It has been quite some time since I posted on my Blog. Manju and I were up north visiting our children and grand children - a truly great trip. Will be going back on the 26th for Diwali and the “3G” birthday party. It is called 3G because we celebrate the birthdays of 3 generations at one time - Aanya our oldest grand daughter (whom I call my Sunshine) was born on October 8. Manju was born on October 12 and Akhil, out oldest son was born on October 19.
It has been a tradition for some years now to have one big get together and it is called the 3G celebration.
On returning to Florida, we were met by Matthew, a Category 4 hurricane. We reached on the evening of October 5 and Matthew arrived on October 6; ours was one of the last flights to land at West Palm International airport. Hurriedly, we placed shutters on all our windows and the French window leading to the patio. Our neighbors were a great help and we settled down to experience our very first hurricane with 2 hurricane lanterns and lots of crackers, bread and water.
We got lucky. Just as Matthew was parallel to our part of South Florida, it veered slightly north and passed 45 miles to our east instead of 25 miles as forecast. Our part of Boynton Beach (15 miles from the Ocean) experienced strong wind gusts up to 60 mph and lots of rain, but it was nothing compared to what happened to the coastal regions and Central & North Florida. The damage was enormous and even as I write, thousands of homes are still without electricity. The state of Georgia and the Carolinas had even more damage and at last count 22 lives were lost.
When the storm passed, I thanked the “Neeli Chattriwala” who had listened to the prayers of our family and friends. We truly were spared.
Now to get back to my narrative. I have spoken about my open heart surgery in October 1979.
On my return from medical leave in early 1980, I received a call from an old friend and ex-colleague. Adli Dajani was our Sales Manager in Damascus when I joined Air-India. He left sometime in the early 1970s and joined Kuwait Airways in a senior position and later moved to Gulf Air where he was (in 1980) their General Manager (Commercial).
Adli had learnt of my by-pass operation and called to enquire about my health. He then said that he had learnt about the problems that Air-India had gone through with the Bosu Committee Inquisition and asked if I was happy with my current status and that my own job was secure. I mentioned to him that the atmosphere had calmed down and that I had the full support of both my current Chairman (PC Lal) and Managing Director (BS Das).
Adli then said that I should seriously consider a “change of scenery” and suggested a meeting in Bahrain between Gulf Air and Air-India, indicating that there were some issues which needed to be resolved. I agreed to the meeting and after consulting our RD- Middle East, we set a date for our meeting towards the end of March 1980. The meeting was quite cordial and successful and an interesting note was that on one side of the table was the AI delegation and on the other side was the Gulf Air delegation whose members were all ex-Air-India employees.
At the end of the meeting, I met Adli at his home and in passing, expressed admiration for the various carpets that were strewn over the floors. He indicated that they were all “gifts from none other than the person I had introduced to him”, referring to Naresh Goyal who was by then the GSA for both Kuwait Airways and Gulf Air. Adli then got serious and said that if ever I wanted to move from AI, he would be delighted to find a place for me in Gulf Air. He also stated that some of his colleagues in other Arab airlines would be equally happy to do the same.
I told Adli that while his offer was very welcome, I was quite happy with my current status, but if it changed, I would get back to him. I also told him that in case I did move, I would like to be situated in an English speaking country where my children could get a good education and had better job opportunities. We short listed the USA and the U.K. and Adli said that he would keep my preferences in mind.
Before I returned to Bombay (I went to Cairo after Bahrain for talks with Egyptair), I learnt that Mr. BS Das had been removed as our M.D. and it came to my mind that perhaps, I may have to make a change shortly.
Come April 1980 and Mr. Raghu Raj Bhalla (RR) was appointed as our Chairman and Managing Director. I have already mentioned this in an earlier Post and talked about asking him and Mrs. Raghu Raj for dinner at our apartment. I have also written about his very first “venture”; purchase of four (4) 747 aircraft which I managed to scuttle.
In an earlier Post, I have mentioned a Note handed over to Mr. RR by the then Minister of Civil Aviation at the meeting at his residence which was chaired by Dhirendra Bhramachary and at which we were directed to purchase the 4 747 aircraft. The same Note had three items, one of which pertained to the acceptance of other airline documents as payment by our GSA in the U.K. - a subject I have also spoken about. Please forgive me if I am repeating myself.
The second item on the Note given by the Aviation Minister was that the GSA be allowed to sell all categories of traffic to all destinations.
I spoke with the then R.D. - U.K. who was opposed to this expansion and said that his sales staff and Travel Agents were adequately covering these market segments. Expanding the GSAs coverage to include traffic to the USA and/or First Class traffic to India would alienate these Travel Agents. His study did not indicate any substantial increase in revenue by granting this additional traffic to the GSA.
As such, I spoke to Mr. RR that we should not accede to this request which had obviously been originated by the GSA. He accepted my reluctance but I left his office with the feeling that his view of the R.D. - U.K. was “clouded”. I spoke confidentially to the R.D. and told him to watch his step vis-a-vis the CMD. Subsequent events proved that my fears were justified because soon after I left AI, Mr. RR transferred the R.D. back to India. As expected the R.D. did not take kindly to this transfer and took early retirement.
The last item on this Note was on the wines that we offered on our aircraft and the perfumes and liquor that we sold in-flight. There is a background to this.
About one year before this Note appeared, my brother who lived in New Delhi told me that he had been approached by an importer of liquor and perfumes and asked if Air-India could replace our current list of these items by those imported by this person. I informed my brother that we had a Standing Committee which selected wines that we served and that, as per normal practice, they reviewed the list periodically. I also told him that this protocol had been established a long time ago and I saw no reason to make any change.
It would behove this Importer to meet with our Controller of Stores & Purchases so that the Standing Committee could look at his wine list when they next made their periodic review. He could, at the same meeting, present his list of perfumes and liquor for the Dept. Head to review.
A few months later, my brother informed me that the Importer did not want to go through the procedure that I had laid out and had made an offer of a commission of 2.5% to my brother if his list of wines and perfumes could be accepted.
I was quite upset with my brother and told him to “butt out”. I would not tolerate any mention of such “commissions”. We ran a very transparent operation with regard to our purchases and that protocols had been set and established by my former superiors, in which I personally believed very strongly.
I was, therefore, surprised to see this Item on the Note that was handed over by the Minister to Mr. RR, whose only comment to me was - take care of this.
I had a long and rather painful meeting with Mr. RR when I explained the above background to him. I urged him to inform the Minister of our protocols and that whoever gave him this Item, should be asked to follow laid down procedures.
Unfortunately, I was not successful in convincing Mr. RR. With regard to the perfumes and liquor, he asked me to pass this item to the Controller of Stores & Purchases with a remark that the CMD would like him to discuss it with him on the latter’s next visit to Santa Cruz.
With regard to the wines, Mr. RR asked me to participate in the next wine tasting session that the Standing Committee had scheduled and see how we could “accommodate this request”.
The Committee was due to meet in London in June 1980 and I arranged to be present. The Committee was planning to taste 32 wines; 8 each - red, white, Burgundies and Bordeaux. I was initiated into their protocols which required that each bottle be covered by brown paper to hide the label and then marked with a number. The wine was poured into glasses; then each member of the committee sniffed and tasted it after which he spat it out and ate a small piece of cheese to eliminate the taste.
Each member of the Committee would then rate the wine on a scale of 0 to 10.
We went through the entire process at the end of which I must admit that I was feeling “pretty high”. The end result was that the Committee selected three wines to replace those then been served on our aircraft. These included only one wine that the importer had offered to us. I took these findings back to Bombay and presented them to Mr. RR.
Mr. RR asked if this Committee’s findings were binding upon us and when I told him “No, we can overrule the Committee but would have to provide justifiable reasons”. Since neither he nor I was a connoisseur of wines, we would have a major problem if our decision was questioned at a later date. We had established this Committee and delegated authority to it since they were experts.
I was then DIRECTED to withdraw this delegation of authority and add all the wines that this importer had mentioned to the list. At this point, I had had enough and told Mr. RR that if that was his wish, he would have to issue such instructions to me in writing. He accused me of insubordination and told me to leave his office which I did.
It so happened that shortly thereafter, a member of our new Board was visiting Bombay and called on me. I took him out to lunch at which time he asked how was my relationship with the CMD. I told him that I was very upset with the direction in which we were headed which was to make money for certain individuals.
This gentleman then revealed to me that Mr. RR had been selected to perform a certain function and that was to develop ideas and create avenues for money to be raised for the main political family in Delhi. He also said that in case I and others in the organization did not fall in line, we could and would be replaced.
Fortunately, RR did not raise the subject again while I was still with the airline and I presumed that the subject had been laid to rest.
