it at that hoping that the evalator of the answercript might miss the logical gap of a step in my answer.
The MA examinations got over rather smoothly. Though after the examination of the first paper I had run high fever and apprehended that I might have to dropout. Fortunately the next day there was no examination and I had recovered enough in 24 hours to be ready to go through the rest of the examination. Some of my clasmates however dropped out of the examinations for reasons of illness or insufficent preparation or apprehension of not being able to achieve targetted marks.

With the examinations over, there was lot of time for fun. Our local friends' club, Kishore Sangha (Adoloscence's Group) formed when we were in the sixth grade or so, now had young men as members. We had by then playing cricket, football or hockey and shifted to cards. We had stopped organising Saraswati worship and shifted to worshipping Goddess Kali. We started organizing Annual Cultural Functions with music, mostly vocal, performed by artistes - some would much later become famous singers in Kolkata, dance performance from young girls in the locality and drama performance by members of the club.
This year members wanted a upgrade their drama: they selected a suspense thriller. The problem with that selection was that we needed an actress as well. Those days it was difficult to get hold of a girl to act along with the boys. However, we managed to convince one girl who had shown a signs of seeking love with one of our members. This member was not an actor but like me would normally be present during the evening rehearsals. So, there was some scope for testing romance. We could convince one elderly person to give us two rroms lying vacant in the first floor of his two storied building for our use for rehearsals. The main actor was our director. He directed very little but also responsible for organising everything else for the performance on the stage. I acted as the prompter and found that I could exert influence on the way some of the actors and the actress would deliver their script.
But soon a problem would arise. The girl cam to me one afternoon and said in tearful eyes that she had been commanded to withdraw from the drama by his elder sister's husband. This person was the General Secretary of the bigger club of the local residents. We were also members of that general club and thought our exclusive club as an affiliate. I shared the sudden priblem with my friends and they agreed that as the General Secretary of our exclusibe club, it was my responsibility to find a solution. They were all agitated and felt that the general club was unfairly and unethically intruding in to our group activity. I had several rounds of discussions with the President of the general club , a medical doctor and the General Secretary. What I succeeded in getting from them is this: there was a general objection to boys and girls of the locality doing rehearsals without the supervision of seniors, the genral club felt organising annual cultural function by age-specfic exclusive clubs as a threat to the general club and they could not tolerate this. I explanied to them that while we could take care of the sentiments of the elderly citizens' objection to girls and boys participating in rehearsals, the general club cannot threaten freedom of the members to have exclusin\ve club's own activities. We requested the elder sister of the girl to be present during the rehearsals and went ahead with the program with adequate publicity among the residents of the locality to support and participate in our Annual function. We quietly met the local police station officers and requested their presence during our program. Everything went off well. My friend appreciated my role as their leader in overconing the crisis and I complimented for showing solidarity and extending support.The girl did show signs of getting interested in me. After sharing a few romantic glances and innocous conversations for a few days, I went away to from Kolkata for three weeks.
It was time to ponder over on what to do after getting the Master degree. I planned to keep open all available options: jobs- academic and non-academic, getting into research and doing Ph.d. I was sure that I would not be getting into teaching at the University striagt away even I had topped the examination results and I was also sure that there was no way the University could get me into a third position.  I sent applications for jobs to a multinational company, a public sector bank, a public sector fertilizer company a foreign banl and some colleges for lecturership as also for admission to the Indian Statistical Institiute's program for Research Course leading to Ph.d. My elder brother also asked me if I would be interested in joing as an accounts officer in his company, though he advised that it would be better if I had pusued a Ph d program. I was not still sure what would be better.

Admissions to Different Environments: My Unfolding Voyage 47

We get admitted to new environments. Some touch our environment. A few enter our environment and forge new environment.
My brother, Suku, passed the higher secondary examination when I got my Bachelor's degree. He did exceedingly well with distinction in all his science subjects including mathematics. He wanted to study engineering. I had filled in his application form for admission. He was selected for Architectural Engineering when the University announced the results. Strange things used to happen those days also: suspected case of cheating. I took my brother and visted the University office and said there is something wrong. My brother was definitely selected for Electronics and not Architecture. The official asked me how could I say that. I said that I had filled in his form and juust ticked only two streams that he would consider to study: first preference was electronics and second preference was Chemocal engineering. I did not tick any other preference. And Suku's score was among the best to be considered for electronics. There is some mistake somewhere. Those days the University officials were yet to become arrogant and had difficulty in ignoring logic. He called for the papers and was satisfied that what I had said was indeed true. But he appealed that we did not create further problem and offered Suku Electrical engineering as he had difficulty in putting his name in Electronics. I understood the problem: electronics had been recently introduced and there were limited seats while there was considerable demand from students to get into electronics by means fair or foul. Replacing Suku's name from electronics by some one else could be easily termed as a clerical mistake. We knew the possibility of such fraud. Honesty is not really the monopoly of educational institutions. We could have insisted on Electronics but thought that it might lead to delays and complications. So we agreed. Suku completed his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the same university.

Around the time Suku started going to engineering classes, one of my uncles visited us. He brought his maternal cousin to show what is Kolkata. She appeared a nice girl to talk and discuss economics She was from the Burdwan district and was studying undergraduate Economics Honors. bdgs Three of us made a single day trip in buses to various places and also saw a movie at a theatre. Since she was not used to riding buses, especially double-decked ones and smell that burning diesel creates, she started vomiting while on the bus and we had get out of the bus soon and walk a long stretch for her to become comfortable. Despite all this, the day did have a touch of romance. But she was also interested in getting my undergraduate class notes in economics. I gave them to her and she said she would return them by post in two months. During the next two months she would write mails to me and request more time for returning my class notes. Not that I needed these notes urgently, but I was not happy with the breach of conditions. I wrote a letter back to her expressing my unhappiness. She returned the notes soon. We had not met or exchanges letters since then. I wish I could have ended the borrower-lender relationship with a little more patience. In my unfolding voyage I had to soon become comfortable with treating my loans to others as a highly probable unintended gift: a few such loans indeed materialized into forced gifts. Much later I realized that possessions that I valued much did not remain so valuable when I lost them through loan that were not repaid or lost otherwise.

A year into the post-graduate studies, one of my uncles (father's cousin) and my elder brother, Mejda, would get married. As per the custom in the family, the bridegrooms need to use their sacred threads (nine threads of equal radius tied together with appropriate knots sworn as a garland - not around both sides of the neck and falling on the breast but worn around the left shoulder, touching the breast and then circling back under the right shoulder) when they perform the marriage ceremony rituals. These two gentlemen had missed their thread-wearing ceremony normally conducted before the age of fourteen and this ceremony involved shaving of the hair on the head. Now they were close to thirty and could not have gone to get married with shaven heads.So, the priests had a solution: everything would be done except shaving of the head in lieu of which a few haies would be cut by scissors and an additional monetary compensation was to be paid at the Alter of God and to be collected by the priest. I took advantage of this solution and joined my uncle and elder brother to secure the sacred thread for me. With the sacred thread ceremony, a man was said to have taken the second birth born. So, I became as senior as my elder brother and uncle who were 12 to 13 years older than me.
Both the marriages went of well with frequent interactions and feasts among families, relatives and friends amidst fun and festive mood with opportunities for coke-fizz like romantic moments for the young. The new brides had to find their own ways of getting into the strange environment after marriage. Both found a helpful friend in me, especially the new aunt who had to deal with a mother in-law with apparently harsh voice: my grand aunt was in reality so loving and affectionate to us.
My nephew, Joy, had in the meantime become a primary school student. We were spending lot of time enjoying his company. I would occasionally give him a cycle ride to school. Usually, he would go to school in a rickshaw. One day on his return from school he claimed that he had seen a 'twelve hand's' idol of Goddess Kali being worshiped in a pandal on the way. I told him that the maximum number of hands the Hindu Goddesses had so far been allowed is only 10 and he could not have seen a twelve-hand's idol of Goddess. But he insisted that he had seen that idol. He was right. In Bengali, height of an idol or length of a cloth was often measured by the length of a standard fore arm. So, an idol's height was measured sometimes by this measure: thus a twelve-hand's (Baro hath or Baro Hathi) idol meant an idol whose height is approximately equal to twelve times the length of a standard human fore arm. Joy in his childhood was a great pleasure to observe. Once when were in a restaurant he started shouting to the waiter: 'lickly, lickly'. We could realize later that he had just been in the process of picking up the English word 'quickly' at his school.
He was very fond of wearing the dress of military personel and would act as if he was in the battlefield engaging the enemy forces. He was very comfortable with people of varying ages and even strangers. He would soon have a beautiful sister, Munni, six years younger to him. Unlike Joy, Munni in her childhood was reserved and scarcely spared a smile for a stranger. She was very fond of her uncles and would seek the company of the uncles even when she was crying in pain or distress.
New admissions changed the environment without our knowledge.

Class of 66-68: My Unfolding Voyage 46

It is over four decades that our Class at the Economics Department of the University of Calcutta completed, in three years, the two-years of Masters Degree studies. Thanks to the incompetent State government of non-Congress coalition of communists and new breakaway local Congress parties, the weak and incompetent University administration as well as the juvenile Bengali revolutionary disciples of Marx, strong in both muscle-power and translations of Lenin-Mao verbiage,to fight both the communists in state power, the feudalist-petty bourgeoisie elements, we had to allow for sporadic and violent campus disruptions and examination delays that took away 12 months. After forty years, revolution is nowhere in sight: many revolutionaries have managed to live under capitalism with whatever comforts that they could extract from the system. A few has shot into prominence now giving their expert opinion on the television based on their experience in revolutionary communist activity and in teaching as university professors. A few of them we meet during university reunions or elsewhere and they seem to be happy with their life-long achievements.
Those days the boys had different groups, so did the girls. Only a few students would be part of more than one group. There were hostel groups (those who lived in the students’ hostel at that time), college groups (those who studied in the same college at the undergraduate level), common room groups (those who spent lot of time together playing table tennis, carom or simply gossiping over cups of tea and snacks), political party groups (generally communist), train groups (students generally traveling back home in the same train/ bus), same-row group (students regularly occupying the same seats along particular rows in the class-room, study-together groups (generally studying together and mutually helping each other outside the class), and teacher-Fan groups (special relations with particular teachers). Except for political groups, most groups were unisex groups. There was no inter-group rivalry or animosity. While these groups provided some kind of identity, there were many students who did not form part of any group and yet very comfortable with members of many groups. I had many close friends across several groups like Presidency College group, Moulana Azad College group, Seating Row group, etc.
While a special friendship with a member from the opposite sex would have been a good experience, the girls in the class either did not find interest in me or I did not find them of my type. I had very little interaction with the girls and limited to a few who were smart enough to talk to. One girl however did create avoidable problem. She was trying to draw my attention and one day she asked me to write down some quote in her notebook meant for collections. Since I was poor at quoting from the scriptures or works of great authors, novelists, poets, philosophers or speeches of great politicians and the like, I considered it worthwhile to try quoting from my own thoughts. I penned down with care some thing like this: ‘Mind needs to take control of the petulant heart’. To my surprise I received a long letter at home within a few days from a girl who claimed to be student of the Masters program in Bengali literature. She referred to my quote in her friend’s notebook and said that it was self-contradictory and I must listen to the heart of her friend. I did not reply. I received a few more letters and remained silent. While some friends tried to find out if I would comment on what they have heard about the quotation incident involving me and the classmate, they would surmise from my behavior that nothing really had happened. The quote-collector classmate would try for a while to talk to me in this regard but I succeeded not providing her any chance. It was an interesting but unfortunate incident: the girl was bold enough to take the risk of seeking quotes from a stranger and not probably a good sport to accept unwelcome quotes.
Those days many boys and girls did not develop the capability of transacting as responsible adults with members of the opposite sex. But some were capable and smart in friendly, rational conversations. There was one such classmate with whom I had occasional, intelligent conversation outside the class. I last met her in the examination hall. But that is all that I had interacted with my classmates of the opposite sex. I had no interest in discussing about girls in the class with my groups. Except once did I remark about one, a married girl, that the University was getting short-changed as this girl was paying fees for one student but allowing another within her to take lessons in economics free of cost. More than forty-five years later during one of our class reunion meets, this classmate, a retired college professor, told my wife and me that she had been amused with my remark when she heard about it at that time from another fellow classmate in my group. Then there was another girl who one day looked back on her way from the campus to the bus stop to see me walking 30 feet behind her. She slowed down her pace, allowed me to go head of her and probably felt relieved that I was not following her. I get my bus first on my journey back home. We had both skipped classes early that day.
Classmates were generally enjoyable companions. We had lots of fun and debates. Discussions about teachers' class performance, leg-pulling , unresolved issues in the classroom and gossiping were common. With some lot of affection grew over the months. There were classmates from different groups who would request me for help either for my class notes or even visit me at home to understand certain theories or problems.

Sometimes we had to accept special requests from each other. One my classmates, a very close friend, suggested that I should teach an undergraduate student of Economics honors whom he happened to know. I was reluctant. I got about twelve rupees (about 1.4 US dollars at the official exchange rate at that time and equal to a month’s tuition fee I had to pay to the University for my masters program) per hour that I spent with my pupil. But I had to spend another 90 minutes to go to his residence and come back. I gave him about eight hours a month. He seemed to enjoy my teaching of microeconomics and statistics. His mother used to offer me wholesome milk-based sweets and drinks, probably to make me energetic enough to teach her son. After three-months I gave up this assignment. I never liked to be a teacher, though I enjoyed the communication while teaching.

In the second winter that we had spent together in the University, some classmates arranged a cricket match between select elevens of two successive batches. Our captain, a stylish batsman, happened to know about my cricket credentials because he was from the same suburban municipal area. He requested me to play. That was the last time I played cricket. I do not remember the result, the scores and individual performance. But I came in touch with one of the junior fellow student, a smart, handsome guy. A few years later we would be working for the same employer.

One of my classmates was from a family in the newspaper business. He would drive in his car to the campus and sometimes gave me a lift one-fourth of my journey back home - the small common stretch on his drive back home. Once I had suggested to him that his family group launched an economics-finance daily (there was only one such daily at that time in India) so that they could offer jobs of economics correspondent when we complete our degrees. He did not finally complete the requirements of the masters degree, but his group did launch a business daily five or six years later. But I did not have an opportunity to work for his paper. Much later the daily did publish some of my articles, interviews and letters to the editor.
A part of the hostel group did cause the class some embarrassment. The Economics Department's student's hostel was located in a residential area close to the Department campus, about three minutes walk. Some hostel residents were bold enough to create lot of noise at the hostel even past mid-night hours, besides causing eve-teasing and got into some kind of animosity with the youth in the locality. There were lot of complaints on the behavior of these rather adventurous students suddenly enjoying the freedom from their parents and their strict discipline requirements at homes in towns or villages far away from the city of Calcutta. However, the problems would ease soon: facing threat of disciplinary actions from the University and such news reaching their parents, these few students changed their behavior and concentrated back on studies as the examinations approached. Weaknesses in the witness and evidence that surfaced at the last minutes save the students from the likely punishment of being expelled. Now when some us recount those days fore decades later at our reunion meets, it appears that none has any regrets for what had happened.

Re-unions however these days do not attract many of the alumni. In the reunion organized by the Economics Department of the University of Calcutta (AACUED) around 100 alumni turn up. From our Class of about 100 hardly five to eight attend. With age and various official and family commitments, only a few really can derive pleasure from attending Annual reunions. It is a wonder how some less than a dozen of active office bearers and members of AACUED still find interest in organizing the re-unions every year. The same is true of the reunion of our Class of 66-68. About 10 years back the attendance was about 35 out of the original class strength of about 100 students (the enrolment to the class was 123 but at best 100 attended). In the past few years, the attendance has been shrinking: it has fallen from about 20 or so to about 10. In 2010, surprisingly about 25 of us met at the residence of one of the classmates. He is a deeply religious man and runs his own business. He arranged a wonderful, sumptuous lunch for us. At these reunions, we seem to be much closer friends now, than we were when we studied together for about 500 days of classes spread over three years at the University.

Some of the classmates are no more: we come to know that only now. Many are unable to attend the reunions. Some lived in foreign countries, some others settled outside Kolkata (some have settled down in other states). Some are afflicted with diseases requiring long treatment. Even among those who join had by-pass heart surgeries or similar medical attention. Most of us are now grand parents and suffer from various aging problems. Most of us have retired from active employment. About one third of the classmates served nationalized banks (the banks were nationalized in 1969 just as we obtained our degrees and they would get into a raid expansion mode soon creating job opportunities for us. Another one-third went into various government services from income-tax department to sales tax department to judicial, police and administrative services. About a fourth of our classmates went to high schools teach. Some went to undergraduate colleges and various universities to lecture. Some picked up Ph d degrees along the way. Some students dropped out and did not pursue to get the masters degree - some went straight to get into some jobs, some girls were happy getting married.We have a nice profile of attendees at the reunions - from retired vice chancellors of university and university/ college professors and principals, to retired senior bankers, school teachers and former secretaries to the state government, and retired inspector general of police, business person, renowned film director and homemakers who did not get trapped into employment. I wonder if any of us had any idea as to how life would unfold after we left the University? And, we discover what as a group we have been doing since we parted on completion of our degrees?