Dear, ...........,
Hello. In my last blog, I narrated how the management of Mater Control Room
responsibility was placed on my shoulders. I did not want to cut a sorry figure
by failing in my responsibility. I started working very hard every day. I would
spend long hours trying to master the system. I traced all the interconnection
wiring and in no time could recall cable numbers by heart without looking at
the drawings. There were more than two hundred cables. I would be always found
working in the trenches or behind the racks. As I informed in my previous blog,
the equipment installed had been assembled and wired up at BEL Bangalore. The
equipment started misbehaving. Most problems would be mechanical because the
plugin units would not always fit into the fixed back receptables. I sorted out
most problems. I would immediately diagnose the problem and solve it. By this
time my Grad I.T.E exams had been completed and the results conveyed to the
head quarters at Delhi. A promotion list was the result. I was now an Assistant
Engineer, a Gazetted post. Normally all gazetted offices at that time would
dress to office in suit boot and necktie. I continued to be dressed poorly and
would commute to office by bicycle.
One day while I was working in the Master Control Room, a gentleman looking
like an English man in suit boot and necktie was ushered into the MCR by a
staff member. He was introduced as one Mr. Autar Krishen Tickoo, who had
received a posting order as Assistant Engineer in Doordarshan after having been
appointed on the basis of UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) selection. I
got out from the trench and shook his hand with mine. He thought that I was a
technician. It seemed that earlier that day on reaching the Doordarshan
premises and having presented and submitting the documents in the administration
wing, he was expecting to be escorted to a room designated as “Office of the
Assistant Engineer”. At that juncture a staff member had brought him to the MCR
to meet another Assistant Engineer that is me. Having met me, and seeing me in
the trench working with my hands, his ego took a nose dive. We conversed with
each other. I learnt that he was also living in the same area as mine. We
became friends immediately. By evening he removed the necktie and hid it in his
pocket. From next day, he would come to office dressed normally as a common
man. The meeting with me on his first day as an Assistant Engineer in Doordarshan
helped him got over the dream of being a boss. The dream melted away on first
day it self. In the evening we walked back home together, my self just walking
with the bicycle also “walking” by my side. This would be repeated every day
after that. (Mr. Tickoo has looks of an European. On one occasion, when both of
us were in Delhi and were taking to each other in our mother tongue, a senior
officer saw us from a distance. He called me and asked me who this English man
was and how did he know my language. When I told him that he was not an
Englishman, he took time to believe me)
Summer would be a time when there would be rush of tourists to Kashmir. All
types of people from all over the country would come to the valley. Since the
Tourist Reception Centre was located a short distance away from AIR and
Doordarshan Studio buildings, some tourists would come to visit us out of
curiosity. One day, one person came during the day. He was accompanied by our
Engineer in Charge to the technical area. He was introduced to me as Dr. Mangal
Sein a senior engineer in All India Radio Research department at New Delhi. He
was on a tourist trip with his family. I was asked to take him around the
technical area. When I took him around, I was trying to impress him with my
knowledge of the system. When explaining him the technique of picture change
over, I told him that the changeover was happening in the vertical interval
time and because of this the change over was always smooth and the transition
would not be noticed by the human eye. He reacted by saying that it was great.
He expressed his pleasure and appreciation for me as if I had invented that
technology. All day he was telling everyone around that I had explained the VIT
(Vertical Interval Timing) process to him. At the end he told me to draw a block
schematic drawing of the set up and hand the same to him by next day evening
before he would return to Delhi. I immediately brought a big sheet of paper A1
size and started right away to draw it. Early next day, I continued with what I
had started the previous day. When I was at it, the Engineer in Chief came to
the MCR. He asked me what I was doing? When I told him that I was drawing it
for Dr. Mangal Sein, he stopped me. He asked me to tell him that if he needs a
drawing, he should get a print of the system drawing from the Studio Design
Wing in Delhi. I was relieved. Later I learnt that Dr. Mangal Sein was PhD in
Ionosphere research. When ever I would come to Delhi and he would see me, he
would get excited and tell everyone around that I had explained TV Technology
to him.
Around this time, I was selected and a call came for me to attend Civil
Defence Training Institute in Nagpur for two-week training in Civil Defence. My
boss (E.in.C) did not relieve me citing the important work that I was doing at
the TV Station that time. The authority that had selected me for the training
probably got offended by the decision not to send me to Nagpur. Another
selection call came a month later. My E.in.C had to relieve me for the training
this time. I will describe my trip plus details of training tomorrow. It was a
very nice trip and I had very nice experience which are vivid in my memory.
Bye for now.
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