Pratap Bhogilal Journey Through Life

Author(s): Rauf Ahmed
Publisher: Bhupendra Singh Anand

Page 53

THE JOURNEY 47
Bhagwati accompanied me and this enabled us to be very friendly with many of the representatives of our Principals and collaborators. She being very genial could easily make friends with their spouses. All this while, we were strict vegetarians and teetotallers and non smokers. In fact this was appreciated by almost all our foreign friends.
Trouble at the Kolkata office....
In the late 1960s, when the Communist Party was in power in West Bengal, Batliboi's Calcutta (now Kolkata) office went through a difficult phase. If I remember right, Jyoti Basu was the Chief Minister at the time
Colonel Eapen (Retired) was the General Manager of Batliboi and Chinubhai Shah the Manager at Kolkata office.Narayan N.Pai was the Finance Manager There was a pending dispute over wage revision. The labour union had pitched their demands so high that we could not comply with them. So we decided to close down our Kolkata office. We had more than 100 employees on the rolls of Batliboi there. Our labour laws did not allow retrenchment. We worked out the total amount due to each employee as on January 31, including leave pay etc, and mailed the cheques by registered post. After functioning normally during working hours, we were to shut the office by midnight (of January 31) and put up the closure notice. Pai and Chinubhai were to leave Kolkata by car immediately afterwards and catch a flight to Mumbai.
Chinubhai's family had already been sent away to their native place. Somehow, a few members of the staff seemed to have got an inkling of our plan. As soon as the notice was put up and Pai and Shah drove off, some union members saw the notice and followed them in a car. Fortunately for Pai and Chinubhai, as soon as their car passed a railway crossing, the gates were shut, and the two managed to escape. It was God's will. If the Union guys had caught up with the two, the consequences could have been fatal!
The Union members began sending feelers to us for negotiation, but we took a firm stand. We told them in no uncertain terms that unless they
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can outdo for your country - Jug Suraiya