To Muubai For Development Banking: My Unfolding Voage 082

It was difficult to leave Kolkata. At a much younger age, I had told myself and my sister in law that I would be the only brother to stay back in Gurudham Residence. But now I have to go to Mumbai and start living there. Additional problem is that shifting of my family would take another nine months when the school session in Mumbai would begin and I would be alone in Mumbai missing my small kinds and wife. I would have to leave behind my mother, practically bed-ridden and helpless with the inability to speak. Yet I was looking forward to Mumbai.

April 28th was a Friday, the last day I worked for Coal India. I took the train to Mumbai on April 29th evening that would reach me Mumbai on May 1, the day I wanted to join IDBI. I had developed the pain in the back before I left and took the pain-killer tablets, Zolandin Alka to see me through. The train journey would take about 32 hours. The only companions during the trip were my cigarettes: smoking on the train was not yet banned in India.

When the train arrived at the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai, I noticed that my shoes, left under my seat while I was asleep, were stolen. I had to depend only on my slippers now. I checked into a nearby, inexpensive lodge that I had stayed in my previous trips when I visited Mumbai for interviews a few months earlier. The first thing that I had to do was to buy a pair of shoes. Then, I took a cab that dropped me at the Nariman Bhavan at Nariman point, near Oberoi Towers (a 7 star hotel) within five minutes with hardly any traffic on the road. I found the IDBI office closed. I gathered from the security guards that April 1 was Maharashtra Day (the State of Maharshtra was formed on this Day) and therefore it was a holiday in Mumbai, the capital and the entire State. I walked back to the lodge for the next twenty minutes laughing at myself about my decision to join IDBI on May 1. I had joined Coal India on April 1: later I thought that it was not a good idea to begin office on April Fools Day. So, I though May 1 for joining IDBI and experienced a self-inflicted May Fool event.

I joined IDBI on May 2. The office at Nariman Bhavan where the top executives and major functional departments were housed, directed me to go Mittal Court, a two minutes walk. It was the same building where I was interviewed and the personnel department was located. The same lady officer who had asked me for the ‘no objection’ certificate from Coal India before the interview, greeted me and took the relevant papers from me including the letter of acceptance of my resignation and my release from the services of Coal India, a proof that I was, as on that day unemployed and not a public sector employee. Soon however she would come back and ask me a low and hesitant voice, “Dr. Sen., you are supposed to be a PhD in Economics or Statistics, but your certificate from the Indian Statistical Institute mentions that you were awarded a doctorate in Philosophy!” I understood her doubt and explained to her that ‘PhD’ means doctorate in philosophy but my area of PhD dissertation was in the area of applied mathematics/ statistics. I could not guess what she understood of my answer, but she nodded her head and went back again. After sometime, she came back made me to sign some papers. Later, her senior colleague escorted me to the office of Mr. Philip Thomas, the General Manager (later this same position would be re-designated as Chief General Manager), just on the opposite half on the same floor of the office. Mr. Thomas welcomed me, offered a cup of tea, called Mr. SK Ganguly to come over to his cabin, and told him to take me along to my office cabin and arrange for my introduction to the colleagues in the Department. Mr. Ganguly did all that and also took me to lunch at IDBI officers’ dinning room at the Nariman Bhavan. There I met some other officers including a Bengali gentleman, Mr. Bhola Nath Bhattacharya, who had recently been transferred from the Kolkata office to the head office at Mumbai’s Loan Accounts department. There were exchange of greetings and efforts at building cordial collegial relations, though Mr. Bhattacharyya, an officers’ association leader, also whispered to me that normally the association is against new recruits at such senior level but he welcomed me because I am a Bengali and offered all help and assistance.

Later, Mr. Thomas would call me to his cabin and explained the responsibilities that I have to deal with. My immediate assignments included IDBI’s Management Information System, preparation of Annual Report and Development Banking Report, Parliamentary Questions. The officers who would assist me included three Deputy Manager, Messer, SK Ganguly, Harpal Singh and S Srinivasan – all deputy managers, Mr. Venkataraman, Industrial Finance Officer (IFO), and two very young Staff Officers (SOs) in Mr. Pradip Godble and Mr Manohar Iyer with a few assistants with them. He said some new IFOs and SOs would join soon and my sections would be further strengthened. Mr. Ganguly however would continue to look after Administration directing reporting for this function to Dr. RH Patil, Deputy General Manager, through whom all the four Managers including me would report to Mr. Thomas. The other managers in the Department were Mr. PV Narasimham and Dr SK Sharma both of whom worked on special assignments with virtually no manpower support except their Secretaries, and Mr. Venkanteshwrlu who headed the Market Research Section with two IFOs and a secretary. I got a lady secretary. The allocation clearly signaled that the new recruit manager in me was meant to be tested with as much chore as possible right at the beginning and test my manpower management skills. Besides, placing all the three Deputy Managers with me was kind of an arrangement to keep this new guy Dr. Sen under close observation. But soon I would also realize that the Department functioned at a very relaxed pace.

I returned to the lodge that evening both satisfaction and relaxed.