Retro India (R M Rajgopal)

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In the latter half of the twentieth century, the changes in India have been vast and comprehensive. In these decades, economic indicators such as India's growth in GDP rate, the proliferation of the number of Airlines in the Indian skies, the multiplying of car models, the flourishing of telephone connections and moving on to the world of mobiles, televisions going colour from black and white to operating with over a thousand channels, India turning digital, and so on clearly directs that India had taken a crucial turn in its history.

India has changed. And how! The Indian consumer grins. This is notwithstanding the fact that poverty is endemic and the gulf between the rich and the poor continues to widen. The book shares the extensive knowledge gained through years of practice in the HR field. It chronicles the individual journey and the political and economic transformation of the time.

Retro India documents the changes of the time and its impact on human lives - both positive and negative.

I am not a midnight's child by Rushclean definition. I am more a child of the Republic, born a year and a bit after the announcement, which led India from dominion status to true independence. My formative years were in Kerala, where I stayed in the security and comfort of my parental home. I left home comparatively early. This was as a result of an application sent more for fun than with any degree of seriousness, for one of the country's prized management trainee positions, and against almighty odds, getting myself selected. Thus it was, that a month short of my 20th year, I found myself in a classroom in Delhi along with 11 other young men.

A year later, trained in one of the finest corporate programs of the day, I stepped into the shoes of the quintessential Indian Company Man. I remained that man for 40 eventful years.

The discontinuous change that India has gone through since 1992 has been so pervasive and comprehensive that it is often difficult to convince many young people that things could have been as dismal as they were a mere 30 years ago. Truthfully, that era of the "Hindu Rate of Growth" seems, in hindsight, outlandish and absurd, even to a person like me who has suffered the many ignominies of that era.

At the time of my getting my first job, the economy was throttled by the Licence Raj. The average annual growth of GDP was 3 per cent and the government issued licenses for each product, indicated the quantity of manufacture and location. Such unbridled power led almost naturally to an endemic corruption, a problem that India is still tackling, and not with a great deal of success.

Let us take a closer look at me, a Company Man, circa 1978. "Poor chap," you would probably mutter under your breath.

I was not very well off. I had to pay the Government Rs 60 for every Rs 100 I earned.

If I had wanted to buy a car (beyond my reach in monetary terms in any case), I would have had a choice of two antiquated models of defunct technology: the Ambassador and the Fiat.

If I had wanted to buy a Jawa motorcycle, it would have taken 18 months to deliver, after having parted with a healthy advance to the dealer.

Tyres for all vehicles were in acute short supply. The premium was 100 per cent on the black market.

It looked like I would have to stay in a rented house forever. There were no home loan schemes. Even if there were, they would be unaffordable at 20 per cent interest.

For a telephone at home, the normal waiting period was two years.

If I wanted to travel from Delhi to Chennai by air, there were only two flights — one in the morning and the other in the evening, and only one airline that flew the domestic skies - Indian Airlines.

Most flights were late. Being two hours late was construed as being almost on time.

Leave travel under allowances with the family had to be a train journey. Plane fares were beyond reach.

A holiday abroad? . . . Ha ha ha.

A few imported bric-a-brac, a nice deodorant, a particular shade of lipstick, a T-shirt? No way.

I owned a black and white TV with one channel - Doordarshan.

A washing machine? Never seen one.

Air conditioning — finally got an AC in the office in 1978. At home, it was unaffordable both by way of capital outlay and operating expenses.

Customs duties were high on almost all products, making smuggling a thriving, profitable trade, almost a cottage industry of sorts.

A Scotch and soda in the evening after a hard day of work? Dream on . . .

A dreary, hand-to-mouth existence.

And yet, within this picture of deprivation and shortages, there was ample joy to be found.

From a three card game, sitting cross-legged on the floor in a circle.

From sharing a Red Knight whisky or two with friends (nostalgia apart, the stuff was pure rotgut). Or, watching McEnroe play Borg in the Wimbledon finals, so what if it was a miniscule black and white TV? From an early morning duck and goose shoot.

To take you through these times, the chosen medium is the vignette. In this case, vignettes are specific to a location. The locations themselves are four in number — Kochi, Kota, Chennai, and Delhi. I spent considerable time at each of these locations.

The narrative begins with Kochi and includes Thrissur, a nearby town, the one where I have my roots. The emphasis is on the socio-cultural. Also featured there, are four interesting individuals who had a profound impact on me.

The next major section sees me in the dusty, middle-of-nowhere town of Kota, Rajasthan. I had not even heard of the place before I got posted there. Yet it provided some of the best times of my life. The vignettes deal with some dark days at work, and sun and laughter away from it. In the backdrop, two dear friends of mine struggle to be married — a Rajput girl and a boy from Kerala.

From Kota, it is over to Chennai (then Madras) for six eventful years, An abundance of doing and learning, as reflected in the vignettes. And a personal watershed: my marriage.

Jharkhand (then a part of Bihar) is an interesting diversion. Short but seductive. Another Universe, really.

And finally my 18 long years in Delhi, that teeming, most often daunting metropolis that you love to hate, but which grows on you. Which is why, after leaving Delhi for good, or so I thought after shifting to Bangalore, I was back in Delhi in a little over three years on a part time assignment and was there fifty percent of the time. . . for the next fifteen years.

This is a read that goes as far back in time as 50 years. And I have no notes. Yet, I can fairly guarantee its veracity. Wherever, I have been in doubt about a particular sequence and the protagonist is still around on this good planet, the persons involved have been consulted.

Literary licence has been minimally utilized.

All names of individuals have been changed.

This to me attempts to give the reader a first-hand view of those desolate times. It will help the reader better appreciate the transformation that India has undergone. It is indeed ironical that for the better part of 45 years after independence, the Indian economy was shackled. It took the will of a reticent Prime Minister with barely a working majority in Parliament and his quiet, turbaned Finance Minister to free the economy of its chains. And India took off, as it was always meant to.

R M Rajgopal has extensive experience in Human Resource Management and has served in different corporate houses for more than 40 years. He has an enduring interest in the field of education and is a company man-turned-writer. As a proficient HR professional, his writings reflect a distinctive understanding of the human condition and is a manifestation of many a fascinating perspectives and valuable insights of work-life and life in general.

He hails from Kochi, Kerala but currently resides in Bangalore and is a full-time writer.