My mother couldn’t help laughing

DTM Rekha Utham To me he is not a personality, just my father. Yet when I close my eyes to think of my favorite personality ahead of Gandhiji and Mandela both whom I admire tremendously, my father’s face strongly asserts itself into mymind.Whatisitthatmakesthismanspecial?Ofcourse,anygirl’sfirst hero is her father, that’s a given. But if you have a hero for a father? That is special. So, I write about a fabulous human called Raghavan and you for sure would wish that you had met him by the time you finish reading this.

Born into an illustrious feudal land-owning family, highly anglicized, peppered with innumerable personalities who live in history books, my fatherwasthe11thchildofmygrandparentsandyoungestamongst three sons. He lost his father when he was barely five and was brought up by his mother whose regime was strict. He was a mischievous boy and a notorious teenager. The anecdotes about his mischief during school days would fill a book easily. When he was in high school, he and friends set fire to the office block because their exam papers were in there waiting to be sent to parents. He feared his mother’s wrath more than anything else in the world. At the age of 17 he ran away from home and joined the British army. Despite the family using its influence and flexing its collective muscles, they didn’t succeed in bringing him back home. So, he lived a common soldier’s life when he should have been lolling around in his palatial home in Kerala or getting ready to go to Cambridge or a local college like the rest of this siblings for further studies.

As a young soldier in the British army, he broke all the rules and regulations and as is their custom he was fined. At the end of the month because of the heavy fines he would get a few quarters only as salary. That change he would throw back at the quartermaster and wait for his mother to send him money for sustenance. Air dropped into the jungles of Burma, shipped to the shores of Singapore, he fought in the second world war. Like millions of unsung heroes who lived and died chivalrous and valorous lives. Bundled into the deserts of El Alamein in Egypt in the chilly wintry days of November he was lost for seven days in that desert. He dredged the terrain for sustenance, crawled his way back to the camp on one leg, the other being gangrenous with bullet wounds, with valuable intelligence on the German locations and spent the next 3 months in hospital. His mother had remarked as she watched the falling leaves from her favourite almond tree that something has ...

happened to him. News reached after several weeks that he had been awarded the BEM (British Empire Medal) which is a family heirloom and a pension of GBP50 which my mother received from the Queen till she passed away in 2015. The saga of those seven days isforanotherday.

DTM Rekha Utham

Integrity and the ability to look at truth unflinchingly is something I have learnt, and the fearlessness of consequences is what I have failed to learn from him. His promotions were stopped for years because he stood up against his corrupt superiors. I have never heard him even in his most difficult times say that he regretted that stance. More than all the 22 medals for bravery that he won; it was this one fact that made our heartsswellwithpridethatwehadafatherlikehim.

Again, those stories are for fables and stories for his greatgrandchildren.Itwasthehumanthathewasthat madehimsoendearing.Hehelpedanyoneinneed.His ability to share was phenomenal. When he retired and came back to the town where he belonged, he transformed people’s lives. We had a driver who used to just while away his time sleeping as my parents had minimal chores to be done. One day he said he was leaving the job. My mother was so upset as it is a herculean task to get a driver in Kerala. When she heard the reason for his leaving, she was mad with rage. The driver said “Sir gives me lecture daily about how I should live constructively and make a success of my life. Inspired by that I have decided that I will run a taxi and open a workshop” We all still laugh rememberingtheperplexedlookonmyfather’sface.

Every evening he would go for a walk and on the culvert by the fields, a gang of boys would sit and pass scathing remarks about anyone who passed by especially girls. My father started talking to them, initiallytheykeptquietonlybecausethewholetown knew about the two guns and a pistol at home! But slowly they started seeing sense in what he was saying. If one of the was missing at the culvert he would go visit often taking Horlicks or medication if they were ill. The notorious gang of 10 which was dreaded by the people of the area got jobs with my father’s recommendation and became model citizens.

His family was the most important part of his life for him. My mother and us five children. We four daughters were his Princesses. Have you ever heard of a father-in-law telling his sons in law “please don’t shout at my daughter under my roof. I know she can be difficult and headstrong. Please shout at her when you go back but not in this house for, I will not be able to bear anyone shouting at my daughter!!” All the son’s in-law obliged. I am sure they also remembered he had two guns and a pistol.

My younger sister’s two sons were extremely naughty, troublesome, hyperactive kids living in Dubai. My sister was very slim and frail, and my father was in anguish as to how she can manage these two boys. So, he took them to his room showed them the guns and the pistol and told them “If you guys trouble my daughter, I will be very angry” . The rest was left unsaid, the terrified twosome behaved after that!!

We were not the richest kids in college. Yet we were the only ones for whom a money order would come at the end of the month a paltry amount of Rs.50/- to go to the college canteen and snack on our favorites. The thoughtfulness of this father was boundless.

He would write to all of us every week. If you replied, you could rest assured that within the next postal cycle his reply would hit your post box. I have never seen another Indian man who treated his wife with such respect. He would not start his meal till she sat down, if she were standing, he would never be seated, his language towards her was always respectful. Yet he pranked her all the time, lost his temper with her but always hummed old Hindi film songs to ...

makeherlaugh.Allthedogs,cats,cowsandotheranimalsinourhomewasfedchapatieverydaybyhimatdinner time. He would eat only after all of them ate. The day he passed away the cows made such a ruckus because they weremissingtheirchapatti!!

There are only two things he told us. One is to never fight as siblings and second to look after our mother like a preciouschildafterhewasgone.Iamjustsoproudthatwehavekeptourpromisetohimtodate.

There was nothing extraordinary about this man, my father. But he was the best human in the way he looked after his family, the chivalrous soldier in the way he stood to defend his country and face the truth, compassionate mentorinthewayhechangedlivesandananchornotjusttoushisfamilybuttomanymenwhomheinspiredand helpedtoliveabetterlifethantheycouldhaveeverimagined.

TM SUKUMAR SWAMINATHAN

It was reaffirming! The most important tool that helps sales people win business is their own "ATTITUDE” .

It is not the product, not the discount, not the approved vendor status, not the marketing budget, not the credit line but "attitude" .

Iam saying this because recently we signed a contract on not how much we could sell but how best we could develop the business when we approached the market together. We won a business partnership because the client believed in our long-term value offering. We saved a customer, who was all important to the future of our business. We got the rights to expand a service to empirical proportions in the indirect channels.

While I cannot elucidate further, due to confidentiality, the point that struck me in all these cases was singular and common- Attitude! Of the professionals conducting these discussions that made us WIN. In all the cases, we did not have the perfect business scenario or the formula; what we had was intent! And that was relayed rightly by our professionals. They did not hide the facts, they gave clients/ partners the true picture, if there were issues on credit lines, approval status or policy level limitations it was explained. Most importantly, the professionals explained that they were interested, they wanted this to work for both the stakeholders.What followed was Magic. We got yeses, more and more yeses…

And that’s when I realized, businesses are won by people and not just by processes or policies or proposition. The human factor is the X factor. I am not advocating that the all-important business factors such as the Ps and the other business indices do not matter. It does matter to get us to the table. But on the table, it’s all about the X factor. And for that to happen, management has to listen; encourage its people to hold to their “hearts” and build such a culture!

Congratulations! If you have read this till now then I have successfully earned two mins of time from your life and hope this has given you some food for thought. I wanted to leave you with another curveball.... Please feel free to replace the words such as 'sales' , 'business' , 'contracts' , 'indirect channels' etc with 'family' , 'love' , 'togetherness' , 'bonding' , 'care' ....and read again!