I was hale and hearty yet I would be turning 58 at the end of August and the rules decreed that I retire! I never felt less like retiring. But I wanted a Delhi posting and I was posted in Gurgaon! So from April to August of ‘95 I was commuting to Gurgaon. There was very little work, except attending some meetings with Principal Information Officer for starting the new centre, but nothing materialized. I was getting a little frustrated.
In August I got a call from Chairman of IOC, who wanted me to meet Mr. Arun Mehra of CE Construction. I reluctantly went and was offered a post of General Manager for a Polyester Fiber Plant at Bharuch, Gujarat. A first AC ticket was delivered at my house. I did not have much choice! Meanwhile I went to Cuttack to sell my last piece of land on the bank of Mahanadi at Tulsipur. An era in my life was over. A new one, full of changes was beginning.
I joined the new job at Rs 22500/- and took a beautiful guest house at Bharuch. There was a Contessa car with AC, I was assigned a driver, a cook and a very good Project Manager and an Engineer. Vivek Mehra the brother of Arun Mehra became my friend and we used to go for Shikar in nearby forests. My wife also joined me for some time and we had a wonderful time.
Soon an advertisement for a job at Malaysia enticed me to attend an interview at Bombay. Kuala Lumpur the capital was where I moved to and I shared a beautiful apartment with two others. Even though they promised family accommodation at the time of interview nothing was offered. I had to cook food, clean utensils and clean clothes for the first time in my life. At the beginning it was a new experience and I did enjoy it but soon the whole thing began to pall.
After a couple of months I requested for a transfer to another project in the same company and was posted to Kota Kinabalu, a city on the foothills of the highest mountain Kinabalu. This was an interesting place; it has insect eating plants and a monkey with red bulb as a nose, which the locals called an Englishman! The location is a thousand miles from mainland in the state of Sarawak. In between lays Brunei and an independent sultanate and below is Kalimtan, which belongs to Indonesia. The island is known as Borneo, the home of old pirates. This state had an English Raja in the olden days. He was a pirate. He handed over the territory to British on his death.
I shared an apartment with two other people; it was like going back to college hostel! The site was a business hotel with hollow pipes on reclaimed land, known as South China Sea, which is so calm that pirates take refuse. The Philippines is just across, about 50 miles, and all our technical staff was Phillipinoes. The Project Manager was an Australian assisted by the usual Chinese staff, and a few Indians. I became friendly with a Chinko, a mixture of Chinese and an indigenous tribe, who showed me the biggest international kite flying show. Some things which make it memorable were - I met and went to the house of my dearest friend LD Wadhwa’s daughter, whom we knew from childhood days. Another was- I lost my jacket at the apartment when I left after a couple of months to KK.
The last fifteen days I stayed at KK to clear my income tax close the bank account and got a ticket via Singapore. I also got a new job of Project Manager for a new kind of job, of renovating an old lake. Due to work permit problems, I had to come back to India!
Back at Delhi I had a lot of free time to roam around all the parks by foot and applying for different jobs. One was very interesting- it was at East Africa, with an aeroplane and cars at my disposal to travel to three different sites! Next was an offer at Gauhati refinery with a contractor.
There was an advertisement for a job without the name of the company that too at Karolbagh. I did go for the interview but unfortunately left the car key inside the car! I was able to open it with the help of a wooden scale. This job was convenient as the office was close to home at Vikaspuri. I could walk to office. It was an interesting job and my visit to the site was only once a week. Here I served only for six months, because of cash flow problem of the contractor. I got only 5 months pay after a lot of difficulty. So back again to job search!
In 1998 I got a call from Arun Mehra to join his company at New Delhi. Working with my old employer was interesting, except for the fact that I had to travel to Bhatinda frequently to oversee a building job. Here I designed a pile foundation which had a lot of profit margin. There were a lot of office works. This lasted for above one year but I was asked to proceed to site and stay. As I had no intention of leaving Delhi I resigned for the second time.
A state of frequent changes began after this- I got an offer of Chief Planning Engineer for AP State Highways, but on joining the Executive Director at site wanted me to stay at site, which was in the interior so I left. Then I was offered the post Of Executive Director at Raninagar for a Coca Cola Factory where I worked for about a month and was back at Delhi. The owner then took me to Bangalore to client’s Head Office and left me back at Raninagar again. This was another interesting phase of my life and the work was very interesting, but climate was unsuitable so I left after about a month.
Arun Mehra’s third time offer came for the post of Director (Projects) for a project at Tamilnadu, with HQ at Delhi. It was North-South corridor of National Highways in collaboration with SMJ of Indonesia, where I was appointed as Project Director. It was a beautiful road known as Thoppur Ghat project on NH 7. This was a long stay for over a year and then back to the drawing board!
A phase of frequent change and travel are the highlights of this period of my life. It was at time frustrating but I enjoyed each and every job that I had the privilege to hold. Now I could pick and choose my assignments as I did not have any inhibiting factors in my life.
Change has always been a constant factor in my life and the process of looking for change rather than change looking for me was exciting and fulfilling. I continue to do so even now…
