A few weeks ago, I happened to visit Kolkata as an accompaniment to a group of children, teenagers and parents from Delhi for a three intercity camp meet hosted by an institution of our Kolkata community. I was a lucky traveler since my wife was one of the two leaders of the Delhi group which had completed 24 years of its active service. The timing of the visit was also perfect because it coincided with the Festive season of Durga puja.
My trip after a lapse of many years to Kolkata brought about a bit of nostalgia, since I grew up in that city decades ago, and started my career as a Chartered accountant and manager in the Company Imperial Chemical Industries, UK. Headquarters in the stately building of 34 Chowringee.
Kolkata was still at that time full of British owned companies, mainly in tea, jute, chemicals, metals etc.
Most offices were in the business district of Dalhousie square, Strand road at the banks of the Hooghly river) and Chowringee. The office buildings were Imposing, Tall, Victorian in look and design, High ceilings, fat Pillars and countless steps. The office spaces were always ‘Un air-conditioned’ huge halls with scores if not hundreds of clerks, babus, supervisors, peons, sitting in row after row of desks filled with files, registers and typewriters. Along the side of the halls would be rooms/ cabins where managers and Bosses would be sitting depending on their rank and status.
There were always lady secretaries and peons attached to each manager, for letter typing, movement of files and scheduling of meetings and appointments. The Halls were always bustling with noise, type-writer sounds, and activity and continuous up and down movement of people, and a stark contrast to today’s quiet environment of smaller rooms where everyone is glued to a Computer screen.
A newly appointed newcomer would never have an anonymous entry into the daily grind of office life. He would be analyzed by all and sundry. From the peons, the clerks and babus, the union leaders, to the supervisors and managers and of course the secretaries, all gossiping on the caliber, work behavior, future of the new comer. This gossip would apply in regular spells for all Managers and Bosses of various ranks and Hues. Also the working atmosphere comprised of persons of all types, ages and experience and you had to deal with everyone.
It was on one of the days when all of us as a group and children of nearly hundred went for a day trip down the Hooghly river and I was spending quiet moments looking at the banks of the river and the currents and mild waves caressing the Boat, did I reminiscent at the vast changes as witnessed by today’s younger generation in their working place and the past. The Tall imposing buildings on the banks of the Hooghly were no longer the abode of today’s corporate world. Looking at them, One by One, I could see they were shorn of their old grandeur and a shell what they earlier were, I knew that that era was gone for good.
The Electronic age today had wiped out hordes of activities and processes which had earlier bound the efficient and the inefficient in strong glue which you could not remove. It also helped loosen the control that the weak had over the strong.
Looking at the Aapna Info office where a smart team of software engineers churn out their companies services with an quiet concentrated air of confidence and spark of their own competence, one realizes that the our working world has changed dramatically and hopefully for the better.
In the Days prior to the Internet and computer world, A manufacturing Corporate- Giant ,large or small, had to rely on hundreds of persons to record continuous data in registers, files and documents and rely on many others to monitor, analyze and digest data for decision making.
Urgencies and 24X7 working days were a reality and important even then and things were tougher since Man management was crucial to success.
In today’s world, we take for granted and no longer thank the universe for the instant service, entertainment, knowledge, facts, information, data we can command over the Net and the companies own network.
I for one that day down the Hooghly River thanked the Lord for making our life so much easier and helping us more to be the masters of our own fate.
Aspy Mehta (CEO – Quest Digital)
Image credits: (Brisbane Falling)
