Wanting a change, I decide to leave Kanpur

I has joined AMD Kanpur as a trainee Supervisor – it was a one-year training after which I did another one year service by which time I lost interest in the work. It was a routine monotonous work and there was practically no scope of innovation. In fact, it was boring stuff.
It was at that time that a deal was signed between India and Russia to undertake manufacture of MiG-21 fighter aircrafts. The time was just after the Chinese aggression and India wanted to arm itself with sophisticated fighter aircrafts.
I wanted a transfer to this newly formed setup but my application was turned down by my boss. He was an officer of the IAF and we had an exchange of hot words. I was young, my blood was hot and, in my opinion, it was the only decision at the time. The result was that I came out of his office and penned my resignation.
Of course, I was not the only one to resign because a couple of others who had joined the training course also opted out – the initial charm had worn off.
Anyway, my course mates arranged a farewell party for me and, I returned back to Kolkata with my eyes set on joining the MiG complex.
I had sent a letter to my father after submitting my resignation and he did not say no, neither did he approve. To him, it was my personal decision and he did not want to influence my decisions – I had to live my life and, in case I made any mistake, I would have to suffer.
Anyway – I could not sit at home and twiddle my thumbs till I got a job in the MiG complex. Therefore, I went to ATTI and requested the Principal to accommodate me till such time my dream was fulfilled. He had a soft corner for me because of my involvement on bringing out souvenirs when I was a student there.
And so, I joined there as a Trainee Instructor – I taught the students different subjects and kept waiting for the opportunity to move out. The MiG complex had three units – one in Nashik to manufacture the complete aircraft, another unit in Hyderabad to manufacture and supply the electronic equipment to Nashik and a third one at Koraput to manufacture and supply the engine.
My target was Nashik. (to be continued …)

I get an interview from AMD Kanpur

When I returned home from my ATTI classes via some cinema, I was in for a surprise – my father had already arrived and was sipping his evening cup of tea when I entered. I sensed something wrong the minute I set my foot in the drawing room - father had a serious look on his face and mother also appeared off mood.
Father pointed to the side table and I saw an envelope on it, the flap was open. I picked it up and extracted the single sheet of paper from within. It was my interview letter for Trainee Supervisor in AMD Kanpur. In it was the mention of the stipend and also a caution that, if selected, I would have to join immediately and should come prepared.
Father looked at me with a question in his eyes and I stammered out an explanation. I told him that the future in the chosen stream did not appear to be as bright as I had expected and, therefore, I wanted to make a change in my career – I wanted to go into aircraft manufacturing instead of aircraft maintenance.
Father accepted my line of thought and, since there was a branch of his office in Kanpur, he arranged to make a trip there for himself and accompany me to the new place. He was afraid because I had never ventured out of Kolkata till then.
And so the time came to pass when I took my first tentative steps to enter an unknown alien world far away from my family and close friends. I had to leave the associations of my childhood and the formative years and prepare to face challenges in a new place and fend for myself in a new environment, much like a newly married girl. (to be continued ..)

I take my first step to move out from Kolkata to Kanpur

Handling the souvenir for Founder’s Day was fun and I did it in 1962 and 1963 but, gradually, I was losing interest in the field that I had chosen. I had only myself to blame and my father would have been sad if I told him that job guarantee in this field was just not there.
Getting a job would depend purely on luck and I did not seem to have the blessings of Lady Luck. Otherwise, why was I not able to sit for my AME License exams?
I had submitted my application in time and also paid the requisite fees. But – the admit card was not arriving. Finally, in disgust, I left home for ATTI on the day of the exams but did not go there – instead I just wandered here and there and returned home late at night. And, imagine my surprise when I saw an envelope with my name on it lying on the table. It contained my admit card for the AME exams and had arrived that morning after I had left.
I cursed my luck and, mentally, decided to look around for some sort of job opening – if necessary I would change my tracks and go into some other stream of engineering.
That is when I chanced upon an advisement in the daily papers about Trainee Supervisor in a firm called Aircraft Manufacturing Depot based in Kanpur and they would pay a stipend of Rs 125 per month for the one-year training period. The requirement was for diploma holders in engineering and I somehow felt that this was an opportunity that I should not miss. Hence, I sent an application by post and took my first step to move out of Kolkata. (to be continued …)

Life at ATTI gets boring, I begin to like Bengali movies

As the days passed, my life began to get boring. The routine became monotonous. Coming to the classes in the morning at Clive House and listening to the lectures on Aircraft Materials or Theory of Flight made it difficult to suppress the yawns. But then, as the saying goes, what can’t be cured must be endured. Therefore I began to explore newer avenues of keeping myself occupied.
One of these was going in for Bengali movies in the cinema halls in the Shyambazar-Hatibagan area. Till then my preference was for English movies because I had my basic schooling and college in English medium. Hence, I was more comfortable in that language. However, my Bengali friends in ATTI changed my outlook.
It was in 1963 that I began seeing Bengali movies and some of these were real masterpieces like Mahanagar of Satyajit Ray, Nirjan Saikate of Tapan Sinha and Uttar Falguni of Asit Sen in which Suchitra Sen played the dual role of mother and daughter. Other memorable movies were Palatak starring Anup Kumar and Deya Neya starring Uttam Kumar.
Then there were Saat Pakey Bandha – this was another of Suchitra Sen’s hit movie. This movie earned for her the Best Actress Award at the prestigious Moscow Film Festival 1963.
Another remarkable movie was Chhaya Surya – its heroine was Sharmila Tagore and she gave a really wonderful performance in the movie.
To cut it short, watching these movies, I realized that the mother tongue is important come what may and, mentally, I began to prepare myself mentally to prove that I was a Bengali. (to be continued …)

I go ad-hunting for ATTI Founder’s Day souvenir

The Founder’s day of ATTI was celebrated in first week of February and, in my 2nd year, I hatched a plan to do something new. My idea was based on the concept of collecting donations from big business houses to finance the Durga Puja in our neighborhood. In those days, it was a new concept and used to pay rich dividends. Members who collected more donations were held in high esteem by the puja committee and got special privileges.
When I broached the subject to our Principal, he initially laughed it away but I was insistent. I returned the next day with a copy of the souvenir of our Durga Puja and he went through it. I explained to him that he need not spend a single rupee from the Institute because the donations would cover the expenses of printing and the souvenirs would be distributed free.
That caught the interest of our Principal and he agreed.
So, I drew up a contract form for requesting donations from advertisers and, decided upon the amount that would be charged for ads in different locations like cover page, back cover, inside covers, inside full page inside half page and quarter page strips. Then I got some copies of the contract form cyclostyled and obtained the signature of our Principal on the forms.
Armed with this authority, I roped in a classmate who hailed from Delhi – he was smart like all Delhi boys. Moreover, he also was the nephew of an Engineer in India Airlines and had assurance that he would get employed there once he completes the ATTI diploma.
Every one envied him but my interest to have him accompany me was because he had a charming way about him and could convince others - that was important for our souvenir. (to be continued…)

Depression grips me because my future appeared bleak

Within a few days of joining ATTI and starting to go to Moitra & Co at the airport for practical classes, I began to suffer from depression. The future began to look bleak because the number of opportunities for regular employment in the profession was very restricted. From discussions it became clear that unless one had suitable contacts, one could not aspire to become a ground engineer in any major airline. The discouragement came from old hands at the game who we would meet in a makeshift tea shop outside the airport boundary. They worked in Indian Airlines and were elderly persons who still struggled to acquire an AME license. They made fun of us and explained how each of them were frustrated persons.
Looking at their plight, I began to wonder whether I had made the right choice or had made a big blunder in opting for this institute but, then, I gathered confidence when I met another gentleman who stayed in my neighborhood. He was a ground engineer in Indian Airlines and every morning the car would come to pick him up. He had worked his way up.
He and the men I met in the tea shop were two sides of the same coin.
Anyway, to boost my morale, after classes I would walk down the tarmac, peeping into the hangars where people were at work and go into the lounge of Kolkata Airport. I could see the huge aircraft of international airlines like BOAC, Lufthansa, Japan Air Lines, and KLM lined up at the far end of the runway. Most of them were Boeing-707 which had at that time been inducted into service.
After spending some time in the lounge browsing through magazines and, once in a while, purchasing a copy of some magazine, I would take a bus to Shyambazar to take in a Bengali movie just to get my mind away from unwanted thoughts. (to be continued …)

How I acquired practical experience on Tiger Moth and Piper L-5 aircraft

The theoretical classes in ATTI were held in Clive House from 9am to around 11.30am and the afternoon slot from 2pm to 5pm was reserved for practical classes in the hangars of Moitra & Co located in Kolkata Airport.
Accordingly, I with my friends would board the private bus No 91 that would go to Lauhati and get down at the airport gate near a place called Koikhali. There we would have lunch at a tiny hotel – lunch comprised of a plate of mutton curry and three chapatis with a few slices of onion thrown in as salad along with a tiny piece of lemon.
After lunch we would walk down to the hangars of Moitra & Co located nearly one mile inside the premises of the airport. There was no road as such and we would walk through fields of shoulder-high grass crossing the hangar of Airways India Ltd on the way.
Airways India Ltd was a firm that handled light aircraft and we would watch lovingly at the Cessna aircraft of private companies that would be parked on the tarmac. The aircraft would come there for servicing and maintenance. My interest in AIL was that it was one of the companies where I could acquire practical experience if my luck was good.
Once inside our hangar, I would stare at the de-Havilland Tiger Moth and Piper L-5 aircraft on which I had to study to get acquainted with various terms used in aircraft maintenance. These vintage aircraft were my stepping stones to more sophisticated aircraft like the Dakota DC-3 or Fokker Friendship F-27 or the Boeing-707.
Since our hangars were adjacent to the engine test beds of Indian Airlines, the practical classes would suffer when an engine would be mounted on the rig for endurance test. The noise of the running engine would drown all other sounds. (to be continued …)

I begin studying theory of flight in Clive House – the house where Lord Clive stayed

Clive House is believed to be the oldest building in Kolkata and was the residence of Lord Clive in the 1750s. However, this was the location of Air Technical Training Institute where I landed up to take my first tentative steps into the world of aviation.
The building in 1961 was falling apart and while the front portion was where our classes were held in the upper floor, the rear portion was occupied by a number of refugee families. The partition walls were such that we could hear the loud voices as the members began to argue.
Anyway, my brief tenure in ATTI was an exciting one because the students had arrive from different corners of the country and we even had a student from Africa – he had come on a government scholarship. Among my classmates were a Kashmiri, a Sardarji, a boy from New Delhi and others from Bihar and Hyderabad apart from some Bengalis from Kolkata and suburbs.
Our theory classes were conducted by teachers who had retired from different branches of civil aviation and one of them, a vey senior gentleman, had worked with our Principal in London during the WWII. He would come in his own car, I think it was a Morris Minor and it was rumored that he drank heavily.
Anyway – it was a new type of experience for me because I had begun to widen my vision by interacting with people from different locations and strata of society. It was all a great learning process for me, learning not just the nitty-gritty of aircraft materials, theory of flight and IC Engines but also about human nature. (to be continued …)

I take my first steps into the Aviation industry

I have always been impressed by aviation – in 1957, the Russians launched their satellite Sputnik into Space followed by Laika, the Russian dog that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957 in Sputnik-2.
After completing my I.Sc. (Intermediate Science) exams, I had to go in for some sort of higher studies and, since I had not scored too many marks in my I.Sc. exams, it was a cause of worry to my father. He tried to get me admitted to an engineering stream in Jadavpur University but it was too far away. I lived in North and Jadavpur was way down South. Commuting would be a major problem. It was at that time I saw an ad in the papers about Air Technical Training Institute (ATTI) – it taught aeronautical engineering. I prevailed upon my father to allow me to join this. The Institute was nearer home and the topic would be one close to my heart.
Well – my father agreed and one day we both went to ATTI, met and discussed with the Principal S C Moitra. He was an impressive personality – he stood over six feet tall, had a heavy body and was dressed in saffron. He was one of the few ground engineers who held all possible licenses in categories A, B, C, D and X in civil aviation and was authorized to sign the airworthiness certificate of any aircraft.
His offices were in Mall Road and theory classes were held in Clive House while practical classes were held in the ATTI setup in Calcutta airport. The classes pertained to piston engines and light aircraft like the de-Havilland Tiger Moth and the L-5 Sentinel. (to be continued…)