LITERARY

My stay at Rupnarayanpur was not as long as you all spent your prime time there. Still, I take the pleasure to share with you my sweet memories of my short stay there.

After 13 years in Bird & Co., Kumardhubi, Bihar and 10 years in two multi-national companies in Ranchi, then Bihar, I joined HCL. I remember, after a marathon interview by the stalwarts of Cable Pioneers like Sri. D K Gupta, CMD, Sri. S J De, Director Personnel, Sri. S R Sengupta, Director Finance and Sri. Narendra Sharma, was selected as Commercial Manager for Allahabad Project. Which was a Collaboration with NKT, Denmark, as the first Optic Fibre Cable Manufacturing Company in India. I was excited at this big opportunity and to be a part of the first Optic Fibre Technology in India. Didn’t take much time to leave behind the job of the multi-national companies where I learnt and spent so much of my initial days of my career.

A truck load of furniture, followed by my Ambassador car reached Naini, Allahabad. I joined on the 27th January, 1989 but had a real bad time finding out a suitable accommodation. Slowly got my two sons admitted to Allahabad Boys School and Kendriya Vidyalaya, Naini. The Naini plant started yielding profit after optic fibre cables being approved by BSNL and MTNL and started rolling out. Had been there for three years.

Thereafter, I was transferred to Rupnarayanpur Unit under Sri. A K Gupta, CGM. On arriving at Rupnarayanpur, I initially stayed at the Guest House and very shortly was allotted a Quarter. Then became very much comfortable with my colleagues and was also accepted by them.

My stay at Rupnarayanpur was enjoyable and the Club activities included social and cultural events with picnic and sports was additional. I was involved in Badminton, Table Tennis and carom. In Badminton my favourite partner was Sri. Subhash Chakraborty. It was a treasure of memories of working with Sri. Abhijit Kr. Gupta, Malay Sengupta, N C Ghosh, Shyamal Roy, Sivaji Ray, B P Sinha Roy, G C Talukdar, A K Nag, Kanjan Sen, M K Merkap, Gautam Ghosh, Pradip Nag Biswas, B K Samanta and Amitabha Guha.

The best part of the day at Rupnarayanpur was the morning walk with Sri. N C Ghosh, Amitabha Guha and others. Speciality was that Amitabha used to arrange hot Alur Chop and tea from a shop at Dabur More or from the Factory gate. Finally, the walk used to end at the Guest house where Sri. N C Ghosh used to hear problems and issues and most of them were sorted out instant. Somehow, one day this came to the knowledge of Sri. N K Aggarwal, CMD, who appreciated the approach.

The transition of good time to bad time of the company was due to product obsolescence and the change of policy ultimately the company came to a closure. But still the stay at Rupnarayanpur was the best time of my life and the sweet memories are very much live in me.

— Haradhan Bit