M. L. Puri - The reminiscences
Satish Mishra [Colleague]
Shri M.L. Puri ’37 Batch SPECIAL CLASS APRENTICE[SCA] was a unique personality. At Jamalpuri[JMP], during the course of the four year training and hostel life, every one was on first name calling terms with six batches. But because of his towering personality , everyone addressed him as Puri Sahab. Starting as an AM [supervisor apprentice] in ’36 in Rampur hostel, where 50% residents were from Bihar, MLP[ M.L. Puri] being from the 50% All India quota- he took the UPSC SCA exam and duly qualifying, he joined the Gymkhana. This six months start over his batch fellows gave him two advantages- fluency in local Bihari dialect enabled him to pick up more ground, take technical knowledge from the workmen with whom we were attached from week to week and the extra period of contact with the British / Anglo Indian supervisors further polished his exposure to work shop practices.
As a person, he was a perfectionist, very , very thorough, painstakingly going very deeply into the situations and problems faced. [ totally avoiding short cuts] deliberate, pre-planning and analyzing each activity. His ‘Notes’ on ‘shop floor’ practices were much sought after by all co-apprentices. He did not take much interest in sports except volley ball / swimming and his main exercise was a post dinner 2km brisk walk around the maidaan which housed a 9 hole golf course. Utterly transparent and genuine, he set an example at all times by his gentlemanly conduct – a natural leader.
For his first posting in ‘ 43 as an Asst Officer, although standing first in the batch and entitled to the Rialway of his choice i.e NRER [ then NWR,EIR] he found himself in Badarpur on the Bengal Assam Railway close to the Burmese border where the only road lead to the cemetery! He interviewed the British Member Staff Railway Board, who immedialey righted the wrong, posting him to GID [ now CR ] at Bombay. As a probationer on the BBCI Rly [ WR]at BBB, I was fortunate to be allotted a Rly quarter where he lived with me for 6 months. 2 interesting incidents are worth mentioning. His boss the CME HQ was an official of Institute of Mechanical Engineers London, the Graduate examination of which all of us had to pass for posting as officers. One day PS [ puri Sahab] came back from office to announce ‘ Bhagwan ki kripa se aap fail ho gaye hain’. Fortunately, the next day he found that my roll number had been incorrectly read and my misery lasted only 24 hours. My neighbour, a Gujarati foreman on the BBCI, had a teenage daugher. PS’s ‘mama’ a pucca Arya Samaji joined us on a brief visit. We were invited one day by the neighbour for a meal. Mamji was so impressed by their Arya Samaji life style that the next day we found him formally dressed up. On our querying, he mentioned that he was going to walk across to the neighbour to seek the hands of his 2 daughters for PS and myself. Before the damage was done , we dissuaded him.
PS got married in ’45 , a year after me and practically on his honeymoon stayed with me at Lucknow in my railway flat for a week. PS would get lost in the garden for long spells and we had to show Pratibhaji Lucknow’s sites.
In ’52 PS and myself along with 4 others were posted to London as Railway Inspectors under G.O.I. Supply Dept for inspection of locomotives / components being then imported from Belgium, Germany, Austria and Italy. PS and I were sharing a boarding house. I had a Morris Minor. PS would proceed to Germany on his work leaving Pratibhaji who naturally did all her UK sight seeing with us on week ends. On one occasion, to see an air show at Farnborough, 30 miles away, Pratibhaji and Mrs Dutt Kumar proceeded with me in my car, their husbands going by public transport. There the crowd was so immense that it was not possible to locate their husbands. The show began and very early an RAF Jet Fighter Plane, breaking the sound barrier on it’s first supersonic flight, disintegrated, the jet engines crashing into the crowd. As the show continued, we left promptly, and not finding it possible to trace / contact the husbands, drove back. At 8 pm dinner was served, Pratibhaji and Mrs Dutt Kumar refusing to join. At about 9.30 pm their husbands arrived, having had a good ‘tuck-in’ on route on PS’ insistence that whatever had to happen was over and life has to go on.
Because of his long preparatory approach, he tended to be slow in reaching decisions. Accordingly his postings were in Research [ RDSO] and Production Units and not so much in Railway ‘ oprn line ‘.
I am eternally grateful to him for making me a Gita addict- that too of Mahatma Gandhi’s translation. He was so devoted to simple living that in the course of his Gymkhana stay and compulsory mess management tenure of one month, he made no change in lunch / dinner menu for 5-6 days, after which the protests grew loud enough for him to be replaced forthwith.
Fortunate to initiate an annual prize at Jamalpur for the best IRSME probationer in his name I happened to select the title ‘M.L. Puri Award for Excellence’
Other reminiscences: