Tales of India - 10

A moment to think of Mr. Ratan Tata. As graduate engineer trainees at Tata Motors, Bhawna and I have experienced the fabulous days of learning and camaraderie at the Tatas, where our large batch sizes and the extensive learning schedules, made it an extension of college days. His demise seemed like a personal loss of a close, near and dear one. He gave us the template for purpose, love and care and how it is cool to be a genuinely good human being.

Chennai – located on the southeastern coast of India, with warm temperature and an aggressive monsoon season, it has always been the bustle of moving people, vehicles, never ending construction on the roads and the aromatic whiff of filter coffee in the air. Personally, I have never been to a place with such flavorful vegetarian fare and clearly, they make the best sambhar in the world. So, when the flight aligned after landing to a longish taxi way, I was looking at the day ahead. A meeting to discuss some potential engagements with a finance company MD, a quotidian visit to the CEO of a firm where we have an ongoing project and an introductory visit to another industry leader. I thought of the meeting with the CEO. She was in her late fifties, had recently lost her husband to a yearlong battle with heart ailments and was not available in all our recent meetings.

The meeting with the Financial services MD, was the usual useful conversation – a mixture of sharing some experiences on what we are doing with similar firms, some interesting work which could be of interest of them, the latest of technology adoption, the recent people trends and a leadership point of view for him to ponder. He had some interesting viewpoints, which I copiously took notes on while listening attentively to him and avoiding an unapologetically poor cup of coffee – devoid of flavor, tad bit much of water and sugar as if to compensate everything else – bah, you can't have this in Chennai, I thought with a smile.

As I stepped in for the second meeting, I was informed that the CEO was delayed in a previous meeting, and I would need to wait in the adjoining visitors’ room. It was more of a lounge than a room with some pictures of the factory and offices shot more than fifty years ago when the company was founded. There was also a rack of leather books, mostly about history, books of historians, politicians, thought leaders of the last several decades. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a copy of Ray Dalio’s Principles and on flipping through I noticed the autograph of the writer himself.

“How are you doing, Rajesh? “, I turned to a tall, elegant lady in a cream saree. She had a pen in her had though I did not see a notebook, which she normally carries around.

“All well”, I smiled and then pausing a bit – “… my heartfelt condolences”. She nodded and acknowledged and beckoned me to sit. “Filter coffee as usual?”

“Of course !” , another lady came in with a beaming smile and a glass of water and the CEO beckoned to her “ Get us two coffees , without sugar” , and then with a twinkle in her eye , she told her in Tamil – “ if the coffee is bad , he will not come back to visit us “ – I was beaming into a grin now – “ No , no , nothing like that !”

“My husband used to be a big coffee connoisseur. His family had coffee plantations as well and he always he was spoilt by the most flavorful coffee. Even during his studies in England, his lament was that he missed the coffee every day.”  She paused and sat back in her cushioned armchair – “Gosh, I miss him too much.” I could see that she was pensive in her thoughts. Eager to change to topic to avoid her getting sad, I was about to say something, when she continued …

“We had been married for thirty-one years. Some complications and I could never have children for us. But he was always there. While I immersed in work, he lived in a world of books and dabbled a bit in writing. Our friends joked that he was the typical brattish British kid who was born into affluence and spent a life of nothing in particular, enjoying his music, his books, his art and the fine conversations. He had no interest in his business even remotely and I had to run it for him most of the time.”

“But he was always there. Always a ready smile, saw happiness in the plethora of simple activities. He was the darling of our pets, and we had a brood through these years and the servants at home loved him. Never an angry word and not even a frown. It was an effort to getting him riled about anything. Even when he fell sick last year, and was mostly bedridden, he was never sad, and I always felt he was happily fading away.”

I shifted in my seat. I thought of my father’s passing away. We were never close, not many conversations but when he slipped into the final stage of cancer mostly home care, I think I actually ‘grew up’ in those days.

“Nothing prepares you for loss, Rajesh. The day he passed away; I lost a part of me forever.” She was now fighting that tear.

“I had a good life - he would remind me. I had a loving family, I had you, I still feel the same excitement see you as when I saw you first time arguing with a friend in a coffee shop. You still take my breath away – he would say with his eyes looking into mine like no one can “.

“Moving around the empty house, I sort of still look for him and then I see myself in the mirror, well, that is the only person I recognize now. I have indeed become lonely.”

I took a deep breath and coffee day came with an actual cup of steaming coffee in the traditional South India brass tumbler. We picked the tumbler carefully, and I had a light sip – just perfect, I thought.

“You remember that conversation we had about Gulzar and Ijaazat ?”

Gulzar is a popular lyricist, who I think, is the best living poet and has written about some haunting themes like love, unrequited love, loss and uses the best similes to explain things and moods. Ijaazat is one of his movies, which I think, is one of the all-time great movies in Hindi.

I nodded “Of course I do.”

“It reminds me of the montage of our times – our bike rides, the reading together, his crumbled shirt on the hangar behind the door, the wrinkled side of the bed where he slept, the opened books on the floor, the pen poking below his pillow – each a memory now when I look at the clean side of the bed “

“I felt complete when he was around. Those conversations we had about every prosaic and seemingly unimportant, his passion on the denouement of a movie, his deep emotions after reading a good book, his infectious laughter and that rare ability to get tickled if you touch his palms!” She was smiling now.

“My friends asked me how I was coping. The only thing I had to say is, keep cooking for two people and when one day the fridge is bursting at its seams, you know he is not there, forever “

We sat and talked for more than a while, rather I just listened to her. I thought she did not want any insightful answers, sharing of my observations, she was just looking to speak to someone…

Loss is strange. In life, especially in younger days, we believe in invincibility, eternal life and death as something that happens to others. Well, that changes. And consulting, every conversation is not about selling, questions and answers. It is actually about people, their lives, what they go through and those vicissitudes that we call, the mosaic of life. Things are not always easy; we have to make it easy for ourselves by searching for light in every dark corner.