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Someway it did not really feel proper being a diplomat after I had spent years studying engineering, says the writer
Like one’s love, one remembers, or ought to recollect, one’s first wage cheque and a few folks even protect it and sometimes body it and dangle it on the wall. Lee Iacocca, who started his profession as an apprentice engineer with Ford Motors Firm and ended as its president, till he was unceremoniously sacked one morning, stored his first cheque as a memento. It was $ 37.60 after tax and Iacocca says he didn’t money it.
My first cheque was, I believe, for 34 kilos sterling, however not like Iacocca, I promptly cashed it. It was handed over to me by my first boss, V.Okay. Krishna Menon, who was on the time our excessive commissioner in London. It is a lengthy story however let me start firstly.
After I landed in London instantly after the top of World Conflict II, I discovered myself going up the strand from Trafalgar Sq. in direction of India Home, then, as now, the headquarter of the Indian embassy in London. It was a house away from dwelling for us, for it had a studying room with a number of Indian newspapers flown from India, together with a small restaurant serving Indian meals. We might odor it from miles away and had been drawn to it like ants to the jampot.
One morning, I noticed a board known as India League, which all of us knew was Krishna Menon’s personal non-public centre of the battle in opposition to the British. I climbed the few steps to its workplace on the second ground and located myself within the presence of the nice man himself who was busy making tea.
Menon had a pointy tongue and an unerring aptitude for making enemies. He provided me tea and we sat there studying outdated newspapers from India. Presently, he gave me some cuttings and requested me to file them. This was uncommon for Menon who hardly ever spoke to guests. And this was the start of an uncommon friendship.
When Menon turned excessive commissioner, he moved to his model new workplace close by and I finished going to India League. Sooner or later, he despatched for me and requested if I might be a part of him in his new embassy. Like most college students of the time, I used to be in need of funds and I stated sure.
For a scholar of engineering to be working as a diplomat was an enormous shock however it was additionally enjoyable. Menon had a small secretariat with fairly a couple of apprentices like me, though it was not clear what precisely we had been purported to do. I drafted letters for him, together with a couple of to prime minister Nehru in Delhi and attended events. When Jinnah died, Menon took me to the Pakistani embassy, the place he signed the e book.
On the finish of my first month in workplace, I acquired my first cheque, which, as I stated, was for 34 kilos. It was some huge cash in these days of austerity simply after the conflict and I made a decision to splurge. As a substitute of sandwiches, we had correct lunches and I additionally went in for brand new garments and footwear, the sort budding diplomats wore in London. I additionally learnt to make after-dinner speeches and a few times, I spoke a couple of sentences in French, however my accent was so unhealthy, all of them thought I used to be talking in Hindi.
I had typically felt I used to be not minimize out for a diplomat’s job – I used to be too blunt and simple – and advised Menon so. He stated it didn’t matter: he, too, was typically criticised for his sharp tongue. However one way or the other it did not appear proper {that a} man who had spent so a few years studying engineering – a much more respectable career than diplomacy – ought to spend his time at frivolous events, escorting girls and outdated males, consuming canapes out of silver trays and gulping champagne.
I advised Menon so and at some point resigned and returned to India. My household didn’t prefer it one bit and advised me I had wasted an incredible alternative. You’ll now find yourself a superintending engineer within the Himalayas as a substitute of an envoy to the United Nations, they stated. They had been flawed. I’ve not been to the Himalayas even as soon as and have become as a substitute an economist, which is definitely worse than being a diplomat.
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