ESCAPE FROM SAHARANPUR IN AN AMBULANCE

My visits to ITC factories in India has always been great fun ( see aso : A cold Christmas in Munger, Wastewater Treatment in Nepal ).  This is the only reason I continue to offer pure consultancy services to ITC ( HUL being the only other favoured client ) in view of the excessive demand on my time and effort in this activity, without commensurate rewards.  There is history, there is drama, and the varied Geography and the much touted diversity of Incredible India to explore and to enjoy.

This is the story of my first visit to the ITC factory in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

31. ESCAPE FROM SAHARANPUR IN AN AMBULANCE

I don’t know why it was that every first visit of mine to ITC factories in far off places, was fated to be an adventure  : Is it just coincidence, or as Auric Goldfinger astutely surmised– enemy action ?  I like to believe I have only friends in ITC.

The Treatment Plants for ITC Cigarette factories at Bangalore and Munger were up and running.  It was now the turn of their Saharanpur factory in Uttar Pradesh. Saharanpur is reached by a long haul morning flight from Bangalore to Delhi – then a quick ride in a Sardarji’s taxi from the airport to the New Delhi Railway station, with the curious acronym NDLS, possibly coined by a child with a lisp.

Delhi has a surfeit of Railway terminals -  NDLS, DLI, DEE ( given name Serai Rohilla, would you believe ? ), NIZ : at one time or the other in my several trips to the North, I have boarded trains starting from these points : In those young and innocent days, on my first visit to Bareilly ( to visit a Kissan Factory) I waited and waited at NDLS, with no sign or announcement for my train until a kindly soul directed me to the old Delhi Terminal DLI.  On my next two trips to Bareilly ( WIMCO match unit – the oldest in Asia), Serai Rohilla (down in the boondocks), and Nizamuddin were the starting stations. 

 At NDLS, a wait for a couple of hours in the overcrowded Upper class waiting room under the lazily rotating ceiling fans : more to stir themselves up rather than the air in the room.  Waiting for the Ludhiana Express to be shunted into the platform, to escape to the cool interiors of the air conditioned chair car.  A distance of 190 Km to Saharanpur, covered at a fast clip in three hours and a half.

Like the Munger factory of ITC (1908), the Saharanpur unit is ancient, established in the year 1928.  The town itself is a major trading post strategically located at the Northern tip of the Doab, and at the foothills, just south of the Shivalik mountain range, and blessed by the bounty of the fertile lands surrounding it.

The Branch Engineer it was, who had invited me to Saharanpur to start the process of setting up a treatment plant in that factory.  The fellow obviously goofed up. Upon detraining at Saharanpur, there was no vehicle in sight with the ITC placard or the familiar triangular Namaste logo of ITC to welcome me.  I got hold of a cycle rickshaw to ride to the factory gate on Sardar Patel Road.  To my consternation, I found no booking for Dr. Kodavasal in the Peninsular Club Guest House of ITC.  Frantic calls to the missing Branch Engineer elicited the useful information that I had been booked into the New Taj Hotel in the city. Wah ! Taj, I said to myself and I made haste to that star studded hotel with the rickshaw bell clanking all the way.  I could not have been more naïve !

The Grand Taj was in a busy market area, a stone’s throw away from the Ghanta Ghar ( Town Clock Tower), and all roads in Saharanpur lead to this landmark edifice standing from colonial times.

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=29.964583&lon=77.5461683&z=19&l=0&m=b

The Taj hotel was a pretentious little hostelry with an exterior façade of gaudily variegated glass, and matching hotel rooms inside.  I was allotted a premium road facing room, being an honoured visitor to ITC, but was asked to pay in advance.  As consultant to ITC, I had counted on this trip to be entirely paid for : I had not carried excess cash.  Providentially, I found the Main branch of the Indian Overseas Bank next door to the Hotel.  IOB have been my bankers for several years, and at an age before advent of ATM, the Branch Manager was kind enough to loan me money against a debit to my account in Bangalore.

For dinner, I found a Dhaba in the the Ghanta Ghar chowk, where the price was reasonable and the fare far superior to what the Grand Taj had to offer.

Rounds of the cigarette factory, and discussions with the engineers occupied much of the next day, when broad contours of the Treatment plant were outlined.  All the wastewaters would be sewered or pumped to one corner of the factory, close to the Cricket field beyond.  Treated water would then be used to irrigate, create and maintain a lush green outfield for the weekend games of the gentlemen of ITC.  Discussions over, I retired to the Grand Taj for a good night’s rest, to catch the Ludhiana Express on its return journey to New Delhi the next morning.

Trouble erupted in Saharanpur in the morning : bands of vandals roamed the streets, shutting down shops, turning back vehicles,  beating up innocent passersby, enforcing a Bundh.  In India, one knows not the what, when, why, and wherefore of such sudden eruptions of mob violence.  It might be a minor altercation between two communities ( the common euphemism) or it might be the dalits on the warpath, or students protesting against exams,  or just jobless vandals recruited by political parties to flex their muscles.

The Taj unfortunately was in close proximity to the epicenter of this hooliganism : stones smashed into the  façade of the hotel, shattering it, strewing shards of glass inside and out, as a mob raced past, yelling and shouting incoherently.

I was in a panic.  Not on account of the rampaging mobs on the streets of Saharanpur : No mob  could shake me, having been part of such mobs myself in my younger hooligan days in Bombay.  Indian Railways too was immune to such mob action in those days and the Ludhiana Express would chug away with one less passenger on board.  I frantically called up the Branch Engineer of ITC for help.  And help did arrive with sirens ululating, blue lights flashing, in the form of the factory Ambulance van.

I arrived in great style at Saharanpur station in time to board the Ludhiana Express.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                      July 16, 2011

Footnote :

Saharanpur must have moved on from those early years : Chief Minister Ms. Mayawati, and Bollywood siren Priyanka Chopra are daughters of Saharanpur.  Hmmmm…… beyond that I know of no other noteworthy achievement of this godforsaken small town in U.P in the intervening 20 years.