Has anyone missed a flight on which his/her boss was also booked to travel to a meeting both of you were to attend?  I have and it is a very low sinking feeling in the stomach.

The year was 1964 and I was accompanying Mr. A.F. Dubash to an IATA meeting in Bermuda.  We were booked to travel on a British Airways flight from NYC to Bermuda and I had arrived in NYC the previous day and stayed overnight with Manchi Engineer.  Manchi, who was working in the NYC Sales Office, and I had known each other while he was a Flight Purser and we had spent quite a few memorable times in Bombay before he was transferred to the USA.

Manchi was going to drop me at the airport for the afternoon flight and suggested that we spend the morning at the World’s Fair in Queens.  We saw quite a few exhibits and left in good time for Idlewild (now JFK) airport.  Unfortunately, Manchi took a wrong exit and we ended up at the British Airways terminal just in time to see the aircraft taxiing to the runway.

Fortunately, there was a later PanAm flight on which I was able to find a seat and I got to the Castle Harbor Hotel late that evening.  However, unfortunately for me, dinner had already been served and I ended up without anything to eat.  When I met Mr. Dubash the next morning at breakfast, he was quite amused and said that the lack of dinner served me right.

At the meeting, Mr. Dubash introduced me to J. Ross Stainton the Commercial Director of British Airways who had also taken the same BA flight the previous day.  Ross was very solicitous and invited me to drinks that evening at the residence of their local Manager.  It was a very impressive house and we had a pleasant evening which ended with a quiet dinner for the three of us, at a restaurant in town.  For me, the whole series of events on that trip were quite fortuitous as Ross Stainton and I became quite good friends over the next 10 to 15 years.  Not only did we spend many days and evenings together at IATA meetings, but we also played some golf, of which I will speak at a later time.

Missing the flight was a wake up call for me.  Since then, I have made it a point to leave for a flight well ahead of time and so far, I have not missed any more flights.  I now believe that getting to the airport well ahead of time removes any tension if one is stuck in traffic or gets into very long Security lines.

I accompanied Mr. Dubash many times in the years 1964 through 1967.  We attended meetings in London, Nassau in the Bahamas, Rome, Honolulu among other cities and for me, it was a great learning experience.  It ended when Mr. Dubash left in 1967 to join IATA.  Our last meeting together was the IATA Cargo Conference in Puerto Rico in 1967.

1964 was also a year when I discovered that I could not stand heights.  It happened in Rome where I was attending a meeting of the IATA Traffic Handling & Accountancy Working Group (THWG).  This Group designed the IATA Passenger tickets, Exchange Orders, Miscellaneous Charges Orders and Air Waybills.  We had a free Sunday and three of us (Ray from Qantas, Lena from IATA and myself) decided to explore Rome by walking which, incidentally, is the best way to see the great sites of this wonderful city.

After many sights, we arrived at Saint Peter’s where the consensus was to walk to the top of the church by using the catwalk outside the dome.  A bad decision as I soon discovered.  Half way up, my legs started to wobble and I ended by holding on to the side of the dome with both hands and looking up at the sky.  Ever since that day, I have stayed as far away as possible from high places.  I found this to be quite odd as I had had no problem walking up and looking down from the Qutab Minar in Delhi, in my childhood days, or for that matter, looking down from the Empire State Building in 1960 and the Eiffel Tower in 1962.

The 1964 Fall IATA Conference was held in Athens and this would be Mr. Malani’s last attendance at such meetings.  BK Mangaokar and I assisted him at Athens and I recall two remarkable events that took place.  One was when I received a call from my Uncle (my mother’s younger brother) from London to say that he and his wife were on their way back to Bombay and “how about a couple of days with you in Greece?”  I said sure and would they like to stay in my Hotel room while I moved in with BK?  He agreed and they arrived the next day.

The next evening my uncle wanted to “follow his nose” and eat at any restaurant where the aroma attracted it.  We went to the center of the town of Athens and found a small hole in the wall restaurant not quite different from an Irani shop in Bombay and ordered lamb chops, whose aroma had attracted my uncle’s nose.  

He asked for scotch and the owner produced a bottle from under the counter and ice which he sent his staff to get from his refrigerator in his house above the restaurant.  The lamb chops were excellent and for many years after, my uncle could not stop talking about the best meal he had eaten in a very long time.

Before leaving Athens for Bombay, my uncle gave me a large sum of money in UK Pounds as a gift for my honeymoon.  Manju and I were scheduled to marry two months later in New Delhi and had planned to spend our honeymoon in Switzerland and the U.K.  I could not have been more thankful as the gift was very timely and plentiful for our needs.  I arranged with a Swissair colleague to send the money to Mr. Balendu Shah, our Manager - Switzerland to hold for me until our arrival.

I got married to the most wonderful person in the world, on December 05, 1964 and among the guests were my roommates - Ashok Vaish, BL Nichani and Saroj Datta.  Also present were Jim Callery, the Commercial Manager of the Irish airline - Aer Lingus, accompanied by his wife Nora and one of my colleagues from the Tariffs Division Coover Patel.  I am saddened to say that all five, Ashok, Nichi, Saroj,Jim and Coover are no longer with us today.  Ashok and his wife Lalita did attend our Silver Wedding Anniversary in New York in 1989.

I am also very happy to say that Manju and I celebrated our Golden Anniversary last December with our children and grandchildren.

1965 was a great year.  Air-India sanctioned a housing allowance for me and we moved to a two bedroom apartment on Napean Sea Road which had previously been occupied by Sandy Sundaram who resigned as Asst. Sales Manager to join ICAO in Montreal.  I also received my promotion as Tariffs Manager, but not the grade of Senior Station Manager due to a rather interesting episode; the genesis of which eludes my memory.  

Apparently, the Officers (including myself) working on the 4th Floor of the Bank of India went on an agitation and decided not to wear a tie to work.  For the life of me, I cannot remember the reason.  As a matter of fact, Mr. Jitender Bhargava asked me this question while he was writing his book “The Descent of Air India” and I could not enlighten him.

What happened was that one of the group informed management that I was the instigator when actually, all I did was to agree to join the group.  Nonetheless, I suffered because of this incorrect and malicious statement and my promotion to the SSM grade was deferred by one year.

Manju and I were blessed with our first born.  Akhil came into this world on October 19, 1965 and he and his lovely wife Sunanda live in New Jersey with our two wonderful grandsons, Viraj and Tarun.  Viraj is a great baseball player and his room is festooned with many trophies while Tarun is a great artist and we have some wonderful paintings done by him.  I depend upon both the boys to help me out with the problems that I constantly have with my iPhone, iPad and my iMac.

I also got a telephone in 1966.  For those who have lived in India through the decades of 1950 through 1980 in India, having a residential phone was not only a luxury but a great status symbol.  The waitlist was as long as one can imagine and even those on a “priority” list had to wait for years.  Well, Sandy Sundaram was entitled to a phone in his job as Asst. Sales Manager and was on such a priority list.  However, he left AI before the phone could be installed (he had resigned more than a year earlier) and when the technician rang the bell and announced that he had a phone for me, I was overjoyed.

I spoke with Mr. Kooka the next day and he agreed to my request to leave the phone in the house.  I still recall is words when he said - OK, you have earned this perk.  MOTIVATION - where did this word disappear in Air-India after 1980?

I don’t recall anything of great importance happening in my life until 1968 when some changes occurred.  Air-India allowed me a two bedroom apartment in Jupiter on Anstey Road.  It was a new building almost next door to JRD Tata’s residence.  Sometime during this year, I noticed a new and young face walking in the large room in which  a number of us had desks. On raising an enquiry, I was informed that this new employee was Michael Mascarenhas who had just joined us after graduating from Cambridge University.

I promptly walked into Mr. Kooka’s office (yes, some of us could “walk in” after a knock on his door).  He looked up and said “Yes, you can have Mascarenhas”.  I was astonished that he knew why I had come to see him and he told me that he had been expecting my visit and that his only request was that I groom him like I myself had been groomed by my bosses.

I could see the potential in this young lad right from the day he came to work in Tariffs and I made it one of my missions to ensure that not only did he have the grounding that I had received but also, the opportunities of foreign postings; something that I lacked. This would greatly assist in rounding off his experience.  I was a very proud person the day I learnt that Michael had taken over as Managing Director.  Young Michael (I still call him by that name) justified my faith and interest in him.

An interesting turn of events took place with the addition of Michael to the Tariffs Division.  It had been our practice to meet the RD and the Sales Manager in New York just before an IATA Conference on passenger fares and our brief would take shape only after getting their views.

It was Michael who questioned the practice.  He recommended that we do our own independent studies and conduct market surveys not only in North America but also in other parts of the world which would and should be the basis of our brief on fares and rates.  It just shows that you need a fresh and independent mind to “tweak” and “update” age old philosophies and practices.