Hostel memories from the early 1980s : Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Gangarams’s Book Bureau on MG Road, Bangalore was a favourite haunt for many of us. We would spend hours browsing through the books and then make our way back to the hostel by catching a bus from the stop in front of Galaxy or India Garage on St Marks Road. 

More often than not, we would leave empty handed or sometimes buy a greeting card or two. Not so in the case of Parmar. He wasn’t one to be bothered by minor details like going to the counter and paying for the book (I’m sure that Nagi, who I think was with him, must have meekly protested).  He deftly slipped it into the confines of his leather jacket and gleefully made it back to the hostel.  

All of us were in the room waiting for the big moment when Parmar took the book out of his jacket, placed it on the table/bed and opened it to see the great pics of bikes . 

I can still remember the expression on his face when it turned out that the book, a coffee table version at that, was a philosophical treatise based on the Metaphysics of quality and other such serious stuff.  Poetic justice in some ways considering how Parmar used Metaphysics to spirit the book from MG Road to Jayanagar………..

How customer service is changing........ (a circa 2001 experience)

This is a true-life experience of mine less than a month ago.

After a lot of dilly-dallying, we decided to replace the curtains at home. Sabina (my better-half) and I toodled across to a drapist and selected the material that fits our door/window frames and our pockets, not necessarily in that order.

The shopkeeper said he could arrange for a tailor to come home and measure the doors etc and stitch the curtains. He picked up his phone and called  'Appa' who agreed to come home at a particular time.

That evening, or should I say late evening, I called up home to enquire whether this 'Appa' chap had come home. Based on my previous experience, my cues and filters had led me to believe that Appa would be an old man, wearing a typically local outfit with a Gandhi cap and trundling across town on a derelict bicycle and not keeping up to his schedule.

 Imagine my surprise when Sabina told me that:-

a. At 4 pm, there was a call from 'Appa' saying that he is delayed by half an hour.

b. At 4.30 pm. our house bell rang and there was 'Appa'

c. No, he wasn't an old man, local outfit, cap......He was very young, wore jeans and sneakers and had come on his Honda motorcycle.

d. He not only finished measuring the area and recommended the length of cloth needed in double quick time, but also made a couple of practical suggestions regarding re-upholstering some of our cushions.

e. There's more. During his 30-minute visit, he received three calls on his cell-phone and fixed up appointments at different locations in town.

f. And here's the clincher. His charges were only Rs. 15/- per curtain, a good 10 rupees less than the original Appa of 3 years ago.

So friends, the moral of the story is that change is what makes the world tick.

Arun Kumar - September 2001

MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF ROTARY

When the newly inducted Rotary club of Pune Parvati President, Maya (Gokhale) Pathak saw my Instagram post of a Rotary name tag of my father (late KP Chandrakumar), she asked me if I have any memories of what Rotary was like when I was growing up in Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) in the 1970s, it brought back a host of memories. Maya is a childhood friend from those days

My first memory was of a fascinating road journey in our Standard Herald, of us driving to Udupi (Karnataka)  in 1971 for a Rotary convention where families were invited.  I remember there was another district conference in Tirupati in the mid 1970s which also involved a long drive, this time in our Premier Padmini.

There were a lot of ardent Rotarians in the club ranging from people who were working in BGML and BEML, the two big PSUs in KGF, to leading businessmen and professionals like doctors from the towns of KGF and Bangarapet. If I recollect, the club had adopted a village. They also used to organise health camps and support needy students in schools.

Every Tuesday, my father would attend the Rotary Club meeting at the KGF Club. He used to wear a Rotary club lapel pin on his suit. One of his colleagues, Mr Seshan would travel with him.  I distinctly remember that my father never missed a single meeting and would make it a point to attend club meetings in other cities if he was not in KGF on Tuesdays. I think he had a record of 100% attendance. I also heard that he was instrumental in the Rotaract Club being set up in KGF – this was what one of the first office bearers of the Rotaract Club told me a few years ago when we connected on social media. My mother was a Rotary Ann but I can’t recollect whether their meetings were in conjunction with the Rotarians.

If I think back, the Four Way Test of Rotary# has probably been one of the value systems that I and my sister grew up seeing in practice in every aspect of our daily lives.  To this day, whenever I see a Rotary International sign, either on the memorabilia at my mother’s house in Cochin, or in the places I travel to , I feel proud of the fact that I am the son of a Rotarian.

Arun Kumar

10^th July 2020

PS:  Wanted to add here in the blog that over the years a lot of folks have asked me to join either Rotary or Lions International (my wife Sabina incidentally has been a Lions member for close to a decade).  I’ve politely declined as I feel that being neutral or non-aligned but following the basic principles of dharma is what matters.

# The Four-Way Test

The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships. The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings:

Of the things we think, say or do

1.    Is it the TRUTH?

2.    Is it FAIR to all concerned?

3.    Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

4.    Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

 Source: https://my.rotary.org/en/guiding-principles 

This was a note I penned 15 years ago for a newsletter. Kind of autobiographical till that point of time.

My message as Head-CRM of CDS&S: Meet the Leader - extract from the Apr 2006 edition: Cummins Cares 

Dear Friends,

When the editorial team of Cummins Cares asked me to pen a note for this edition, it was like Deja-vu in the reverse sense, I still recall the days when I used to hound folks to do the needful for the various newsletters that I was actively involved in releasing!!

I spent my formative years in the state of Karnataka, with most of my childhood in the town of Kolar Gold Fields. Little did I realize at that time that a time will come in my life when I would actually be directly involved in the supply of engines to Beml and end customers. I still have vivid memories of the sound of the air starters when the erstwhile LW-50 dumpers were cranked and our VTs roared into action and the trucks sped along the dusty test tracks of the 1970s.

The lure of engines was so strong that after completing my BE, I gravitated to Cummins. The early heady days of in-plant training at CDS&S, sweating it out dismantling and cleaning engines (come to think of it, it’s likely that I nicked my hands removing the exhaust manifolds & cylinder heads of some of the VTs that I revered as a lad). 

After my in-plant training I was inducted into the Sales Department at Pune where I had an opportunity to familiarize myself with our engine sales to our end customers –replacement, re-power and distributor OEM sales.  Then came the customary field posting, in my case it was in the South Zone where I learnt hands on what re-powering is all about. The 600CK re-power at NLC is still fresh in my mind. My first cross functional role was also at the South as I was responsible for vendor liason for both CDS&S and CIL(KCL). The interactions with Kirloskar Electric Company to get the alternators and allied controls inspected and shipped for many of our Navy Projects, especially the Corvettes and the OPVs, not to forget the alternators for the first 225 kVA Rajdhani power cars built at  E Rly Liluah, gave me an understanding of the intricacies of  such critical projects.

I was then recalled to our Sales Department at Pune where I handled R&R engine sales to the construction and mining markets. The first CAT 773B, 777B, 988B and Belaz re-powers happened at that time. Then came the historic merger of our Sales Department with CIL(KCL) Marketing. I still remember preparing the first quotes on behalf of CIL to a Coal subsidiary and carrying them to Ranchi and Singrauli for tender submissions. I was then given an opportunity to handle OEM accounts. Telcon, HM, HIL and Beml were my accounts. The 210M and the BH-40 saw the light of day at that time. In between all this, conducting CMS programs and Customer Satisfaction Measurement kept me fully occupied. Then came a major switch in my responsibilities, I moved to Market Planning, and then Marketing Services during which time the first IBU newsletter, the enquiry tracking system and the Market News database took shape. 

When the ‘Power Solutions’ concept took shape, a few of us were moved from various entities as a start-up team for CPSL. The early heady days were full of challenges and we burnt a lot of midnight oil in building up the business. The first version of Empower, the PGBU and IBU Marketing databases were launched and we made the  Infraline syndicated news and database available to many of our front end folks in CIL and CDSS.   Concurrently, I had another cross-functional role of customer relationship which was pan-entity.  This is when we started of the Voice of the Customer program, VOC as we know it.  As I write this note, we have completed 66 VOCs from all of which there have been take-aways for us as an organization.  Considering that CDS&S is the primary end-customer facing BU, my function and I  transitioned to CDSS where I am heading the CRM function of which our Customer Assistance Cell is a part.

I strongly believe in taking an unbiased view of all issues and ardently subscribe to our core value on diversity which is to embrace the diverse perspectives of all people and honour with both dignity and respect. I’ve been associated with our Diversity initiatives for the better part of a decade and am one of the lead facilitators of the Diversity Modules.

Be ceaselessly customer focused is my mantra for all of us. We have a great tradition of being a customer led organization and should continue to demonstrate this. Our stated objective is providing products, packages, services and solutions that enable the uptime of our customers’ assets.  I would like to refer to one of our guiding principles viz. Speed in all actions that affect the customer: clear role, responsibility and accountability across CDS&S. As we move ahead this year, measures like CCRI and CSI (from DSCSM) will help us see how we live up to our customers’ expectations.

So let’s provide our customers with best in class and dependable support and make Cummins their first choice.

 Arun Kumar  : Head - CRM