Loss of Innocence - Mumbai 1986

Everybody would have their own preferences but the best territories to work in Mumbai would be perhaps the Nariman Point or Fort Area. The potential is immense and the area would keep anybody busy without time to think. I liked both these territories personally because of the ambience, the food and of course the color!! The skirt and jeans regiment was a common sight unlike Delhi where it was mostly churidars!!!

And then when I shifted to Bandra I was in the thick and thin of Sandras!!

Llewellyn D Souza used to be an interesting character in my team. He is the sort of guy who would say that he liked cold beer but could’nt drink it chilled!! Basically a lot of “b.………g” of the first order was his way of life. But then who cared as long as he got orders. He had this uncanny knack of making fast friends with the opposite sex quickly and efficiently and since they were mostly secretaries going goo-goo-ga-ga over him, the order for a typewriter from that office was naturally for network. We did not have to depend on elaborate marketing and sales pitches for the sale. Competition was taken care of, prices were taken care of and features(ahem!!) were taken care of too!!

The best part is that sometimes he would try to set me up for situations with some of the good looking ones. Well, the prude(!!) I am, these were just professional hazards that I took on my stride!!!

From a business point of view, even from this there was one learning that I always wanted to instill among teams and this is not true just for sales. Relationship building is the key and that works in all aspects of our professional life.

When I landed up in Mumbai the first time, there was this support executive named Laxmi in Worli Office. She was a charmer in her own way and she used to regularly invite the office colleagues to her home for some puja or the other. A couple of times when I did go, I found that almost all of the Mumbai office bachelors were conspicuous visitors! I of course remember my first day straight from station landing up in office with all my luggage(!!) and she greeting me “Good Morning” and me replying “What’s so good about the morning?” A kick ass reply that definitely proved how big an ass I was!!

So while we had a colourful outside the network team was no less. Nalini our office secretary resigned and Rahil came in her place. Suddenly Tulsiani Chanbers Office used to get overcrowded and finally I had to put an embargo and that too especially on the erstwhile LAM team talked about earlier.

The sales lot were overall good but we had some unique characters too. I don’t know where they are today but one of them I know is Keith Rowe. From very humble beginnings he has worked his way hard and is now a renowned People Provider in Delhi. There are some dubious rumours about his working style but who cares.

As BV Rao in his comments talked about the motivation triggers of different sales persons, saying money was the major motivation would sound too clichéd. Who after all did not want the money? But it was the general enthusiasm in everything that we did in cohesion was the key!! Our planning, our team meetings our camaraderie, it was a full time holistic genuine effort that lead us. There were the dreaded sales reports all right but over time K Ravishankar visits to Nariman Point office reduced and that was a good indicator.

Typically. people at Head Offices thrive on rumours and that’s especially for organizations where the major actions are in the regions and branches!! So when K Ravishankar left Network for a job in the Middle East, somebody had the gall to ask me about whether I was having problems with him. This was when the new incumbent took charge of Mumbai office and even Rachna was asked the same question. Head Office perhaps thought that Mumbai needed to produce more that it did not!! R. Kannan our Godfather had left too!! So we now knew the source of rumours that emanated from Mumbai itself (basically some disgruntled members of our special team that I have talked about earlier) and they were all against KRS!!! Pitiful is the only word that could be used!!

It was about a year now that Canon machines were being sold and now we slowly figured out the problems that started hovering on us. The Printer carriages were giving away….all those high funda magnetic fields were throwing up I guess. Parts were in short supply so our Service Engineers started playing around with customer machines. Get a machine, cannibalise and use the parts for another. PCBs that earlier used to get repaired at NOIDA factory now would undergo torture from hand held soldering machines on work desks worse than a municipal classroom!! But that was that, and after all India is all about making do…top to bottom!!

The organization was growing, newer people from Delhi coming for visits. The old hats were leaving at HO or were being removed!! New marketing concepts, new pitches things were changing fast. Arvind Wable left for the advertising world and we had Deepak Maira coming in with his newer thrust on the basic 400 that nobody wanted to buy!! Later on he was instrumental for one of the unique machines produced by Network but that’s too early for us to delve in, at least right now.

I remember walking the streets of Fort with Deepak making cold calls and creating some projects while getting rejected in others. I gathered that he just wanted to get a feel of the market at ground level, because given visits being organized by the regional office, visitors would be taken only to “nice” places!!

Mumbai office went through some major changes. KRS left and Sanjiv Sarin(now CEO of Medison India and also big time advisor to Nucleus Software) took up the mantle. They were staying at the Ashiana Building in near Mount Mary’s Church in Bandra a stone’s throw from Almeida Park where I was parked. So just like when KRS was here there were many a times when I used to get called for these self invited dinners to relish Poonam’s cooking(that’s an oxymoron but that was how it was!!)! Mohan George was nearby too and many a Sunday morning was all about beer, fishing and irritating Usha. Bachelors can get on your nerves and I was one!!

The travel to office from Bandra for me was easy. Take an auto rickshaw or walk down to the station. Take a typical 8:13 or 8:23 train from Bandra and then take a share cab from Churchgate Station to Nariman Point. Sanjeev or for that matter KRS had to take this BEST bus to the main road and then change buses for Worli. I remember one day asking Sanjiv about cars and he said that things are in the pipeline. Next year Network launched its well-known car schemes that were available at a steal for the employees.

I had four flat mates in the Bandra Apartment and after coming back from office it was on very few evenings that we stayed at home. The other three had bikes while I was the pillion rider. We used to paint the town red right from Colaba to say Madh Islands. The famous Bombay dancing bars, the best street food, the best beaches, we covered them all!! And of course some good parties here and there were there in the agenda too. I miss those days, they absolutely rollicking and the nights were quite a sharp contrast to our otherwise staid day time existence.

This was also a time when BV Rao came in from Hyderabad Office. To reminisce our days we went to Hyderabad for a weekend and met up with most of the people and that included Markos Williams too!! I will perhaps talk about Markos Williams in a separate entry!!

My father was not doing too well with his health in Kolkata and I requested for a transfer. Sanjiv dangled the carrot in front of me but I had to go. I also wanted to get married and my girl was already in my life! So one fine morning in Dec 86 I left Mumbai and I was given a first call farewell from Mumbai office that I cherished. Mumbai is the place where I became a major!!

I met Chaitali however earlier in May earlier when I had gone away to Kolkata since I had caught Chicken Pox. I had more hair then and though there were spots on my face, I took the flight with sunglasses and a covered face!! The previous day AKD had treated us to a fabulous dinner at the Oberoi’s Polynesian Restaurant but next day was when I was falling sick!! In fact reviews were going on while I slept off on three chairs in the PC room!!

I was on to Kolkata and as luck would have it most of the colours in Kolkata had either left or turned grey. I was excited though since it was hometown and that was that!!