A COLD CHRISTMAS IN MUNGER

A FULL MOON OVER JHANJHA :  A COLD CHRISTMAS IN MUNGER

After successfully completing and commissioning  the Wastewater Treatment Plant for XYZ Ltd. in their cigarette factory situated in the heart of the city of Bangalore, I was called to make a study for a similar treatment plant at their factory in Munger ( Monghyr)  Bihar – estd. 1908  The Bangalore factory at that time employed nearly 2000 people on campus : the WWTP was located right across the road from the workers’ canteen.  A bold decision indeed by the Branch Engineer at that time (circa 1988 ) - Ganesh D.  The plant has been running for over 20 years now, with nary a complaint.

The Company had made necessary arrangements for my travel to Munger, or at least that was the assurance given to me.  Off I flew to Calcutta on the 23^rd of December 1993, on the only flight of Indian Airlines, reaching Dum Dum aerodrome late at night around 10 PM, due to a delayed departure.  I got out of the terminal building looking for the placard of XYZ Limited.  There was nobody waiting to receive me at the airport.  I waited for sometime, and when no succour was forthcoming, I looked up the Telephone Directory, and started calling all the Guest Houses of XYZ Ltd., listed in the book : No Transit House had a reservation for Dr. A.S Kodavasal.  It was now well past 11.30 PM : taxis and all other forms of public transport had vamoosed.  I spent an uncomfortable night at the airport.

Early next morning, having got hold of the addresses of the Guest Houses from the Telephone Directory, I headed out to town. All the rooms in all the Guest Houses were spoken for, the day being Christmas Eve : Christmas in Calcutta is a great, grand gala affair.  A Kindly visiting engineer of XYZ Ltd., graciously offered to share his quarters in the Guest House in Middleton Row with me.  As the first order of business for the day, I hastened to Howrah station to book myself a ticket to KIUL junction, which Ganesh at the Bangalore factory had mentioned in passing as the railhead for their Munger unit.  I got myself a ticket on the Danapur Express leaving Howrah that night to Kiul.

My next concern was to convey my travel plans to their Munger unit, so as to arrange transport from Kiul to Munger : The train was scheduled to reach Kiul at the ungodly hour of  3:30 AM !  The same kindly soul in the Guest House advised me that the Company’s Chief Engineer resided just down that very lane, and I might want to use his good offices to bail me out of this horrendous snafu.  I had briefly met Subhash Rastogi ( The Chief)  at the Bangalore factory when the treatment plant was being executed.  He lived in a typical Calcutta style apartment building – Aged and dilapidated looking from the outside, but supremely elegant quarters of enormous proportions from the inside.  Amused as he was by my tales of woe, he immediately called up the Branch Manager at Munger and conveyed to him my plight, my travel plans and my need for transport from Kiul ere the crack of dawn the next day.  I thanked the good Chief and retired to the Guest House to a well earned rest for the remainder of the day.

As a brilliant full moon cast its silver glow over the earth, the train raced past quaint old stations -  Jamui, Jasidih, Jhanjah, and finally pulled into Kiul on a cold Christmas morning.  After some initial dithering, I finally found the way out of the station via a dimly lit tunnel underneath the sprawling marshalling yards above.  I heaved a sigh of relief when I found a lone Maruti van with the XYZ placard waiting for me : three poor souls wrapped up in thick woolen blankets,  were sitting haunched beside the vehicle, fighting off the bitter cold, around a makeshift bonfire.  They got up with alacrity, put my luggage in the boot, bade me sit in the van - the driver at the wheel and the two other copassengers on either side of me.

I reached Basdeopur Park, the residential enclave of the factory, lined with trees beyond which stood old colonial style bungalows, each one majestic, on its own large plot of well tended lawns and shrubbery, just as the birds started calling in unison, welcoming a new dawn.

I took my time reporting at the factory in the morning, to wash away the weariness of the night before.  Rounds of the factory done, we assembled in the Branch Engineer’s office to take stock of the requirement of a wastewater treatment plant.

During the rounds, I had chanced upon a Trickling Filter ( a kind of wastewater treatment unit) evidently in long disuse,  constructed may be 50 years before, engineered to perfection, and still standing, home now to spiders and other denizens of the deep and the dark. The piping in the plant was of first grade Cast Iron, showing no sign of ageng or rusting.  The fill media in the filter was of uniform sized pebbles, in sound condition, sourced from the banks of the Ganges flowing nearby.  Truly, this factory had history : In the early days, tobacco was shipped to the factory in barges, sailing up the Ganges from Calcutta.

I did not have the heart to condemn this rare gem of a treatment plant and play a wanton part in its destruction and demolition.  I pleaded with the engineers to let me revive that marvel of engineering to showcase to the world that sound Technology has no “Use by Date”.  A few years earlier I had seen similar trickling filter plants, with self propelled rotary distributors working like a charm for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, supplied by Dorr-Oliver, in the 1950’s.

Alas, the engineers at XYZ Ltd. gave my proposal a big negatory.  They wanted modern Technology to be implemented in the treatment plant.  This begs the question : For what purpose Modern Technology, when the old will do the job with greater élan ?  Technology ought to be graded on parameters of performance, not on its vintage.

That Christmas evening ended on a good note with drinks all around at the bar of the Peninsular Club of Basdeopur park.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                          July 07, 2011

Footnote :

The same three musketeers in woolen shawls dropped me back at Kiul for the night train back to Calcutta.  It was only on my third trip to Munger, did I realize that the two copassengers on either side of me were my personal body guards, with sawn off shotguns under their shawls for my protection in the badlands of Bihar.  Munger boasts a long tradition of gun making, which to this day remains a flourishing cottage industry.