The Black Book - By Ravi(RSS) Year 1984

We all know of Red Books, Blue Books, Yellow Pages, White Papers and so on and so forth. In Network we had The Black Book. The Black Book was basically a plastic laminated black folder with some sheets inside. It contained an article on Social Justice which I am pretty sure nobody ever read and the question of Network paying royalty for the same perhaps did not arise. This article was typed in Cubic Mini PS (Cubic was the Font style, Mini because of the size and PS would mean Proportional Spacing). I will surely explain what these meant, but that's later.

This book was the proof of the hope that we tried to generate among VIPs and CEOs that would enhance their image. The article had some neatly typed paragraphs with a few tables scattered so that we could explain the nuances of the product in terms of Bold, Italics, Justification, Word Wrap and all such tough technical stuff! This is the book we used day in and day out and not the brochure to explain our products.

In my first call I had doled out a brochure. So did I again in the next and the following one. But after that day, never ever was this phenomenon repeated courtesy the same old Hyderabad analyzing sessions. From then on it was the Black Book and a empty ruled yellow pad that were the major tools In a business call.

Coming back to some technical terms, the other day my daughter came to me and asked the meaning of Justification and Word Wrap. I was absolutely delighted to explain the concepts to her. Justification would mean where the first character in a line is exactly placed on the left margin, the last character is placed exactly on the right margin and the inter-word spaces are adjusted so that the line gives a homogeneous look. Bold and Italics are simple stuff not worth explaining. Word Wrap would occur when the word at the end of the line was too big and did not fit. The intelligence of the machine carried the whole word onto the next line. These were features that made our machines sell, while these days many would not even know the mechanics.

The tough one was Proportional Spacing and I can assure you that even today people may not understand or appreciate the concept. To be simple, proportional spacing is when the inter character space is constant. Characters are of different width for example, a `W' is much wider say, than an `i'. Now if were to type "Witness" as I have you would notice that all the characters are compactly placed and there is no wasted space between them making it pleasing to the eye. Now without Proportional Spacing the same word would look something like this. "Witness"! The intelligence in the machine would advance the carriage depending upon the size of the character and then would print on the paper unlike manual or electric typewriters where the carriage would move forward irrespective of character size! Word Processing Applications follow these same concepts unlike say WordStar those days. Hope you get the idea. Of course you would, since, who else other than a Networker would read these gibberish explanations!

I was in the typewriter business, but lazy that one was, I never even thought of joining a typing class and learn to type properly. Instead all the preliminary efforts were on how to use the first and middle fingers to good use. Within months, of course I could easily take on rookie typists and that was enough for my job. I type the same way even this day and somehow I think the non conformance to regular typing skills is still serving me well.

I joined Hyderabad office in May when the climate is extremely hot and it affects you in the mind too. This was especially true for me, who from childhood had always been used to a humid climate. In this rather depressing state of affairs it was the company of office mates after evening that used to perk me up for the next day. Beer and Chicken 65 was a good combination and I remember some of the Service Engineers were also pretty happy to join up. Finally we three that is LB Raj, KVS and myself took up an unfurnished house in P&T Colony. Veeranna was the landlord. He had two sons who were my cricketing partners on Sunday mornings, Breakfast was a given in their house on most holidays, week after week. The ground floor house was pretty Spartan with one large bedroom and two small ones. LBR and KVS shared the master while I occupied the small single one. First day we bought three camp cots and one of them within two months collapsed due to my weight or posture or both!! It went on to serve me well for a year in that slightly slanted state.

Near office was this Banjara Hotel serving good South Indian food and that was a favourite haunt. The other was of course Taj Mahal with its patent Vegetable Dosa that I have yet to find elsewhere. On the front of this Banjara Hotel was a shop selling customs seized goods and I invested In a small walkman with external speakers. Saturday nights typically my company was Uriah Heep and the stars above. LBR used to vanish every Friday evening to his uncle's in APSEB while KVS would go off to Rajahmundry his hometown.

Monday was always a day where I had to board the crazy Hyderabad buses to reach office since my partner was not around. Monday evening until Thursday was adequately covered by my rides on the pillion of LB's Yezdi. Talking about Hyderabad buses they had this uncanny habit of stopping at some intermediate point and the conductor would ensure that all pax on board had tickets. This was while we were fuming inside in heat and frustration. At office, the breeze from the fan and Seshagiri's tea would calm the tempers down.

Narasimha, who was Prithviraj's favourite auto driver, was my standard chauffeur too. Quite often he was the one to push me about visiting Rajendranagar or ECIL, etc. I am not denying that there used to be work in those parts almost every day but I could understand the income they used to derive out of those journeys and the motivation thereof. However, I think it suited us both and we were fine with it. Enquiries even though were a trickle would come once in a while in the form of telephones or letters and then the Narasimha's (there were a few others, Vijay was one of them) of the world would be useful for us to find the exact address and locations without spending time unnecessarily.

Though officially Network started these Major Account teams and other team splits, in Hyderabad most of our clients were any way large Accounts with the potential of giving us repeat orders. One Govt. Secretary buying would mean going and massaging the ego of the others too. Sunita was very good at it I remember. Similarly in Public Sectors or Institutions, one Director would fall into our "net" and then we would "work" on all his peers. The sheer ego that was involved in buying these machines could be a serious focal point of buyer behavior studies.

Handling these large accounts were always tricky in their own way. The first was of course getting an entry into these large institutions and a lot of them were involved with the Ministry of Defense. So the first task was to somehow make your mark with the Security at the gate so that we are not dependent on internal invitations or pre fixed appointments for entry. Once you are in and security in your pocket, one was a free bird inside to make as many calls as we wanted and at all levels. I remember the GM's(Antenna) secretary in ECIL taking me for complimentary lunches and soft drinks depending upon the time of the day. Later on I could open the fridge myself without asking.

Nuclear Fuel Complex was another favorite free lunch haunt. When clients with need start regularly entertaining a sales consultant does one really need to sell? There were others who were in our good books and vice versa. Isn't that what relationship management is all about? As mentioned earlier, we in Network were living concepts that have been made into theories and people have earned money and still doing so, providing training on the same.

From the beginning we learn that secretaries were to be the major targets for us to sell. So the he or she in an organization was our first target. Competition handling as a concept was mostly at a secretarial level and once you had the lady or gentleman in your pocket there was no stopping us. Any other internal pressures typically from Administration Officers were nullified because the Boss's office had chosen a Network. The user after all is the main client and don't we know that software companies will not get their money released unless UAT (User Acceptance Tests) are satisfactory. As prices of Typewriters fell, the handling of competition became trickier but the basic concept of making sure that the USER is on your side still holds good and that too in any industry.

So after first two months of rigorous sales calls and prospect building exercises we had this Sales Conference in Delhi Taj Palace Hotel. This was my first but for Network it was the second conference. The first one was at the same venue where Network graduated from Dictation Systems and Phones to Swiss made Hermes Toptronic Electronic Typewriter (christened the Network 208). The second conference was to launch some more machines that Prithviraj kept as a secret from us until the last moment. In fact he was not the one who broke the suspense. It was the booming voice of Rajiv Khanna that opened our eyes in front of the grandeur.

I reckon it was in July, 1984 that we were destined to take the Andhra Pradesh Express from Secunderabad station to New Delhi. Early morning the team gathered in front of the AC 2 tier Coach and then boarded the train. I am not sure whether I bothered people with my snoring in the night, but then the whole day was extremely entertaining with cards and rum on the sly. Shortly we crossed Ramagundam one of the hottest place in India boasting of a NTPC Plant and little did I know then that I would have to visit this place more than once later in life.

Egg Curry and Rice in a stainless steel compartmentalized plate was my lunch and dinner. The railway thalis used to be unique. Typically there were six compartments and one of them had the rice. One had the egg curry while there was dal and veg curry too. I could not ever decipher whether they served Curd or Raita since the consistency was rather confusing but all the same it was there and so was some Pickle and Salt. Green Chillies were available on demand. So, the meals were also an event and so were some sessions of astrology. Hands were exchanged and prophecies made and looks like all the positive things have happened to people over the years. The train sped away towards Delhi and sometimes during times of slumber we were all circumspect and excited at the same time about what was in store the next day.

The morning arrived and so did we at New Delhi station. So with GP in command we left for Taj Palace and I was eagerly looking forward to my Five Star stay!! That it turned out to be an unforgettable experience was perhaps expected by some, but for rookie me, it was overwhelming.
At this rate even I am eager to find out as to what would flow out my fingers next but let's keep it for another day.