There were also suggestions that the company be taken over
by the government. To pull the company out of this morass,
the government had to be convinced that no matter who
runs it, the price of electricity had to be increased to
generate real resources. Having done that, the investors had
to be convinced that the extra resource had to be ploughed
back for buying better and more efficient machinery to
produce more electricity cheaply. Then the real profits had
to be shared between the labor and consuming public.
At this point there was one local politician called Mohanlal
Sukhadia who rose to prominence and held the position of
the Chief Minister in the Rajasthan government for record
number of years. For him keeping the city of his home
constituency happy and prosperous was of paramount
importance for political survival. Electric power is the basis
for every other economic development he had in mind. The
old cliche goes, “There is no Power as expensive as no
Power”. He himself figured out that taking over a company
that was being managed as best as it could be, was not a
smart idea. He wanted the company to expand and grow,
along with the growth of the city and all the new plans he
had in mind. As a matter of fact, Sukhadia not only wanted
Appanna to continue the good work he was doing in
Udaipur but also nominated Appanna to the Consultative
Committee for the State Electricity Board, so his knowledge
and experience could be utilized for other projects,
government had in mind. Appanna was also nominated for
the State Productivity Council and was given medals of
honor.
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By around the middle of 1955 it seemed like the dark
clouds hovering around Appanna’s work were slowly
clearing. Even then he would put some 16-hour a day and 7
days work week.
Pinnacle of Glory:
In 1955 after graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in
Commerce, Giri was going to start working on Chartered
Accountancy with a firm Appanna knew in Indore.
Meanwhile Vichanna informed that Siemens were looking
for three fresh graduates to train in Germany for 3 years
before being absorbed in Management cadre. That was a
golden opportunity and Giri left for Germany in January
1956. We all were terribly excited about the whole event.
That was the first ‘Doré’ to set foot outside the country. Giri
got excellent reports there. His weekly letter home was a
family event we all would look forward with eagerness and
excitement all week. We would sit around as Appanna
would read it to us and we would be looking askance.
Next to go overseas were Vichanna and Sarlamanni. They
were in Germany too and came back with a whole lot of
slides of Europe and gifts for all of us. Tape Recorder was a
great novelty then. We were quite fascinated at listening to
our own voices played back.
1956 was also eventful for we got our first ‘Doctor in the
House’. Yes Premanna passed from Madras Medical
College with good honors and our pride went up one more
notch. He had made all arrangements to go to Edinburgh
and then to London for doing his MRCP. He came to
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Udaipur to spend some time before departing overseas.
Even his passage on the ship had been booked. There was a
certain amount of nervousness on the parts of Appanna and
Akka at one more son, especially a doctor son, going away
for so long when their own age was advanced and health
was uncertain. To make things worse there was a crisis in
the international scene as Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt
nationalized the Suez Canal and there was an imminent
danger of a 3rd World War breaking out. With all this
Premanna’s going to Edinburgh got postponed and then
canceled altogether. He got a job at the General Hospital in
Udaipur itself.
Around this time our family had reached its zenith. We had
gained a lot of stature in the society. While our family was
known for Appanna, it was now also being widely
recognized for Premanna. In fact there was hardly anybody
in the city and even state wide, that was not some how or
other touched by either. Akka had her own circle of friends
and so did I. We were members of local country club. Even
though Appanna himself was not the clubbable kind, we
used to make full use of it with his membership. In a town
of about 100,000 people we were one of the just a half a
dozen family that became highly respected and recognized.
At the end of a typical day we would all sit together or get
into the car for a drive around the Fateh Sagar Lake,
exchanging our day’s happenings. Premanna’s experiences
in his medical world would never stop amusing us. If
nothing else, he would tell us all about a ‘fantastic’ case of
some latinized name for heinous medical malady. We
would all wonder how such an abomination could ever be
‘fantastic’.
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There were times when Premanna and I were left alone at
home with only the local servants who did not know any
South Indian cooking. We asked Akka to give recipes and
directions in writing. We experimented with cooking
ourselves. We only had problem in getting the right
proportions of different ingredients. The outcome was not
always all that bad. We exhausted Akka’s year’s worth of
grocery stocks in about a month in this process of learning
by trial and error. Once we made Pudhina Chutney and left
it on the grinding stone as we forgot to bring to the dining
table. Next morning we found a rodent quite dead near that
stone. It is still a mystery if our Pudhina Chutney was the
cause. If we could figure that out we could have got a patent
for pesticide.
Premanna’s wedding to Prabhamanni took place in 1959 at
Madras. We had taken some servants from Udaipur for
help. One of them was Kishan Singh who knew no word of
Tamil and was also one eyed. In the afternoon of the
Wedding Reception, all the male members were having a
siesta on the floor of a big hall. The groom woke up with a
start and remarked that the trousseau for that evening’s gala
was all crumpled and needed ironing. I woke up hearing
that and said my suit needed ironing too. I volunteered to
take his and mine to a nearby laundry. Slowly each man
woke up rubbing his eyes and wanted to join the fray.
Before long I was entrusted with the onerous task of getting
a dozen suits properly pressed. I went to the laundry along
with Kishan Singh carrying the load of suits. I got the
groom’s suit pressed first on top priority and sent it back
with Kishan Singh, as we were already quite late and
dignitaries would have started
arriving. I was to follow with
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the other suits after they had been done. When I reached the
Wedding, there was no sign of Kishan Singh and the
groom’s suit. At the appointed time we were all dressed
prim and proper, excepting the prima donna, who was still
in his underpants! Kishan Singh finally showed up an hour
late. There were half a dozen Wedding Receptions in the
neighborhood that evening. He had lost his way and was
looking for us in the wrong wedding. He could not even ask
anybody for directions, as nobody would understand him.
Moral of the story: Don’t mix an important assignment with
a bunch of less important ones. You may call it a corollary
of Murphy’s Law.
Our parents had set a goal for all of us. They wanted that
every single one of us must complete a Bachelor’s degree at
the very least. Better if we chose to go higher. They never
forced a choice of any particular profession. We were pretty
much free to take any subject or line we felt comfortable
with.
After we returned celebrating Premanna-Prabhamanni
wedding in September 1959, I went to Jaipur to attend the
Convocation ceremony at my University there. I received
my degree of Bachelor of Science. I came back and showed
my picture in the gown and hood, bearing the rolled up
scroll in hand. Appanna and Akka were sitting together.
Appanna took the picture from my hand. The expression he
had on his face is still frozen in my memory. The gray
eyebrows over his eyes were knitted. He had that glazed
look on his wrinkled face. Was it pride, joy, sense of
accomplishment or just relief? May be all of it. He was not
a person that was easily moved to tears. He could barely
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control a couple, ebbing in his eyes. That was of joy and
happiness. It was not so much of a degree for me. It was for
the Shepherd and Shepherdess whose last sheep had finally
romped home.
They must have felt like marathon sprinters having finally
made it to the finish line. That was a long sprint from where
we were ten years ago.
THE END
220
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raj Doré is a Software Engineer hailing from a very
orthodox South-Indian Brahmin family. He was born in
Hyderabad (Sind), now in Pakistan, before the Partition.
When the Indian sub-continent was divided, he and his
family fled to India. He migrated to the United States in
1977. He now lives with his wife Sumita in Dallas, Texas,
U.S.A.
He has B.Sc. (Mathematics, Physics & Geology), MA
(Political Science) and MBA. Later he worked on MS (CS)
at the Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.
He is a member of MENSA and INTERTEL, the high-IQ
societies. His writings have been published in their
magazines as well.
He has traveled widely in Europe, South America and Asia.
He knows English, Hindi, Tamil and German.
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