During his heydays in office as Chief Minister, Mr Pratapsing Rane had given an appointment to Mr Tata (I have forgotten his first name), the then General Manager of South Central Railway. Mr Tata was in the waiting room downstairs well in advance for his appointment. Rane’s PA Harish Rane was under the impression that the gentleman was Mr Ratan Tata, the great Industrialist and Chairman of Tata Empire. While Harish was waiting outside the bungalow to escort this gentleman (the namesake of Ratan), Mr Tata of the Railways was getting impatient in the waiting room for not being invited to meet the Chief Minister upstairs. This went on for a long time till Mr Tata of the Railways confided with the security staff to please inform the Chief Minister that he has been waiting for a long time to meet him.
The second incident relates to my two-year stint in Delhi between October 2000 and December 2002 as Deputy Director General in charge of North India. I was initially putting up at the Goa Sadan sharing a room with Mr Audhut Lawande, Deputy Director in Enforcement Directorate.
One fine morning, Mr Manohar Parrikar, the then Chief Minister, who was sitting on the terrace outside his suite on the first floor browsing through the correspondence he had carried with him from Goa, saw us returning from our morning walk and waved us to approach him. While we were with him, Mr Seby Fernandes originally from Goa who had settled in Delhi and has his own band “Seby and Wings” came to see the Chief Minister. As Director of Tourism, Goa, I used to engage the services of his band whenever we had promotional events in Delhi. Thinking that I was still with Goa Tourism, Mr Seby asked me as to when I came to Delhi. When I informed that I had joined Govt. of India, he asked as to who was the Director of Tourism in Goa then. Before I could answer, the Chief Minister jokingly said that now there was “Kesh Kamat” and referred to me as “Credit Kamat” to the amusement of everybody present.
The third incident was my immediate neighbour, one elderly Mr Basil Vaz. He was one day eagerly waiting for “Podder on the Wheels” for his evening quota of “pao”. Since he did not turn up at his usual time, Mr Vaz asked my sister’s grandson who was playing cricket on the road whether he had seen the bread man around. Smart and witty that this youngster Karan is, he told Mr Vaz that Bradman died long ago. Mr Vaz was taken aback until it dawned on him that this mischievous boy was referring to the legendary cricketer Don Bradman.
(The author is the Director for NRI Affairs)
