Port Blair Then……and Now

The Cellular Jail, Port Blair

(Our branch when I worked there was very close to this historic national landmark)

It sometimes happens in everybody’s life that you reconnect with a place you have lived in and its people you have experienced after a long hiatus. Not that you had forgotten but somehow due to the long passage of time and the distance or some other reason it went off your radar. That is exactly what happened to me a few weeks back. I would like to share with my readers my wonderful experiences at a beautiful place I lived.

One evening I got a call from a person who did not identify himself. He asked me if I recognized his voice and when I couldn’t, said how I could forget a person with whom I had worked with for a reasonably long period of time. The voice sounded vaguely familiar but somehow I could not recognize him. I always say that I never forget names and faces. But it seemed for a fraction of a second I have started forgetting voices. Is age catching up? I shudder to think of it. Life starts at 50 is what I tell my friends most often. After a lot of pleading he spelt out that he was Devraj. Then I was really taken aback. From where had he found my telephone number seemed like a lost footnote.

A part of Port Blair as it looks today. But it doesn't seem to have changed that much over the last 20 odd years

My mind raced back to the three and half years I lived at Port Blair a long time back. For readers who are unacquainted, Andaman and Nicobar group of islands is an archipelago of 750 islands on the Bay of Bengal starting from close to Myanmar (Burma) and ending near Indonesia. Port Blair is the capital of the Andamans and connected by air and sea to Kolkata (I prefer Calcutta even now) and Chennai (Madras sounded well).

I worked as a Branch Manager of Port Blair Branch of United India Insurance Co. Ltd. from the middle of 1988 to the end of 1991. Devraj had joined as a Development Officer very soon after I took charge of this office and today he is the Branch Manager. I felt very happy the company has given him the position he richly deserves after working at a single office for 22 long years. May be there are very few people (I hope to think there are none) in this company who have not worked at a second place. When I left Port Blair we were earning an annual premium of Rs.40 lakhs which seems peanuts comparing it with today’s figures of Rs.4.25 crores. With these figures I am surprised to know how it is still a Branch and not a Divisional Office with Dev (that’s what we call him) sitting in the Divisional Manager’s cabin firing on all cylinders. Like his Royal Enfield Bullet 350 cc bike, with D engraved on the headlight, used to even before he entered office giving the warning signals around the hills at Atlanta Point, where our office was located then, of his arrival from a bank or a client’s office with a big cheque to complete the month’s target.

But right now it is not figures which I would like to talk about but what I learned from that far away place tucked away in my memory for the rest of my life.

We worked in a small group of people of 6 to 7. Those days there were no computers which at the click of a mouse or a button gives you all that you want and keep you in awe whenever and wherever. My hands used to pain typing out letters in a shabby typewriter reminding me of the British rule. I learnt a lot during my stay. This place is too small to write all of it. Whatever I know about general insurance operations even now it was in Port Blair that I have learnt it. And the people with whom I worked helped me do it with a smile. Of the people still working there since that time Purba happens to be the second person. In fact she joined that place a couple of years before I went. I remember her for her hard work, a beautiful handwriting which has always been my weakness and a pleasant personality. She has contributed a lot to the development of that branch office. And continues to do so.

The Branch has shifted out to a better location. Dev says I would be proud to see it some day. Here I give you a few photographs of how it looks now along with its people. As far as what it was then, let it remain in Dev and my hearts together.

Purba with Andi, a person I remember as an important part of our (me and my wife) life there. Like good things that have happened in my life I don't forget the good people. He has become very old and I hope he is taking care of his health.

Devraj in his office

Devraj with his wife, Purba and their only son, Sudarshan  when they were travelling in France some time back. It is nice to have this good feeling in me when I see them that when you want to do something just do it.

I would be doing grave injustice if I don’t mention the name of two more people who completed my life at Port Blair when I was left alone for a very long time there for reasons I wouldn’t like to discuss here. Manohar and Moncy. Together we were the 3 Idiots who lived at Port Blair then. I have been able to get back to them. Manohar is still busy with his auto business. It is a legacy he has to carry on. He used to be one of the two insurance surveyors then. Moncy is doing his business of a sub-broker, happily married and a father of two. They took care of my loneliest moments.

Manohar and Moncy, I am acknowledging it here as there are a few things in life which are better left untouched. Our friendship is one.