Shaped by steam engines & spectacles
I have worked as a power engineer for more than 50 years and can trace back the roots of my very pleasurable career to steam engines and spectacles.
I was born in a north Indian town named Barabanki where land was fertile and sugar cane was considered a cash crop. My father worked at a sugar mill about 15 miles from home. The recovery rate of sugar from sugar cane is around 10% so large quantities of sugar cane had to be brought to the mill from the sugar cane farms by various means of transports including by railway. One railway line passed in front of my home and was used by a steam locomotive to bring wagons loaded with sugar cane to the mill. The steam locomotive used to slowly push wagons to an unloading area where they were manually unloaded by throwing sugar cane bundles on a conveyor belt going to the crushers of the mill.
As a child I used to look at the steam locomotive with curiosity and often the drivers used to stop and talk to me. This appears to be the first stone that made foundation of my inclination towards the profession of engineering. I started dreaming to be a locomotive driver and when I was in 8th grade I told my wish to my driver friend. He told me that after I pass high school I would become eligible for applying to the railways for a job as locomotive driver and if selected I will be trained and then appointed as driver.
I couldn’t wait to become a steam locomotive driver! But when I was in 9th grade I had to start wearing glasses. When my steam locomotive driver friend saw me wearing glasses he told me that because I was wearing glasses the railways would not hire me as a driver. This news was heart-breaking for me but after some thought my driver friend told me that I can study further to become engineer. He told me that once I become engineer my glasses will not come in my way to join the railways; in fact, the drivers would salute me and if I wished let me drive locomotive for testing etc. In hindsight, had I not started wearing glasses I would not have been an engineer and would rather have been a locomotive driver.
After high-school, somehow I did not perform very brilliantly in standardized tests so I did not get admitted in the most coveted engineering colleges of India but I did get into a good engineering college (“AMU”). In hindsight, if I had been accepted to one of the most coveted engineering colleges, I might not have ended up with the major that shaped my career.
My father passed away just before the annual exams of second year in college. My mother had no income, but my uncle supported my mother in all ways. Fortunately, despite the unfortunate events I did very well in exams and the college exempted me from paying tuition fees and due to exceptionally good performance. Furthermore, the university awarded me a scholarship of Rs. 85/- (in those times it was roughly $17) per month, which was adequate enough to see me through all my living expenses. I wanted to support my mother so I also decided to do tutoring and could send about Rs. 60 (in those days it was roughly $12) per month to my mother. As I came to the third year of engineering I had a choice to switch over to Tele-communications branch, which I did and it shaped the rest of my live. I graduated in Electrical Engineering — Telecommunications in 1963.
At the time, the major of choice for majority of engineers was civil engineering. But the situation changed in just as I graduated in 1963, and ending up with a major in Telecommunications led to a very a successful career for me.
Until 1963, only a few cities in India had electricity. Around that time the Government of India decided to set up big power plants including hydroelectric, coal-fired thermal and nuclear. Big power plants meant long high-voltage transmission lines and interconnection between various power plants so that electricity could be brought to all cities and villages. All this required Power Line Carrier Current Communication (PLCC) and therefore the need to recruit telecommunication engineers.
Immediately after I got my degree I saw a vacancy for telecommunication engineers in Government Water & Power Department and the prestigious Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). I applied for both and accepted the job with Water & Power Department as it was offered first and I needed money. In hindsight this too was fortunate because electrical and telecom expertize are not the primary need for places like BARC, where expertize in nuclear physics is highly valued. Instead, at the Government Water & Power Department I joined as a Government Sub-Divisional Officer which was a Gazetted Post and carried a lot of prestige and power.
I served the Govt. Water & Power Department for three years and gradually the job became too routine and boring with nothing new and challenging coming forth. Therefore I decided to change and started looking out for suitable opportunities. I came to know that the Hindalco aluminium factory had started putting up its own thermal power plant named Renusagar Power Company (in short Renupower). I resigned from the job of UP Govt. Water & Power Department in 1966 (at that time I was earning a salary of Rs. 450/month) and visited Renupower construction site and met the Chief Engineer Mr. Jain. But telecommunications would not leave me alone and Mr Jain told me that he was looking for a telecommunications engineer because Renupower would be connected to the National Grid. He offered me a salary of Rs.700/month ($10), which was very lucrative and I accepted the offer. As I look back I find that this one even very significantly changed my life as by means of being physically in a power plant it became possible for me to work hard and become one of the top-most experts in the world for not only generators and transformers but also boilers and turbines and even civil engineering. Today I am in a position to solve actual problems of almost all types that are faced in power plants and power systems.
This mastery in all fields related to power plants made me fit to hold the responsibilities of setting up large power plants and at 63 — an age at which many people retire — I was invited to join Torrent Power as Executive Director to set up their power plants from concept to commercial operation. This assignment ended in the year 2014 when my age was 74 and therefore I retired after a very successful and rewarding career.
In hindsight, without sugarcane and spectacles, my professional life might have been as successful and rewarding as it turned out to be.
