Reflections - A Providential Escape

A Providential Escape

On the wings of angels

In 1969, my dad, who worked in the Indian Railways got transferred to Bombay (now, Mumbai). I was ten years old. The next fifteen years, till 1984, we lived less than 45 minutes’ walk or 4 kms from the Central Business District (CBD) of Bombay, the Fort area, in South Mumbai.

The Fort area, in fact, was a fort when the British ruled India, and so the name. It is the most visited place – and maybe – the only visited place in Bombay - by foreign and domestic tourists alike – largely to re-live British India in its architecture.

The walls of the fort were torn down in 1862 to allow the city to expand.

While British were in India till 1947-48, the city expanded little further off Bandra Station (inaugurated 1869) to Versova on the western side of Bombay, and Sion on the eastern side of Bombay as part of the Dadar-Matunga-Wadala-Sion scheme of 1899-1900.

The original islands of Bombay came into British possession with the dowry of Catherine of Braganza of 1662, on her wedding to King Charles II of England. 

Catherine was the daughter of King John IV, who became the king of Portugal from the House of Braganza in 1640 after overthrowing the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs over Portugal.

The transformation of Bombay into India’s commercial capital happened between the 1850s to 1820s. 

Partly due to the cotton trade and setting up of the first cotton mill in 1854 and the Revolt of 1857, that led to the British Crown taking over the reins of India from the British East India Company (and this period also coincided with the American Civil War, which lasted from 1860 to 1865, which fueled the global demand for Indian cotton manifold).

The last public building that projected the power and might of the British Empire in India was the Gateway of India, built to commemorate the landing in December 1911 at Apollo Bunder of King-Emperor George V and Queen Empress Mary. 

The monument was completed in 1924. From here the British exited India in 1948, for good.

In 1984, when my father retired from the railways, we moved to the outskirts of the city, beyond British India built Versova, but on the East side of Mumbai – Andheri East.

The renowned Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) was in a place called Powai flanked by the Powai and Vihar lakes. 

Set up in 1958, it was a small township in itself. An island of green in the otherwise concrete jungle that was Bombay. 

There was no Hiranandani Developers then. If they had begun work on their first township in Powai, it was not visible to me in the warm yellow of the street lights on the road I was walking on, one December night in the early 80s, to get to my home in Marol, Andheri East from IIT Powai,

I had gone for IIT-B’s Annual Cultural Festival, Mood Indigo with some of my college friends. The festival goes on for the whole night and for four days.

Around midnight, I got restless, and decided to leave the festival and go home. My friends chose to stay back and leave for home in the morning. I don’t know whether they knew something that I did not.

I stepped out of the campus. There were several autos waiting outside. But none would take my fare when I said I wanted to go to Marol, Andheri East. This was my first time to IIT Mumbai. I had no idea where my home was from there.

There was only one road and two directions. One of the auto drivers was helpful enough to point me in the direction I needed to take to reach my home in Andheri East.

When I looked in the direction, the auto driver was gesturing, I could not see a soul on the road. He also had a funny look on his face.

I had two choices: go back and wait out the night with my friends or hit the road. When we are given choices, for reasons that we shall leave to psychologists, we always pick the latter.

I kept with the trend and began my solitary seven km long walk home with stillness and trees for company. Of course, I did not know it was 7 kms or that it would take me good part of one hour and half to get home.

When you get started on something of this nature and you have covered some distance, and you don’t have a clear sense of how much more distance you have to cover, the thought does enter your head, that maybe, just maybe, this midnight trek was uncalled for. That a right about turn would be the right thing to do.

My recollection of the time that I was on the road was not of fear – just a bit concerned about how long it would take to get home – for by now I had walked for around half hour.

Then I heard a shout that not only startled me, but indeed filled me with fear. It was that big blue Bombay police van in the distance. Irony of life that police vans and police generally fill you with fear rather than provide assurance.

“Tu Kuthe Jata Ahesa? Ikade Ye”. Where are you going? Come here, they said in Marathi.

My heart skipping and my feet doing likewise, I reached the police van. My mind was full of the Bhagalpur Blinding in the late 70s and 80s when the police in Bihar had poured acid in the eyes of the undertrials and convicts, thirty-one of them, in a brazen show of extra-judicial justice.

I had written about it in a Letter to the Editor in the Times of India. Needless to say, I was thrilled to bits it got published – right in the centre of the page – under the OpEd.

The memory of the incident was alive but not the thrill of the publication as I faced the lead interrogator.

The other policemen stood around barely interested in the proceedings. Like when caught cutting the traffic light; once the constable has detained and handed you over to the Sub-Inspector, he feigns least interest in you. Your fate is now left to the SI.

Where are you coming from? IIT Mumbai, Powai. What were you doing there? Attending Mood Indigo Cultural Festival. Did you drink or smoke (weed)? No, I don’t drink or smoke, at least I did not at the event. Praise God! 

Where are you going? Home at Marol, Andheri East. Why did you not take an auto? The auto driver refused my fare. Why did they refuse the fare? You ask them. No, I did not say that. This was not the time to be a smart alec. 

You know why they refused the fare? This was getting boring. The man was just repeating his questions.

Then, I got the import of the question. That was the question. Why did the auto drivers refuse my fare?

“The ‘Gestapo’ said look behind you.” My back was to the road that I had come on. I turned around.

“You see the dim lantern-like lights behind every tenth or so trees?” I could not see a thing. But I realized that this was not the time to weigh on the fidelity of my sight. I said, “Yes”. It was easy to deduce that’s what he wanted to hear.

Then the cop made his pronouncements.

“This is a dacoit-infested area. No one ventures to come alone on this road. That’s why the auto drivers refused your fare. 

"Behind the lantern-like lamps, hidden in the woods, are policemen keeping guard. We are here to respond in case the dacoits show up or hold up any vehicle.

“You are very fortunate that they (dacoits) decided to take the night off. Our duty here too is done. Our replacement is on the way. Come along we will drop you home. It’s a long way from here”

I had a head rush. Memories of Bhagalpur came stampeding back into my mind and rushed down to my toes. I wanted to fly into the arms of the dacoits. I felt safer with them.

But my legs were jelly-like. My recollection is that the policemen hoisted me on to the van on strong arms. Next thing I knew, I was helped down from the van near my building’s gate. I couldn’t believe I was home. 

They too seem bemused that I couldn’t stop thanking them.

They said, “Don’t do such a reckless thing again. We won’t always be there to bring you home.” No, these guys wouldn’t pour water, leave alone acid in anyone’s eyes.

Today, when I reflect on the incident, my walk from IIT Mumbai to my Andheri home, I cannot help but recall Psalm 34:7

“The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them.”

This was David’s prayer when fleeing from King Saul, who was determined to kill him, agitated by the chant:

"Saul kills by the thousand,

David by the ten thousand!”

Such a reassuring prayer when we fear risk to our life.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

The IIT game changers

Someone has uploaded a scan of the physics paper of the IIT entrance exam, JEE, conducted on 8 April, on an IIT alumni facebook group I am a member of. And the general consensus is something: Oh boy, if we sat for the test today, we never would have got in! Of course, most of those who have commented graduated from IIT at least 20 years ago, so their memory of what happened when two cylinders rolled down a slope, one with most of its mass concentrated near its surface, and the other, near its axis, may be pretty muddled. But still…


The Facebook post got me thinking about IIT, and a book that has been lying with me for a couple of months now (and also appearing in non-fiction bestseller lists).


The Game Changers, by Yuvnesh Modi, Rahul Kumar and Alok Kothari, tells the story of 20 IIT Kharagpur (or Kgp) alumni and their entrepreneurial journeys.
The IITs have always been famous for producing entrepreneurs. In fact, it may be worthwhile for some researcher to investigate why the IITs have been far more successful in this regard than the IIMs. One reason, of course, would be that till some years ago, a large chunk of IIT graduates went off to the US for higher studies, and were exposed to cutting-edge ideas and an environment encouraging risk-taking and entrepreneurship. But that could hardly be the only reason, since, though US-based IITian entrepreneurs are more famous and get more media coverage, there’s hardly a dearth of them in India. And the very range of disciplines in which IITians have carved out their own individual niches is fascinating.


Of the 20, some are well-known, like Suhas Patil, perhaps the first IITian to make it big on his own in Silicon Valley; Arjun Malhotra, co-founder of the HCL Group of companies; Vinod Gupta, founder of InfoUSA and friend of Bill Clinton; and Harish Hande, who won the Magasasay Award last year for his work with solar energy in rural India. The authors have also included the outliers, people one does not usually associate with the IITs, like activist Arvind Kejriwal, SPIC MACAY founder Kiran Seth, and Sam Dalal, who set up Funtime Innovations, the world’s largest supplier of self-created products for magicians.


The common factors that bind all these men (and one woman) together are, unsurprisingly, passion, self-belief and persistence. Many of them faced early setbacks that would have daunted lesser humans. A couple of them even faced ruin and starvation, but hung in there, simply because they believed. But for me, the most important takeaway from The Game Changers is that many of these high achievers came from impoverished backgrounds, and used their IIT education to transform their own lives and of countless others around them. This is surely the most signal achievement of the IIT system, one of the fairest in the world, where nothing matters other than raw merit.


Billionaire Vinod Gupta grew in a UP village which had no electricity, running water, toilets or roads. His first encounter with technology, when he was in Class VII, was a transistor radio a friend owned. That device sparked off something that has since defined his life. Ranbir Singh Gupta, founder of Sigma7 Design Group, a leader in mission-critical facilities for businesses, grew up in a Haryana village, which, even today, does not have running water. His father, a struggling businessman, lost a leg to disease, and Ranbir was raised by his grandfather. He heard of the IITs for the first time when he saw an ad for the entrance examination in an Urdu daily. He sat for it, and got through. Praful Kulkarni, founder-CEO of gkkworks, one of the world’s 100 fastest growing design and construction management firms, did not own a pair of shoes till was 11. Looking back at his childhood in a village near Nashik, he told the authors: “I knew I had to study hard to get out of the rural mindset…As far as food was concerned, my family could afford that, but clothing definitely was an issue.”


The founding fathers of the IIT system would surely have been proud of these men, for, invariably, such IITians have given back generously to their communities and alma maters. As far as I know, Gupta was the first alumnus to donate substantial sums of money to an IIT, when he gave IIT Kgp $2 million in 1991 to set up a management school. That opened the alumni endowment floodgates for all the IITs and other Indian institutes.


The Game Changers is informative and may even turn out to be inspiring for many young men and women, who may not necessarily be either IITians or engineers. Of course, the tone throughout is deferential, stopping barely short of awed admiration, but then, I suppose that’s what the book is all about (It would be very unseemly for me to reveal undergraduate memories about a hostel mate of mine who is one of the 20 profiled here). And it’s somehow fitting that two of the authors are still students at Kgp, while the third graduated in 2009. In a way, they’ve already given indication of their entrepreneurial spirits. And of course, they got through the JEE, one look at whose current question papers makes my head spin.


http://www.livemint.com/2012/04/09150248/Views--The-IIT-game-changers.html