An Introduction to India
Terry O'Connor had replaced the retiring Bill Mather. Terry had returned from several years at Head Wrightson India (Private) Limited and was thus an 'old India Hand'.
At that time a consortium of British Engineering Companies, BRISEL, had been created to bid for the expansion of the Durgapur Steel Plant in beautiful Durgapur, West Bengal, located in the charming coal fields area north of Calcutta. Somehow, Terry decided that I would be an excellent choice to have as his 'man' in Calcutta for the duration of the project. So in late June 1966 off to India we went; we were: Terry in charge, Geoff Struthers from the mechanical side and John Spence from the electrical side. As a young chap of 22 this was a great adventure and we were to fly First Class on a VC10, the pride of British civil aviation. We landed in the middle of a hot, Gulf night at the airport in Abu Dhabi, not even comparable to today's version–apart from having a paved runway; we got out of the plane to buy something or other and thus I set foot for the first time on really foreign soil. After re-boarding we flew on and landed in Bombay. One of the best things to do is to avoid landing in Bombay, actually in most, if not all of India, in the Monsoon.
We stayed at a nice sounding motel at the nice sounding Juhu Beach. The first morning, groggy from the time change, I peered out on a grey overcast beach with a grey overcast sea. It was clearly tropical, but appeared far from a paradise.
We needed, according to Terry, to have meetings in the business district of Bombay, so we set off in pouring rain. I was shocked at what I saw, never having been in Asia, people everywhere, slums everywhere, amazing smells and rain coming down so hard it really seemed the sky had opened. In fact, during the next 24 hours, 24 inches of rain fell on Bombay; this did not improve transportation.
Having reached the business district, Nariman Point, I was amazed further to see a multi-storey building being erected with bamboo scaffolding lashed together somehow. This building turned out to be the new Air India building—later to be surrounded by countless high rise buildings and the five star hotels I was to frequent in future years. My recollections of anything to do with the objective of the mission were evidently overwhelmed by my shock at the sights, sounds and smells of India, which was to lead within the next few days to a sincere promise to myself that this was my first, last and only visit to India. Little did I know then that the Unseen Hand guiding my career had a rather different concept of my travels in the future.
From Bombay we flew across India to Calcutta and my opinions of Bombay were immediately revised: Bombay was clearly a paradise and Calcutta was utterly beyond imagination–probably still is today. Little did I know that Calcutta, despite its few blemishes would become my favorite city in India and, for the most part, the Bengalis with whom I worked, the most delightful, friendly and artistic people I encountered in India. Total chaos. Millions of people in a city that had been designed for a population of 30,000 more than two centuries previously as the capital city of the East India Company.
At that time a consortium of British Engineering Companies, BRISEL, had been created to bid for the expansion of the Durgapur Steel Plant in beautiful Durgapur, West Bengal, located in the charming coal fields area north of Calcutta. Somehow, Terry decided that I would be an excellent choice to have as his 'man' in Calcutta for the duration of the project. So in late June 1966 off to India we went; we were: Terry in charge, Geoff Struthers from the mechanical side and John Spence from the electrical side. As a young chap of 22 this was a great adventure and we were to fly First Class on a VC10, the pride of British civil aviation. We landed in the middle of a hot, Gulf night at the airport in Abu Dhabi, not even comparable to today's version–apart from having a paved runway; we got out of the plane to buy something or other and thus I set foot for the first time on really foreign soil. After re-boarding we flew on and landed in Bombay. One of the best things to do is to avoid landing in Bombay, actually in most, if not all of India, in the Monsoon.
We stayed at a nice sounding motel at the nice sounding Juhu Beach. The first morning, groggy from the time change, I peered out on a grey overcast beach with a grey overcast sea. It was clearly tropical, but appeared far from a paradise.
We needed, according to Terry, to have meetings in the business district of Bombay, so we set off in pouring rain. I was shocked at what I saw, never having been in Asia, people everywhere, slums everywhere, amazing smells and rain coming down so hard it really seemed the sky had opened. In fact, during the next 24 hours, 24 inches of rain fell on Bombay; this did not improve transportation.
Having reached the business district, Nariman Point, I was amazed further to see a multi-storey building being erected with bamboo scaffolding lashed together somehow. This building turned out to be the new Air India building—later to be surrounded by countless high rise buildings and the five star hotels I was to frequent in future years. My recollections of anything to do with the objective of the mission were evidently overwhelmed by my shock at the sights, sounds and smells of India, which was to lead within the next few days to a sincere promise to myself that this was my first, last and only visit to India. Little did I know then that the Unseen Hand guiding my career had a rather different concept of my travels in the future.
From Bombay we flew across India to Calcutta and my opinions of Bombay were immediately revised: Bombay was clearly a paradise and Calcutta was utterly beyond imagination–probably still is today. Little did I know that Calcutta, despite its few blemishes would become my favorite city in India and, for the most part, the Bengalis with whom I worked, the most delightful, friendly and artistic people I encountered in India. Total chaos. Millions of people in a city that had been designed for a population of 30,000 more than two centuries previously as the capital city of the East India Company.
The Grand Hotel, Calcutta
The Grand Hotel, as it existed in 1966, as it existed 100 years prior to that, was amazing. Its tranquillity completely at odds with the the sights and sounds of Chowringhee Road outside the front door. Beggars with various body parts missing, characters selling ‘nice girls, college girls’, hawkers, pedestrians, taxi drivers and an unimaginable density of humanity, quite a lot of it not really washed well. Entering the Grand in those days was like stepping into a different time and place. One could imagine the British of past centuries returning after their travails to cool drinks and decent food after a day in non-air conditioned discomfort. I did and I imagined that a nice piece of filet mignon for dinner one night in the hotel would be just the job.
My timing was a little off as I did not visit the meat section of the ancient Calcutta New Market until a little later; had I done so, a serious attack of goodness knows what might have been averted and I could have developed sooner the habit of becoming a vegetarian the moment I arrived in India or boarded an Air India flight in the West.
My timing was a little off as I did not visit the meat section of the ancient Calcutta New Market until a little later; had I done so, a serious attack of goodness knows what might have been averted and I could have developed sooner the habit of becoming a vegetarian the moment I arrived in India or boarded an Air India flight in the West.
My first visit to the New Market was in the company of two of the Head Wrightson India wives. I could not help noticing that from time to time, one or the other of them, vanished for several minutes leaving me with the other. After a while the ladies realized that an explanation was in order: it transpired that, despite their having been in India for years, their stomachs had never taken well to Indian food, no matter how carefully prepared; this resulted in travels which were planned very carefully to take into account the proximity of known, appropriate facilities. I should have been warned, but I was young!
After several days in Calcutta, during which I suppose I must have participated in some meetings at the company’s office in Middleton Row, it was time to visit a potential supplier somewhere far from Calcutta. It was the night after I had had my steak, which had tasted only slightly of bathroom cleaner, but was otherwise satisfactory.
After several days in Calcutta, during which I suppose I must have participated in some meetings at the company’s office in Middleton Row, it was time to visit a potential supplier somewhere far from Calcutta. It was the night after I had had my steak, which had tasted only slightly of bathroom cleaner, but was otherwise satisfactory.
We drove out to Dum Dum Airport and boarded the ancient Indian Airlines Corporation DC3 to fly to Jamshedpur and then on to Rourkela. By the time we landed in Jamshedpur the effects of my steak were starting to manifest themselves in a very uncomfortable way. I had ventured to the bathroom on the plane in flight and decided that I was much better than I really felt; I decided to defer my needs until the bathroom at the airport in Jamshedpur.
The Jamshedpur airport in those days was an open fronted corrugated iron structure affording minimal shelter from the elements; the bathroom was ‘round the back, sahib’. Round the back I went to discover that the ‘bathroom’ was occupied by some local bovines. Dismayed, I sent messages to my internal systems that they would have to wait until airborne again and I could overcome the initial impression of the plane’s bathroom.
Without going into details, we did arrive at the guest house of Utkal Machinery without an in-transit catastrophe and I told Terry O’Connor that straying too far from my en suite bathroom was not in my immediate plans. Those plans remained unchanged for the next three days; Terry visited me from time to time to see if funeral arrangements needed to be made and always seemed relieved that they were not. During the intervals when I was able to focus on topics other than the intense pains coming from my nether regions, I finalized my determination that India and I were not going to see each other again after this visit. The pains eased after a few days and I was able to venture further afield even partaking of some food. We returned to Calcutta without further event and embarked on our next sortie to distant Durgapur itself.
The Jamshedpur airport in those days was an open fronted corrugated iron structure affording minimal shelter from the elements; the bathroom was ‘round the back, sahib’. Round the back I went to discover that the ‘bathroom’ was occupied by some local bovines. Dismayed, I sent messages to my internal systems that they would have to wait until airborne again and I could overcome the initial impression of the plane’s bathroom.
Without going into details, we did arrive at the guest house of Utkal Machinery without an in-transit catastrophe and I told Terry O’Connor that straying too far from my en suite bathroom was not in my immediate plans. Those plans remained unchanged for the next three days; Terry visited me from time to time to see if funeral arrangements needed to be made and always seemed relieved that they were not. During the intervals when I was able to focus on topics other than the intense pains coming from my nether regions, I finalized my determination that India and I were not going to see each other again after this visit. The pains eased after a few days and I was able to venture further afield even partaking of some food. We returned to Calcutta without further event and embarked on our next sortie to distant Durgapur itself.
Howrah Bridge, Calcutta
It was theoretically possible to drive from Calcutta to Durgapur, but few who had done so chose to do it again. The preferred means was by train from Howrah Station on the other side of the Hoogli River (too thick to swim/too thin to walk upon) from the hotel, across the Howrah Bridge. How can one paint a picture of this bridge? Imagine that Calcutta and Chowringhee Road are orderly and unpopulated; imagine that Chowringhee Road, designed for one lane of carriages in each direction, doesn’t actually have ten lanes of inter-directional cars, buses–to which cling uncountable numbers of people, overladen, smoke belching lorries, bicycles, buffalo carts, cows, people, police, hand carts, rickshaws, the occasional corpse, dogs and other life forms. Place that on the scale as being controlled, disciplined orderliness. The Howrah Bridge has all of the above and more. Years later it was necessary to disembark, with my lovely Czech mate of nigh on 40 years and mother of our children, from our taxi to avoid suffocation from its exhaust fumes and actually to stand on the bridge surface; this was not comforting as the bridge was very actively responding to the moving loads; one hoped that the Dorman Long/Cleveland Bridge engineers in turn of the century Middlesbrough had allowed plenty of safety factors.
On the Howrah Bridge having disembarked from severely disabled taxi
The taxis are held together by paint and wire
Howrah station itself is a masterpiece of Victorian railway engineering befitting the needs of the East India Company at that time. In 1966 the platforms were covered in people, either waiting for a train, just living there or recently having died there.
The porters, having an average weight of, maybe, 85 pounds and standing all of 59” tall, carry impossible numbers of bundles and bags at very high speed through the recumbent bodies. One learns quickly that unless one follows them at similar speed, with total disregard for the obstacles en route, one is unlikely ever to see one’s baggage again. The porters swarm on board a just arrived train and fight each other for foreigners’ bags, which they seize from the overhead racks. Total chaos and not for the uninitiated. The station did not change in the slightest in following decades and was as it was during my last transit.
The porters, having an average weight of, maybe, 85 pounds and standing all of 59” tall, carry impossible numbers of bundles and bags at very high speed through the recumbent bodies. One learns quickly that unless one follows them at similar speed, with total disregard for the obstacles en route, one is unlikely ever to see one’s baggage again. The porters swarm on board a just arrived train and fight each other for foreigners’ bags, which they seize from the overhead racks. Total chaos and not for the uninitiated. The station did not change in the slightest in following decades and was as it was during my last transit.
An AC compartment
One strives to travel, if on business or as a foreigner, in the air conditioned class on the trains. The air conditioning may or may not be, but the seats are more comfortable and there is a fan likely working. For overnight journeys one has a sleeper compartment, which accommodates four passengers; it is highly desirable to get the lower bunks. Perfect is one of the few two bed coupés.
Food is served on the train from a kitchen, noting the condition of which should deter all but the most foolhardy from sampling its output. Preferred is to have one’s hotel prepare a sandwich and water for the journey. Toilet visits in transit should be avoided if at all possible. The trains run at a majestically slow speed, but are generally a comfortable and safe way to travel to destinations outside the major cities. Do make sure that a car has been arranged at your destination to avoid having to resort to a taxi.
Food is served on the train from a kitchen, noting the condition of which should deter all but the most foolhardy from sampling its output. Preferred is to have one’s hotel prepare a sandwich and water for the journey. Toilet visits in transit should be avoided if at all possible. The trains run at a majestically slow speed, but are generally a comfortable and safe way to travel to destinations outside the major cities. Do make sure that a car has been arranged at your destination to avoid having to resort to a taxi.
Typical traveller at typical guest house
We arrived in Durgapur and were transported to the guest house and amused in the evening by Head Wrightson’s man in Durgapur. The town is as dismal as one could imagine a 1966 coal and steel town devoid of pollution control and in the monsoon. Mostly I remember being advised, in whispered tones, that Head Wrightson’s Durgapur man had ‘gone native’ and married an Indian lady. At that time such a marriage was barely tolerated and the partners were normally held at arms length by both the foreign community and the Indian population. Maybe it still is that way there. I remember that, as is the case of most middle class Indian ladies, she was quite pleasant, but shy.
After Durgapur my memories of further destinations have faded and we returned to England and a series of meetings with the consortium partners in Sheffield and elsewhere. Either the project could not obtain export financing from the UK government or we lost the order or the project was never realized. I do not recall what happened, but it became no longer necessary for me to decline the kind invitation to be Terry’s man in India.
Towards the end of 1966 or the beginning of 1967, I made the momentous decision to write to Wean Engineering Company in Warren, OH to determine if they had been serious about employing me offered during my visit there in 1965. It turned out that they had been and the subsequent months were spent making the arrangements for our transit in early December 1967. My starting date was the first working day of 1968, but we needed to do certain things including finding our way around Warren, buying a car, getting a driving license, and so on before flying to Chicago for Christmas with my first wife’s family.
After Durgapur my memories of further destinations have faded and we returned to England and a series of meetings with the consortium partners in Sheffield and elsewhere. Either the project could not obtain export financing from the UK government or we lost the order or the project was never realized. I do not recall what happened, but it became no longer necessary for me to decline the kind invitation to be Terry’s man in India.
Towards the end of 1966 or the beginning of 1967, I made the momentous decision to write to Wean Engineering Company in Warren, OH to determine if they had been serious about employing me offered during my visit there in 1965. It turned out that they had been and the subsequent months were spent making the arrangements for our transit in early December 1967. My starting date was the first working day of 1968, but we needed to do certain things including finding our way around Warren, buying a car, getting a driving license, and so on before flying to Chicago for Christmas with my first wife’s family.