Letting Black Diamond Express Go: My Unfolding Voyage 081

India’s Independence cost our family the touch with our roots in the Khulna district (now in Bangladesh) – a district which was reportedly part of India on 15th August morning but traded off with the Murshidabad district by the evening. Fortunately for us my father had already set up his own business in Kolkata and built a house in the suburbs in Dum Dum in the late 1920s and early 1930s: the entire family including my grand-father could live together in Kolkata after 1947 permanently: the property in Khulna had been declared as enemy property by the then Pakistan Government. Nearly three decades later my father received a meager compensation against a part of his property he had lost as a result of partition of India into India and Pakistan (the ancestral property was in East Pakistan, now called Bangladesh). The parents gave us the money to renovate their 1930s’ building, named Gurudham, so that we brothers could have separate apartments for use. In 1981, the renovation was completed and my mother had allocated half of the second story for my use, while my parents and the younger brother lived in the other half of the same floor. My eldest brother lived in the ground floor and there was enough room to accommodate my other elder brother when he would return to Kolkata. I was in the process of shifting from the rented apartment opposite to the renovated Gurudham, things had suddenly started changing in many ways for me.

In Bengali there is a saying “Sukhe thaktay, bhute kiloy’: in a happy phase of life, a person is driven by some invisible force to get into trouble”. Coal India’s job was becoming increasingly stereo-typed with very little challenge. To reduce the stress, I had taken the full correspondence course of the three parts of the intermediate examination of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants over a period of mandatory 18 months in 1980-81. In early 1981, two of my junior colleagues in Corporate Planning Department brought a copy of an advertisement for the post of a Manager Economist of Industrial Development Bank of India head quartered in Bombay (now called Mumbai). I had to apply first for getting the form in which I would be required to formally apply. Around the same time, advertisements were released by the National Insurance Academy, Bombay for faculty and by the Kolkata-based Industrial Reconstruction Bank of India (IRBI), later converted to Industrial Investment Bank of India (IIBI), for an Economist. I sent my resume to these two companies. The IRBI never responded. The application form from IDBI did not reach me. My young colleagues inquired about IDBI and suggested that I send a resume to IDBI mentioning that I had not received the application form. After a few months, I received a call for interview at Mumbai from the National Insurance Academy. I was interviewed on the same day in three locations by three persons: the director of the Academy, the Chairman of the General Insurance Corporation and the Managing Director of the Life Insurance Corporation. I was told during the interviews that they liked me and that after the initial one year or so at the temporary campus at Mumbai, the faculty will have to shift to Pune where the Academy’s building and facilities including faculty apartments are being constructed. So, I had to request them to provide me an accommodation at Mumbai which they said they are unable to provide but are willing to pay whatever reasonable rent that I may have to pay for hiring an apartment on my own initiative. I knew nothing of Mumbai then and so was reluctant to get into the job of searching out a rental accommodation on my own. The MD of the Life Insurance Company suggested that I should consider in buying a small flat in Mumbai because that would be good investment and make me wealthier soon. He was right but I did not have enough money to buy a flat and was unwilling to borrow money for that purpose. I wanted to the employer to take the complete responsibility for my residence. So, I had turn their offer and come back to Kolkata.

Within a week, I received a telegram from Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) asking me to appear for interview scheduled a seven days later at their headquarters. So, I went to Mumbai. Before the interview, the personnel department officer said that I had not submitted the ‘no objection’ certificate from Coal India for releasing me: this was a peculiar socialistic requirement imposed by Government on the public sector employers, probably copying the idea from Soviet Russia – utterly undemocratic and draconian rule to exploit public sector employees. I told the officer that I had not been called for interview by IDBI notwithstanding the absence of the no objection certificate nor had I been told in the telegram to bring such a certificate. And, I did not apply in the prescribed application form because I had not been supplied one despite my request. So, she reluctantly allowed me to go in for the scheduled interview. I told myself that for the second time, I succeeded in bypassed the obnoxious rule of the public sector treating employees as their slaves rather as citizens of a free country.

I was interviewed for about 40 minutes as scheduled at IDBI. I got the impression that these people liked me and may give me an offer. They told me that they would let me know soon. And, I told them that I would be able to join only after three months of the receipt of their offer as I have to give three months’ notice to my current employer (actually, I needed to give only a month’s notice). I came back to Kolkata. There was no response from the Industrial Reconstruction Bank of India (IRBI) where I had sent my application of candidature against their advertisement. I gathered that IRBI has probably changed minds whether to recruit an economist or not. Little did I expect IRBI to recruit an economist some years later and still would be searching for a senior economist in the late 1990s? At that time I did not expect to ever have some relationship with IRBI much later in the new century.

Back to work and started preparing for all the papers in three groups of ICWA Intermediate examination. The examinations went of fine.

Meanwhile, there was a sudden set back in the family. My parents had gone for a two-month visit to my elder brother Mejda who lived and worked at Birmitrapur (near Rourkella in Oriya). After a few days of stay there, my mother had a cerebral attack. My younger brother and I rushed there to see her. She had come out of danger but the attack had that paralysed her left side and damaged her power to converse. By the time, she was brought back to Gurudham residence; I had already got the offer from IDBI.

I was so comfortable with the Coal India job with most colleagues accepting me as one of their own, yet I had been feeling the urge to change for nothing else but to learn different things and to get rid of the stigma of having worked only in Kolkata environment that Chairman Grewal during his interview did not appear to like. An elderly co-passenger in the chartered bus in which I used to go to Coal India’s office in the morning worked at the Kolkata office of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and was very affectionate to me. He commented that the IDBI offer was very attractive: normally one would take 18 years in RBI or IDBI to reach to the position that I was offered by IDBI. The compensation was about 20% higher than what I was getting in Coal India and subsidized accommodation in a decent large apartment in Mumbai was assured by IDBI within a few months of my joining. I was little hesitant because my mother was in paralysed condition and my in-laws would be missing us, my wife being their only child. But my elder brother Dada with his family and my younger brother was living at Gurudham to take full care of my ailing mother and aged father. I therefore decided to accept the offer of IDBI.

I sent my acceptance letter to IDBI and indicated to them that I would join them in the first week of May 1982. I took about a month’s leave from Coal India and completed the shifting to Gurudham residence. I could spend more time with my wife, children and my mother. She was under physio-therapy and was making some progress in moving the limbs on the left side affected by the cerebral attack. But there was no opportunity of full-scale conversation with her. We could not make out what she was telling us except through her gestures. She was able to understand what we were telling her. It was so sad that a lady who not only devoted all her mind and efforts to not only her own family, but also of relatives and friends and was so generous in extending her support to the weak and the poor even at the cost of sacrificing her own needs, was at this state at an old age. And, I would no more get a chance to enjoy the lively conversation with her.

After resuming work at Coal India, I submitted my resignation letter to the Personnel Department through my boss, Mr. Mishra, the Chief of Corporate Planning. Everyone wanted to know where I was going but I did not disclose the name of my future employer for fear of someone trying to create problems if they knew that I was joining another public sector company. Mr. Mishra might have told the Coal India Chairman to retain me by offering a promotion. Soon, the Chief of Personnel (the same bearded IAS officer whom I had spotted attending the Seminar on Incomes and Wages Policy at Delhi some time back) would call me to meet him. When I met him, he told me that Chairman wanted to talk to me regarding my decision to leave the service of Coal India. I replied to him that since I have already made up my mind, I would not like to meet Chairman and disappoint him even after he assures me of an immediate promotion to the next higher grade. I knew that with a promotion, the compensation would increase and I would not have to shift from the City I had lived till my birth to a distant city in a different province that I knew little about. But something inside me was compelling me to get out of Coal India and try my luck in Mumbai with a new organization about which I had little knowledge. Within a week Coal India sent the acceptance of my resignation: the three months’ notice requirement could not be imposed on me because the Personnel Department had erred in not sending me a confirmation letter after I had completed one year’s of service with them. But they insisted that I talk to my new employer so that they would transfer my balances in the Provident Fund Account to the new employer Provident Fund Trusts Account. That would be in my best interest. They settled all other bills and claims promptly.

After a few days, I bade adieu to my colleagues and friends individually. Only my dear friend, Sourav Mukherjee, informally gave a farewell party: he took me to sweetmeat shop cum restaurant where we had spent an hour together. Within a few days, towards the end of April I finally signalled out of Coal India and the Black Diamond Express go without me.