Dear Alumni:
I have spent two innings in TCS:
In this article, I will focus on TCS Part 1 1971 to 1979
After graduating from IIT (Bom) in 1968, and IIM (A) 1970 my first job was as Development Officer at SICOM (State Industrial and Investment Corporation Maharashtra). There, I was involved in developing a cash flow projection program in FORTRAN at TIFR on the huge CDC 3600 computer.
Life at SICOM was pretty easy. I lived with my parents at Backbay Reclamation (now also known as Nariman Point), played tennis in the morning, walked to the SICOM office, walked home for lunch, had a nap after lunch, and again was at Bombay Gymkhana playing rugby etc. Life was stress-free and my dear mother began to worry about what sleepy direction my career was taking.
Well, she need not have worried too much as my career was soon to change its trajectory in a drastic manner. It happened like this.
I was just returning from Bombay Gymkhana after tennis and I met Mr D N Maluste (who had retired from Reserve Bank of India and had to take up an assignment as Advisor to TCS).
He asked me in his direct manner as to what I was doing, and in an offhand way, I replied that I was returning home after playing tennis. He abruptly retorted, “young man I am not enquiring about your social life but about your professional career”. To that, I replied that I had joined SICOM. Mr Maluste quickly dismissed that of no consequence and said: “with your academic background you should not waste your time in a state public corporation, so better come and see me tomorrow with your resume”. And that is how I came to TCS in Nirmal building and met Mr Kohli, and my carefree life changed.
My easy lifestyle was turned upside down and, I became part of a three-person team to design, develop, and run the Bank of Baroda inter branch reconciliation system. Not having learned COBOL or systems design I had to quickly learn on the job. Since I was still living with my parents and that was within walking distance to Nirmal Building I would be often called in the middle of the night to sort out some run time problem. Our system was run on the IBM 1401 and the ICL 1903. So there would always be some run time incompatibility.
All this hard work was a source of comfort to my dear mother as I was finally taking my job seriously. My mother wanted to meet the person who straightened me out and thank him for putting me on the right path.
So a dinner was arranged in our house where under one roof I was in the presence of two persons I was in fear of – my late father, and Mr Kohli was the other. Ramadorai often remarked that mention of my father or Mr Kohli would have a sobering effect on me.
But levity apart, joining TCS was a significant development for me. I learned new technologies, worked hard, enjoyed the challenges, and made many life long friends. Even my wife Ranjana came to regard my TCS friends as her own friends, wrote an article on the application of computers in banking for Business India. Mr Kohli also liked that article.
I remember one incident working with Ramadorai when we were trying to sell Burroughs computers (in 1976) to BHEL. We made several trips to BHEL Trichy and Haridwar. We had the TCS carpenter make an unwieldy wooden box for the overhead projector, which we had to cart around by air and road.
Usually, Ram would handle the hardware presentation and I would do the highlights and software. One day we decided to reverse the order. Here I was a bit uncomfortable with all the technical questions being thrown at me by the techie crowd at Trichy. Ram sensed that things were getting out of hand, so he reshuffled the transparencies and handed the last slide and with much relief, I said thank you and invited the group for tea and snacks.
Then on a follow up visit to Haridwar we learnt an important lesson in sales and marketing. The BHEL computer evaluation team had just returned from a worldwide trip and we were eager to get feedback from the EDP Manager who was part of the team. They had shortlisted Burroughs and UNIVAC. We went to Haridwar by car (from Delhi) in a rickety Ambassador taxi. It took a whole day and we were quite tired. We thought a dip in the holy and ice cold waters of Ganga River would refresh us and it would also be spiritually uplifting.
So after a very bracing dip in the river, we freshened up and eagerly went to meet the EDP manager in his large room. We received a very frosty reception, almost as cold as the waters of the holy Ganga! We quickly realized that all was not well and we had lost out. The visit to Burroughs HQ at Detroit had not gone well.
In those days an overseas trip for marketing was frowned upon. So we outsourced the liaison job to the local TCS project leader who was deputed to Burroughs, Detroit on a programming assignment and not at all marketing or sales savvy. He went to the airport and received the BHEL delegation, bundled them off in a public taxi which took them to some Howard Johnson in downtown Detroit – not a very good place in those days! The next day they came to Burroughs HQ and were received by some middle-level executives and shown around the computer room for a demo followed by technical discussions. This was followed by lunch in the cafeteria and for which they had to pay themselves, as our TCS guy was nowhere in sight when the time came to pay. The lunch would have a made a big dent in his meager allowance! With that, they were bundled off in a taxi to the airport.
The experience with the visit to UNIVAC HQ in Pennsylvania was in stark contrast.
A smooth salesman from UNIVAC came in shiny limo complete with a cocktail bar. He picked them up from their hotel in New York and flew them in a corporate jet to Bluebell (HQ of UNIVAC). There, they were received by the top brass, presented with expensive mementos, and after some cursory discussions, an exclusive lunch was hosted. At the end of this “strenuous” day, they were packed off to the company lodge in the mountains to recover and also supplied with copious amounts of 5-star food and holy water from Scotland.
So, a very important lesson in high-level sales and marketing was learned. When selling high-ticket items such as computers to Indian public sector, the holy water from Scotland was more important than the holy water from Ganga!
There are many such episodes and maybe when we meet over a glass of holy water we can reminisce.
Jayant V Pendharkar
Jayant (TCS 1971-1979 and 1996-2010) is the Secretary and a Governing Body member of Fortess. Connect with him here.
