I was amused to see a circular from the AI CMD on “petty courtesies” wherein he asked that:

1. The practice of offering him bouquets be stopped; and

2. He be received and seen off by a minimal number of staff.

These “petty courtesies” were not part of the Air-India culture that I was witness to.  It didn’t exist during the Parsi Raj, The South Indian Raj and even during my short acquaintance with the Raghu Raj.  They are part of the legacy  inherited from the IAS and Babudom that descended upon the airline when Delhi started to run the airline and have continued ever since.

I do not remember bouquets of flowers being presented to any of our CEOs when he visited a station. 

Let the CMD look back on the day when he took over his new assignment.  I believe he was presented a bouquet of flowers as soon as he entered his new office.  Did his staff take his acceptance of this gift as a license to extend this courtesy every time he went to another station!!!!  Has it taken him a full year to realize the waste of expenditure on such a measure of sycophancy?  

I remember that we did have occasions when three or four members of the staff were present on arrival of senior executives at an outstation, but I also remember having personally curtailed this practice way back in 1978 or 1979.  I believe this practice originated when an insecure member of the staff thought that he/she should be seen by the senior executives whenever such executives visited his station of posting.

In any event, I commend the CMD on taking this step.  It may have its benefits in a political world but should not exist in a commercial undertaking.

The circular also reminded me of an incident which took place in Prague when Indira Gandhi was visiting Czechoslovakia and our then Manager - P.B. Dhar - arranged to send a large bouquet of flowers to her suite very morning.  When she complained that this was an unnecessary expense, Patrick Dhar informed her that the flowers actually came from his garden and that AI had not incurred any expense. He did have a beautiful garden in the Air-India house in Prague.

Which brings me to an aside.  P. B. Dhar’s middle initial stood for Basil and in one of his letters to Mr. S.K. Kooka, he signed his name as “Basil” to which Mr. Kooka is reported to have remarked “tell Dhar that I only recognize one Basil and he is Basil Gulati", who for many years was Mr. Kooka’s deputy with the title of Deputy Traffic Manager at Commercial headquarters before taking an overseas posting as Manager - Hong Kong.

Air-India participated in many revenue poling arrangements with various airlines and now, quite often, my unoccupied mind brings back happy memories of overseas visits to attend these and other meetings.

The very first pool meeting I attended was the tripartite meeting with BA and Qantas in Sydney where Tony Pinto was our Regional Director.  Tony was an avid golfer and he asked Saroj Datta and me to bring our golf clubs. We spent three weeks in Sydney and on every weekend, Tony was a most gracious host.  He invited Saroj and me for a round of golf not only on weekends, but also on a few afternoons when we had no meetings scheduled.  The fourth member of our group was Axel Khan, who was India’s Trade Commissioner in Australia.  

After our rounds in the mornings on weekends, we repaired to Tony’s home where his wife had laid out a sumptuous lunch at which all other members of the team were also invited.  It is sad to say that his immediate successor did not offer us any such courtesies. 

Stephen Rajaratnam was another gracious host whenever we met in Singapore for Pool meetings with BA, SIA and Qantas.  He arranged a quick lunch for us in his office on many days.  I personally benefitted from his hospitality.  He insisted that I stay at his house instead of the hotel which was his way of reciprocating our bachelor days’ hospitality whenever he visited Bombay.

I led the AI delegation to Moscow twice for Pool talks with Aeroflot; the first time in 1970 and the second time in 1972.  The first time was not very remarkable except for a few incidents:

1. Our delegation had arrived earlier that day from Bombay while I came in late at night from London where I was attending a meeting.  The bedroom was more or less as I expected, but the bathroom left me quite speechless.  The towel was not much bigger than a large handkerchief; the toilet paper felt like sand paper (ouch!!) and there was no soap.
2. Being aware that the other members of the delegation were housed in a row of rooms adjoining mine, I knocked on my neighbour’s door.  A hand came out bearing a cake of soap.  I was later told that since the other members of the team had been to Moscow on an earlier occasion, they came well prepared.  
3. We had a rather exhilarating evening when, while well lubricated with vodka supplied by our host airline, we danced on the streets of Moscow - till today, I am surprised that we were not picked up by the local constabulary.  
4. Another incident of interest was when we visited Lenin’s Tomb.  Leela Talchekar was dressed in a sari and when we stood at the end of a line which must have stretched round the entire block, we were approached by a person in military uniform and escorted to the front of the line.  We could not understand what he said, except for one word “tourist” which he kept repeating.  Our Manager later told us that tourists got special consideration in preference to locals.

What was of great interest to us and an eye opener was the cleanliness of their subways.  Smoking was not permitted and the platforms were superb.  One was all pink marble; another had beautiful chandeliers and so on. 

On the sad and depressing side was the shortage of food.  If we wanted eggs with our breakfast, we had to order room service.  You could not be seen eatings eggs in the main dining room.  Then, while the dinner menu was huge, most of the items were not available.  On our first night, I looked at the large number of chicken dishes and ordered one only to be told by the waiter “Nyet”.  

My next selection elicited the same response and this carried on until my entire team (being old hands at visits to Moscow) burst out in laughter and advised me to ask the waiter which dish was available and that turned out to be what everyone of us ate - there was only one type of chicken dish that was served in the dining room.  

On the second visit, we were truly and very hospitably treated by Aeroflot.  They entertained us for lunches and dinners in private rooms at various hotels, away from the prying eyes of the general public.  They took us to see Swan Lake at the Bolshoi, arranged for us tickets to go to the Circus which was fascinating and then arranged a trip for the delegation to visit Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).  Unfortunately, Saroj Datta and I could not take advantage of this great opportunity as I received a message from Mr. Kooka asking us to return to Bombay for an urgent meeting.

Incidentally, I can swear that I have not tasted ice cream to match the one I ate at the circus.  Many years later when I was comparing travel notes with a former Indian Ambassador, he also commented that the ice cream he had eaten in Moscow was unmatched any where in the world.

We came back to Bombay, via Geneva as there was no direct flight back to Bombay and were seen off on the Aeroflot flight by their Commercial Director who, in his wisdom, arranged VIP treatment by placing our baggage between the first row of seats and the bulkhead (Saroj and I sat in the second row).  On landing in Geneva, we proceeded to Immigration and Customs only to discover after a considerable wait that our baggage was missing.

At that point, our Airport Manager rushed to the aircraft which was ready for departure and retrieved our bags from the front row.  So much for Russian VIP treatment.

The British never did anything special for us when we visited London where we invariable stayed at the Strand Palace until their rates went up so high that we could not manage within our daily allowance.  At that particular time, we did not have the facility where under accommodation was arranged and paid for by AI with us getting 50% of the D.A.

On one occasion, our London office found us rooms at the Grosvenor Hotel.  When I mentioned this hotel to Mr. Kooka, he expressed astonishment as he doubted that our D.A. would cover the cost of the rooms.  I then enlightened him by saying that this was not the Grosvenor House in Mayfair, but the Grosvenor on top of Victoria Station.

Our delegation arrived at the hotel and we were given 5 rooms of which four were on the 5th floor while the sixth member of our team was accommodated on the 6th floor.  We  were directed to the lift which was operated by an attendant by pulling down a rope.  When we reached the 5th floor, four of us exited and the attendant told the 5th member of our team to also get off and take the stairs to the next floor.

When I entered my room, I found it quite large and the bathroom to be of equal size.  However, there was no toilet and a small placard indicated me to use one of the 2 toilets located at opposite ends of the floor.

I immediately called our Regional Director and in no uncertain terms informed him to get us out of this hotel and find us decent accommodations.  He was flabbergasted to learn of our experience and gave his Executive Assistant a good dressing down.  Shortly thereafter, we were advised that we had rooms in a new hotel off High Street Kensington and also that two cars would be sent to our hotel to help us move.  We checked out immediately and transferred to this new hotel which by comparison was a true luxury hostelry; the cost just under our limits.

Mr. Appusamy was a member of the IATA Executive Committee when he took over as our M.D.  He asked me to accompany him for a meeting of some members of this committee hosted by BA in London.  Unfortunately, for both of us, the host airline forgot to take into account that neither of us ate beef which was served as the entree.  We had to make do with salad and dessert.  It was disappointing that having ruled India for so long, the British did not understand this affront to our religion.  I mentioned the incident to David Lowe, the BA Manager in Bombay, on my return.  He must have written to his Head Office as we got a written apology from their CEO.