Half way through our round of golf this morning, we had to stop because of a severe thunderstorm which brought heavy rains.  It brought back very pleasant memories of the monsoons in Bombay and the sea of black umbrellas that came out.  I pictured in my mind the scene at Churchgate Station of commuters disembarking from the trains in the early morning and walking towards Flora Fountain, your truly among them having emerged from our apartment on A Road.

The Parsee Raj was very evident from the number of Parsees who occupied senior posts during the 50s and early 60s.  The Commercial Director was Bobby Kooka, The Director of Operations was AC Guzder, The Financial Controller was Noshir Pavri and The Planning Head was Adi Dubash.  The Regional Head - UK was Manek Dalal and the European Head was JRD’s brother-in-law - Gianni Bertoli.  Some of the senior personnel in Europe were also Parsees - Nari Dastur, Clubwalla, Homi Dubash and Jimmy Junglewalla were examples. 

BR Patel must have had one hell of a job getting his way and this he eventually did.  It is my personal impression that to achieve this, he operated under the British Policy of “Divide & Rule”.  Mind you, this is my own impression seeing how the panorama unfolded during my junior years.

At that time,very few of the Commercial Department staff could stand up to Bobby Kooka and they “toed the line”.  The exceptions were Adi Dubash and Nari Dastur and these were the two persons whom BR Patel cultivated.

When I joined AI, Adi Dubash was Planning Manager (Traffic) and responsible for Commercial Planning under the direct control of Bobby Kooka.  BR Patel made Planning independent and Adi Dubash was designated Planning Controller .  At the same time, the Tariffs Division was officially transferred under Planning. 

Unfortunately, the title of a 2nd string Department Head did not sit very well with him and shortly thereafter, Mr. Dubash left AI to join the Wadia Group and NV (Bakul) Khote took over the post.  Mr. Khote did not stay very long and had to resign for personal reasons.

It is my understanding that at that stage, BR Patel agreed to Mr. Dubash’s terms and he came back as Planning Director - at par with the Commercial Director, only to leave once again in 1967 to join IATA as Compliance Director, based in Geneva. I met Mr. Dubash quite often when I visited Geneva for IATA meetings.

The 2nd person that BR Patel nurtured was Nari Dastur whom he nominated to take over from Gianni Bertoli after the latter unfortunately died in the Mt. Blanc crash.  Nari Dastur went directly to BR Patel on many occasions bypassing Bobby Kooka and this must have caused the latter considerable heartburn because when all the Regional Heads were redesignated as Regional Directors, guess who was the exception?  The title of Nari Dastur remained Regional Manager until he came to Bombay as Commercial Director.

It is interesting to note that Nari Dastur refused to come back as Dy. Commercial Director as he did not want to work under Mr. Kooka.

What is more interesting is the moves that Mr. Kooka tried to make before he left.  As some of us knew, Mr. Dastur had little or no time for Stephen Rajaratnam, his successor as Manager Germany.  Mr. Dastur had made it quite clear to Top Management that he wanted his own team at Commercial Headquarters and had nominated some of them.

Despite this knowledge, Mr. Kooka decided to call Stephen Rajaratnam from Singapore to visit Bombay and handed over to him a letter appointing him as Commercial Manager - Sales effective November 1, 1972, the day after Mr. Kooka was to retire and Mr. Dastur to take over as C.D.  That evening, Stephen came over to my apartment and showed me this letter.  I was extremely surprised and disappointed as Mr. Dastur had told me confidentially that I was his choice for this post once he took over.  I suspected behind the scenes shenanigans and suggested to Stephen to keep this letter under wraps for the time being, as there was every likelihood that the picture may change. 

I called Mr. Dastur later that night and he was dumbfounded.  He told me to “stay put” and he took the next flight from Geneva and went straight to see Mr. JRD Tata.  I don't know what transpired at that meeting, but later that day, Mr. Kooka issued a circular in which indicated many changes to take place effective November 1, 1972, among which were:

1. Balendu Shah - from C.M. Sales to Dy. Commercial Director
2. I. D. Sethi - from C.M. - Planning to C.M. - Marketing & Sales
3. S. Rajaratnam - from Manager, Singapore to C.M - Sales (Charters)

The upshot of these changes were that Stephen Rajaratnam resigned and joined Singapore Airlines as their Manager - India based in Bombay.

Nari Dastur was aware that at some stage, a problem may arise having me report to him through Balendu Shah and as such, told both of us that I would be reporting directly to him.  A couple of years later, I was promoted to the same rank as Balendu Shah and was designated  DY. C.D. - Marketing & Sales.  There is a background here which I will elucidate.

When Mr. Adi Dubash left for the 2nd time, he recommended that Air-India hire H. L. Sikka as Head of Planning.  Lal Sikka was then Head of Planning at Aden Airways and was looking for a change. At the same time, Luis Cabral, Planning Manager made his move to be the head of the Planning Division.

Mr. Kooka was willing to consider Luis Cabral as C.M. Planning but the latter wanted the post of Planning Controller.  At the same time, he also wanted Tariffs to report to him; something that Mr. Kooka adamantly opposed.  Luis decide to resign and left to join Kuwait Airways.

Lal Sikka came to Bombay and during his meetings with Mr. Kooka and Air Vice Marshal Chaturvedi, stated that for personal reasons, he could not come to India for some time.  He had lived outside india for a considerable period of time and needed to stay away for another short period.  His request was accepted and he joined AI as Manager - East Africa based in Nairobi.

Mr. Kooka then offered the post of C.M. Planning to me with the understanding that Joe Andrade who was responsible for Bilateral Affairs would report directly to the C.D.  I agreed to take the job, provided I kept the Tariffs Division, in addition to my new responsibilities of Commercial Planning.  This was accepted.

Interestingly, the post of C.M. Sales was left vacant when the incumbent R.N. Kaul was transferred as Head of the new Hotel Division.

Some time elapsed and Luis Cabral decided that perhaps, he had a wrong move and asked Mr. Kooka if he could come back as C.M. Planning.  Mr. Kooka called me for a private meeting and asked if I would consider a lateral move as C.M. Sales.  It so happened that Mr. Adi Dubash happened to be visiting Bombay at that time and I consulted him.  He strongly advised me to take this offer on the condition that I would retain control of the Tariffs Division.  ILITO so informed Mr. Kooka and he agreed.

However, before these changes could take effect, Balendu Shah (Dy. C.M Sales) made his move.  He spoke to Mr. Dinesh Singh, who was his brother-in-law and also the Minister of External Affairs.  Orders came from Delhi and the post of C.M. Sales was given to Balendu Shah; I remained C.M. Planning and Luis Cabral was informed that his request to come back was denied. Luis then went on to join Indian Airlines.

For those readers who were not with the airline at that time, it should be mentioned that prior to becoming Dy. C. M. Sales, Balendu Shah was Manager, Switzerland and before that Dy. Tariffs Manager.  In that latter post, I was junior to him and in fact reported to him.  When I was promoted to C.M. Planning, he was still a Sr. Station Manager; a relationship which did not sit very well with him.  He continued to use his Brother-in-law’s influence when Nari Dastur took over as C.D. to became his Deputy and I became C.M. Marketing & Sales.  And it was this background that Nari Dastur was aware of and tried to work around.

In 1975, I was placed on par with Balendu Shah and AI had two Dy. Commercial Directors.  Finally, in 1976, Mr. Dastur decided to transfer Balendu Shah as RD - East Asia and the Dy. C.D. - Marketing & Sales post was abolished.

The game of musical chairs continued for quite some time and ended when I took over as Commercial Director and Balendu Shah reported to me as Regional Director - East Asia.

Apologies for digressing - let’s get back to my tenure in the Planning Division during the Parsee Raj.  My first major task was to prepare a proposal to the Board for the purchase of 747 aircraft.  I was hoping to rely on the expertise of YY Ajila but he declined to help as he felt rather strongly that he should have been promoted as Head of Planning.  So, I had to learn about market shares, traffic projections and capacity requirements before I could even get to the nitty gritty of preparing a Plan.  Luckily, thanks to the foresight of BR Patel, we had a 10 year plan to work with.  When I took over Planning, I introduced a 5 year rolling plan to replace a 10 year fixed plan.

Talk of burning the midnight oil.  I hardly saw my family and spent very long hours in the office.  Fortunately, I had the support of Saroj Datta and some of the other Planning staff and prepared a proposal to buy 747 aircraft for AI.

I still remember the Board meeting where I presented this plan.  My initial hesitation must have been quite apparent and my confidence was boosted no end when, just prior to the start of the presentation, Mr. Tata took me aside and gave me a few words of encouragement.

Fortunately, the presentation went off quite well – no difficult questions came up and I must have managed to make a convincing proposal because the Board agreed to place an order for the aircraft.

It was the start of a wonderful relationship between a young greenhorn and his mentor and gave me the confidence of approaching Mr. Tata for his advice on several occasions in the future when I had a major decision to make.  

Speaking personally, I have nothing but praise and admiration for the Parsee Raj as everyone of my bosses, Parsee or non-Parsee played a major role in my advancement in the airline.  I will speak of this support in another Post.  Suffice to say, that the best years of Air-India were during the Parsee Raj.