My Beginnings at Hyderabad - By Ravi(RSS) Year 1984

Hello again!

Thanks Rajkumar for that welcome note and thanks BV for your comments too.It's just so exciting to remember those days. So here goes a few more lines on self indulgence.

To be honest it was absolute gloom when they announced in Delhi after a sort of semi rigorous Induction program in Vikram Hotel (famous for all the wrong reasons) that I was to go to Hyderabad. That city was never even in my radar and the announcement came in like a bomb being dropped by an extremely low flying aircraft!! So while some went to the coveted Metros, poor soul was given a ticket in the erstwhile AP Express with an advance of 1000 bucks (the voucher being signed by PK Sanghi - then Fin Mgr and now CFO of Nucleus Software). So I land up in Secunderabad station, still confused between HYD'BAD and SEC'BAD. Hyderabad is the main city while Secunderabad is the main station, though the former has its own station!!

I booked myself in this Hotel named Garden just opposite the Garden Restaurant and it was the pits. Those were dreadful nights until three of us shacked up together in a country house in P&T Colony. So now this fresh chicken enters Prithviraj's large cabin(originally supposed tobe a drawing room as per Shanker Rao's plans). He made only a couple of comments. Welcome to Hyderabad and looks like you have gone through an induction program. On an yes from me, he asked me to pick up some brochures and get out and make some calls and come back in the evening. The month of May believe me is hot in Hyd and there I was treading along Rashtrapathi Road without any clue whatsoever as to whom to call on. Then I found this big signboard of Hyderabad Lamps and I entered and found the receptionist. The General Benefit Statement and all those pitches we had learnt had totally vanished by then. I was coolly forwarded like an email to the admin officer who took my brochure and kept it on his shelf, asked me the price which I gleefully announced and within 2 minutes I was back on RP Road looking for my next customer...rather...a tolerant listener.

I met a couple of more uninteresting blokes and went back to office, tired, disgusted and for sure to look up the appointments section next day morning!! But that was only afternoon and the evening had not yet arrived, nor did Prithiviraj. His Red Rajdoot was missing. In the evening the first vehicle I saw was a grey scooter and a gentleman with a grey helmet with missing buckles that was perhaps badgered in World War II. Rajkumar huffed and puffed with his "MayeOyeis" and I wondered in awe. Then came the stylish man with his sunglass and the Yezdi. Little did I know that in days tc come I would be the one to warm that pillion of his mobike. LB Raj walks in, who was in Sales and also doing some sideshow with Prithviraj as far as accounts was concerned.

The balance came in and Prithviraj too was back either from a heavenly HomeLunch or perhaps from a call. The gossip in the office was of course the former,and perhaps I will ask him so next time I meet him. Then came the Hyderabad Office Specials. The one-and-ones with Prithviraj. He had and still must have this immense capacity to capture your attention for hours in terms of monologues but for a lot of us...that was the best take away I ever had from any colleague or superior I have worked with so far. I am sure and know that there are others of my tribe. Rajkumar's exit from inside his room was of course hilarious....and perhaps a Disprin was always handy for him. I am guessing!!

Talking about the one and one, the way GP ripped open the conversations that I had with the clients...his enacting of what I should have spoken or countered with was amazing. No wonder and it's not magic that he has been able to help so many people in their lives and still doing. I was lucky to have him as my firstboss but then you must be wondering who my second boss was. K, Ravishankar, and in Mumbai...and that was a complete turn around. But that's another story that I will surely narrate later.

Selling a typewriter was not easy for sure...and becos of all the help from Krishnaveni and Ravikumar I learnt a lot about that machine. To this day the fastest sentence I can type is .... "All over the world organisations are benefitting from advanced electronic technology" other than my name which is not a sentence. Do you remember that paragraph? It was the opening line of our 300 series brochure!!! And the way we used to do Research and Development on the ET, and we the salesguys were always proud winners over the MSEs, in terms of discovering new ways to do stuff on those machines. Raj is on my side...so no fighting on this one!! Prithviraj liked me too much, so after an year he packed me off to Vizag under pressure from Kannan. I am convinced today that he knew that it would be good for me. Vizag Steel Plant was an acoount being handled by Rajkumar and he came along to introduce me to the client. They were complaining, unhappy with service, payments were stuck and what have you. That we turned it around thankst o KVS and his major time spent there is something to relive.

I will never forget GARN(Goods Accepted or Rejected Note)...the most important document in VSP. How Rajkumar introduced me to that document is an evergreen joke and would only blossom in an face to face session. In Hyderabad, we had Narsimha the AUTO Guy "Made for GP". I also used to use him and even ten years later when I went to Hyd I met up with him and went to his house!! I similarly think about Chinna Rao in Vizag and wonder how and where these people are. Both these guys, were amazing, like family and more. Chinna Rao on holidays used to take me out for sight-seeing and treat me to lunch!!! He also use to work as our delivery boy and keep minor accounts for consumables.

Raman and Sanghi in HO were shell shocked when the questioned me about some signatures on invoices!!!Have you ever sold Paper, Ribbons and Daisy Wheels and instead supplied a Typewriter? Admiral Nadkarni - then GOC-in-C Eastern Command ordered for the former since he did not have a capital asset sanction. Income and ExpenditureAccount was however something he could manage!! Naval Science and Technology ordered for an Instrument 332 and the specifications made GP fall off the chair. The Govt was actually on paper buying an oscilloscope!!

A few days back Sunita Giridhar chirped up and said "Do you remember me"? I did not forget at all. The rides in her Amby to RR LABs and so many others!! LB Raj taking me on the pillion and making sales calls for me to watch and learn. Rajkumar always bringing in a different perpective on client behavior...it was amazing and astounding...that 1000 sq.ft of area in 1-1-156/157 SP Road. Krishnveni's boy friend use to work in Richardson Hindustan I think and she was so coy every evening.I am not able to recollect the lady who was a Secretary before Priya...she used to wear these rajnigandha flowers and then got married to somebody in BHPV...remember visiting her house in Vizag.

And KVS...where is he? I am yet to see a dedicated person like that in whatever he wanted to do. He passed his engineering in front of us inpsite of the pressure. He was from a village near Rajahmundry and he had relations in Tanuku.Thats the time I got first hand knowldege of staying in villages amidst simplicity and pure nature to pamper you. LB Raj in his Yezdi(Found him in Pune years later with the same bike), and KVS with his moped trying to teach me motor cycling..alas in vain.

I remember the receptionist in ECIL letting me know where Xerox and PCL was meeting who and when. In Vizag, if any Naval client wanted to contact me,standing instructions were in place for them to call up the CinC staff officer!!I once told the PCL manager Piyush as he was alighting from his Taxi in Naval Dockyard...that he rather go back to Hyderabad...since Navy will never place an order with him!!! What an ego I used to have!! Thanks to Network!!

As I write this I can feel the joy that I am reliving. Hope you do...and I will perhaps try and continue this ramble...for the sake of me, some of you and Network. Must let you know what the hell I have been up to!!!And BV...u cud call me on +971509575518 and what the heck...I will pick up the phone! Its from Etisalat,,,and in India you could complain to Shankar Bali another of those Networkers I am so fond of!!!