LOGISTICS MONITOR
I almost skipped or missed dining at Prof. Dr. Ganesan Raghuram’s home on the penultimate day of a week-long visit to Surat and Ahmedabad in end-November 2021. Mind you, such invites do not come daily or easily, and you’ve got to grab them with both hands when offered. You’re a loser if you miss it.
“Lunch or dinner?” asked Prof. Raghuram via WhatsApp, once we agreed to meet while I was in Ahmedabad this time. Many a time, it so happened that he was away on some project tour even in the horrid Covid times whenever I visited Ahmedabad. Several years ago, on a wintry night, we dined near the Bangalore City Railway Station in a terrace garden setting before he would catch his late-night train to Goa.
On another occasion, we met over breakfast with him and his son at the India International Centre, Lodhi Road, Delhi, again in winter. He was on a road trip from Ahmedabad to somewhere north, and Delhi was a halting point.
Food is never the meeting objective. Listening and chatting with a man of his eminence is the sole purpose. Our common area of interest is logistics and road transport in particular. By the way, he is a roadie: not chauffeur-driven but self-driving! Not to be ignored is his penchant for rail. After all, he has deep railways roots, through his father. I wonder whether he tried ships. Airplanes, yes. A true multi-modalist. Honestly, he bats for rail over road.
He taught at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and then superannuated at the IIM-Bengaluru as Director in 2020, in the middle of Covid. I don’t recall dining with him on either of these campuses, though I met him a few times in his den.
In November 2021, when I alerted him about my impending visit to Ahmedabad, Prof Raghuram greenlighted. Originally, he was to be invited to the Indian Oil Bareja Depot to address truck drivers. This plan did not work out because he was tied up with zoom meetings back-to-back on a Saturday. Instead, we settled for a Friday night dinner at his home.
Dinner invitation accepted. I realised I was unwell: an upset stomach, to be precise, since the day I landed on the previous Sunday night at Surat. Food poison, courtesy of the Balaji branded snacks if colleague Arun Rodrigues were to be believed. Past five days, I survived on Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) Electral to compensate for fluid loss.
A dozen times in any 24-hour cycle, I shuttled between wherever I was to the nearest toilet. Trainer Raghuram Sharma graciously offered the bedside close to the lavatory in our twin bed-sharing accommodation in Surat and Ahmedabad. That bad was my situation. Nothing but liquid diet: bottle after bottle of Electral, sweet or salt lassi, and maybe a few bites of no-oil roti.
Drained out I was during this whole trip. Mouth-watering Gujarati snacks and food, colleagues gobbled up as I enviously watched. Heartless guys, not offering even a bite!
“I am dropping out. You all proceed,” I told Selvan Dasaraj because the belly turbulence has not died down, and I don’t want to be an embarrassment en route and at the professor’s abode. I was vetoed.
Luckily, nothing untoward happened on the way to Vastrapur, where Prof. Raghuram lives. He was unaware of my tummy condition, and as any gracious host, he was offering all items: dry fruits, lassi for starters. The first thing I did after entering his residence was to figure out the whereabouts of the washing room. He had two! Good, God! Infrastructure is in place and ready for deployment in an emergency!
The food was grand: all vegetarian, of course, much to Arun Rodrigue’s disappointment, a hardcore non-veggie. He nibbled while the rest of us had our heart’s content. I cornered the khichdi to be safe and kept the minimum distance between the table and the toilet as a precautionary measure.
I am talking about the toilet while at the table, you cringe? I don’t care. Izzat ka sawal hai! (My respectability is at stake!). Honestly, I don’t recollect all I had except what my colleagues listed out what Prof. Raghuram served us on our return journey to the hotel. Of course, I remember the coffee-flavored kulfi as dessert!
The first thing I did on reaching the hotel was the “Usan Bolt”ish dash to you-know-where!
P.S.: By the way, something at Prof. Raghuram’s dinner worked wonders. The next morning, there was no turbulence in the tummy. For the first time, I had a hearty breakfast at the IOC Bareja Depot canteen on our day of departure to Delhi. I, however, nibbled at the lunch. I turned down the offer of sandwich slices and the tetra-packed fruit juice in the AI 0862 flight from Hyderabad to Delhi. Air turbulence and bumpy ride is okay, but not tummy turbulence! Secondly, Balaji is the richest God residing in the Tirumala Tirupati hills, the favorite and most revered deity of Raghuram and Selvan. For me too, but not Balaji, the snack brand! Once it was, but no more.
Main/featured image by Pixabay has been used for illustrative purpose only
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