Sweet Moments of Failure

Managing Few Minutes To Failure Experiencing failures could be as interesting and sweet as managing successes.In the second half of 1982, I enjoyed a few of them. One of the first few friends I had picked up in IDBI was a person who had taught for about two years after obtaining a PhD, had worked in the economists group of one of India's large industrial houses, headquartered in Mumbai. He would call me '30 Minute Manager' (at that time a short book entitled 'Five Minute Manager' was a popular air flight reading material for executives) because he felt that I had managed to get the position in IDBI through a 30/ 40 minute selection interview while he was offered a junior position after his thirty minute selection interview, though he had applied for the same position that I had applied for. He accepted the IDBI's job but was deeply aggrieved. I failed to impress him: in his evaluation, I was not a better candidate than him in the post I had held in IDBI. We used to return home from office in the same train from Churchgate station to Andheri, where he had his own flat and I lived in IDBI's rented flat. On some saturdays, we would spent some time over beer in a pub before we took the train. He shared his agony and disappointment with IDBI and his boss. He was a strict brahmin vegetarian, at home at least. Once I had to invite him to dinner while on the way back home. I told him that I generally eat out and eat only boiled things at home but he insisted in coming over to my flat and share dinner. We talked as we tried my cooking experience for probably the tenth time in my life (all in Mumbai): I put rice, a small cloth bag of pulses, a few potato half slices and two eggs in water in some sequence in the pressure cooker being heated by an electric oven. I missed the signals of the cooker and at some point some thing flew out from the top of the closed cooking vessel to the roof of the kitchen. Apparently something went wrong. I put the oven off, got the material out from the vessel, peeled of the potatoe and the eggs before turning them into a paste using the boiled pulses, some butter and pressure of my palm and fingers. Then we shared the rice and the paste. My friend found the food delicious. And, I knew that I had failed not only to cook the way my wife had advised but also inflicted a defect on the new pressure cooker my wife had brought in Kolkata for my use till she joins me in Mumbai. My friend told me that I was lucky for the opportunity to get a selection interview from the Asian Development Bank (I had applied in response to an advertisement the ADB released before I had joined IDBI. The telegram for interview to be held in Delhi was redirected to IDBI office in Mumbai by my wife, still in Kolkata. Thus, even before I received the telegram, some in the IDBI office came to know of this. My friend suggested that I talk to my IDBI bosses regarding this as that could be helpfull, as IDBI top bosses had close association with ADB. I did not accept his advice. On the day of the interview I flew stright to New Delhi. The interview was slated in a suite in a five-star hotel. I reached the hotel about 30 minutes before the interview scheduled at 2 PM. I went to the room 15 munites before two and pressed the bell. After five minutes of waiting, a person opened the door and welcomed me inside after showing his displeasure over reaching the room 15 minutes before time. He of course quickly got himself properly dressed and settled down to normal stance. We had a some discussion on ADB, my work experiece and Indian economy that did not seem to be interesting. After 30-35 minutes he told me that I would be intimated if required to attend another selection interview at Manilal. He gaveme a form for getting the reimbursement of the two-way air fare and other conveyance expenditure incurred by me to meet him. I took the evening flight back to Mumbai. I sensed that the person who interviewd me was not impressed and conducted a routine discussion to kill some time. In two weeks' time I got the cheque for reimbursement. A nice experience in failing to impress a person from Manila! Working abroad was not on my voyage - proved for the third time. Meanwhile, one of my cousins who ran some construction business in Mumbai searched me out and became a week end visitor. A friend from Kolkata sent me a young couple with a small child to live in my flat for a few days before they could find an independent accomodation of their own in Mumbai following their transfer from Kolkata. For a few weeks the problem of dinner got solved as the lady would cook for the host and his cousin as well. Since I was looking forward to the forthcoming visit of my family to Mumbai in December 1982, they had to quickly find out their independent accomodation. My wife was already upset that her kitchen was being used by another lady even before she could enter the house. The lady was under tension as the day of my family's arrival approached near. Two days before my wife's arrival, they shifted to a rented accomodation near Chembur. My cousin and I helped them in their shifting process. I failed to give more time to the couple for finding their own accomodation.