If only Ramamirtham and Indian babus had a German boss!

It was those heady and optimistic days after India's independence and with the five-year-plans resulting in what Jawaharlal Nehru described as temples of modern India--the big industrial projects of steel-making, dam building, and the likes.

My father, to whom coming from Pattamadai to Madras was one huge step in his life, decided to keep going north in order to pursue professional possibilities at some of those big projects.  That took him to India's version of the Tennessee Valley Authority--the Damodar Valley Corporation.  His assignment was at Maithon Dam.

After a couple of years, it was time for him to get married.  It was also the time, professionally speaking, to look for the next rung of the ladder.  He applied for a position at the nearby steel plant (I think he said Hindustan Steel.)  The application worked out, and father was offered the job that he was looking for.  The salary offered was 425 rupees a month, and father wanted 450.

As father recalled it, it was a Tamil personnel officer who had the responsibility to decide on the salary level. The officer's name was Ramamirtham.

I laughed even as I was listening to all these.  But, I didn't share with them about an additional layer for the humor: the fictional character, Ramamirtham, that my friend, Ramesh, often writes about!

True to Ramesh's caricature, the personnel officer, Ramamirtham, refused, for some bureaucratic reasons, the higher salary that father wanted.  And that was it.

My parents married in 1957, and the new bride and her mother-in-law went all the way from the deep south of India and lived in Rourkela, where father joined a German firm that was hired as consultants to the steel plant under construction there.

Father's compensation with this German firm? 650 rupees a month, plus free furnished housing and transportation to work.  A lot more than the 450 rupees that he was refused by Ramamirtham!

A few months in, father decided to take his mother and wife on a holy trip--to Kashi, Allahabad, Gaya.  Realizing that it was only a few months into his service with the German firm, he applied for three days of leave, which was granted.

Later, while driving between the construction sites with his boss, the tough German, feared as a bulldog, apparently asked father about what he planned to do over the days off.  As father explained the travel plans, the German, whose name I forgot to jot down, remarked "that is a lot of distance to cover in only three days."  So, father replied that he didn't want to ask for more given that he was a relatively new hire.  The boss grunted.

When they reached the office, the boss walked with father straight to the personnel guy and asked for the leave application.  On that he struck out the number of days.  And wrote over it "seven days."

I had never heard about these work-details until a few days ago.  I have heard plenty about the trip itself from my grandmother, who died when I was in high school.  As a traditional Hindu, going to Kashi was an important pilgrimage to her.  Perhaps that pilgrimage, at a leisurely pace, might never have happened if Ramamirtham had agreed to the monthly salary of 450 rupees that father was negotiating for.  A big thank you to Ramamirtham :)

Father says he absorbed many such work practices from his tough German boss.  I know very well that he did.