Mystory@Jagannatham Erabathini: How I selected my course and career path – Challenges & successes

Just after joining college, the Headmaster of my school informed me about declaration of the HSC Board result and that I had secured 25th rank in the state and was being awarded National Merit Scholarship for pursuing further education in any college or university. The entire school staff congratulated me since it was the first time in the school’s history and hence honour for the school. The relevant forms were handed over to me which I needed to submit to the concerned college Principal.

Being awarded National Merit Scholarship was the turning point and the greatest achievement of my life. The scholarship amount was for PUC Rs 50, Degree courses Rs 75 and Professional courses like Engineering and Medicine Rs 100 per month. When I intimated the same at home, they were happy that they would not have to spend on my education. I had received appreciation letters from some institutes. One of them was from Reserve Bank of India (RBI); even they offered me a job and interest free loan if required. In spite of affirmative suggestion from our Physics lecturer, Vishwanatham, I did not go for it due to fear.

My college life: classes, extra-curricular activities and more

The college atmosphere was good and full of new faces from many schools in Medak and other districts. Medium of instruction was English. There were only three other students from my school in PUC, Venkataiah in my class MPC, Balesham in BPC and Dasharatham in Arts stream. There were repeaters also in my class like Gopal, Madhusudhan Rao and Pratap Reddy, who wanted to improve their scores to get admission in Engineering. I was running short of class books and hence used to borrow them very frequently from others. At the end of the year, I received the National Merit Scholarship. In the final university exams of PUC, I got 2nd rank from College of Arts & Science, Siddipet College and 38th rank in Osmania University (OU).

Further, I went on my own to the University, bought the application form containing around 20 pages, sat on steps of College of Engineering, Osmania University, Hyderabad, filled the form with a worried mind in absence of any help from an experienced hand, and submitted the same in the college. I met one, Ramulu who did PUC in Hyderabad and was staying in Padmashali Hostel near Kachiguda Chourasta. I gave him a blank self-addressed postcard with my sister’s address of Thornal, as there was no post office in our village, and requested him to intimate me when the selection list was put on the notice board. Later, I came to know that some people had even applied to Nagarjuna Engineering College, presently known as Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) College of Engineering, located at Masab Tank, in addition to OU College.

Monsoon set in and I was busy at home in normal chores. One fine morning, Balakistaiah came to our village from Thornal carrying the postcard from Hyderabad. It carried a message from Ramulu. I rushed to the college and was happy to see my name in the list. In our times, there were no reservations for Backward Classes; they were included under General category and reservations were only for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). I and Narsaiah, who were freshers, and Gopal and Madhusudhan Rao (repeaters) were selected in OU Engineering and Pratap Reddy (repeater) could not get in OU, but got in Nagarjuna College. Admission fee was Rs 100 and it was a big task for me to get it from home to pay in the college. For admission, submission of PUC marks sheet and associated certificates were a must. Based on Nativity certificate obtained from Tehsildar at Siddipet, Mulki certificate was issued by the Collector located at Sangareddy, head-quarters of Medak district. I was travelling for the first time to Sangareddy where I collected the Mulki certificate and submitted the same in the college at Hyderabad. With it, the admission process was complete.

We were in midst of 2nd semester of 3rd year. Agitation for separate Telangana state started. Madan Mohan was convener of Telangana Praja Samiti (TPS). Osmania University was the epicentre of the agitation. Mallikarjun from Osmania Medical College was the most prominent leader. Agitation got to a level of boycotting the classes and damaging private and public property in which some student leaders died. Police resorted to lathicharge to disperse the agitators and the crowd. As an extreme step, the authorities closed the colleges and hostels in the month of March 1969. Everybody left the University campus.

It was then that my troubles started. I had gone home and got into household chores. When monsoon set in, I worked like an adult cultivator on full-time basis, ploughed the land, sowed the seeds and looked after the cattle. I was totally lost.

Telangana agitation was suppressed temporarily with some sort of political understanding. In order to utilise my time in a better manner, I had started taking tuition classes to five school children. Due to inflation and increasing expenses, the scholarship amount was hand to mouth and hence the earning from tuitions was all that I had. Unfortunately, in the University campus, student politics had gone to such an extent that rival groups clashed and fought with each other. As a result, one PhD student, George Reddy was murdered. In such a grave situation, the University colleges and the hostels were closed. I was forced to vacate the hostel.

My friend Sudhakar with his uncle and younger brother, was staying in a rented room in TRT quarters at Vidyanagar. In fact, he was my junior in college and was doing Mechanical engineering. His uncle, Srinivas, a diploma holder was doing a job in BHEL and his younger brother, Mallesham was doing MBBS in Osmania Medical College. He offered that I could stay with him as a paying guest.

In due course, we received the offer for Entrepreneurship Programmes. Kishan had joined SISI (Small Industry & Service Institute) at Bharkatpura. I had joined SIET (Small Industry Extension Training) Institute at Yusufguda. It was a Residential Programme of 12 weeks. Apart from lodging & boarding, the programme participants were paid monthly stipend. The curriculum included subjects like Management, Accountancy, Project Writing, etc and visits to small industries in Bombay. When I realised that many of my friends opted for higher studies, my thought of doing a job or starting a small scale industry changed. Last minute, I had applied for PG in Regional Engineering College at Warangal which is now known as National Institute of Technology, Warangal.

I had completed the Entrepreneurship Programme at SIET on August 30 and the very next day I reached Warangal, and attended the interview after a written test at REC Warangal for MTech course on September 1, 1972. I was the only candidate selected for Electronic Instrumentation course from OU College. As it was in demand, some of my classmates from OU, who opted for the same as first preference, did not get it, instead, got in Power Systems or Electrical Machinery courses. MTech (Electronic Instrumentation) was Industry Oriented and UNESCO sponsored course. Out of 10, there were 5 candidates from universities outside the state and one from ISRO, Trivandrum on deputation. All of us (except one) were staying at the PG Block, the mess was common for both graduate and postgraduate students.

Before MTech classes started, there was a gap of one week. I had gone home and informed my family about my MTech admission. Though they were interested in my doing a job, after coming to know that I will be paid monthly stipend of Rs 250, they were happy. As my two brothers were earning a basic pay of Rs 80 and their total salary not exceeding Rs 150 per month, my stipend in MTech was a big consolation. Hence, after meeting all my expenses, I used to save and send home around Rs 125 per month.

How I made my career

The next day, on June 22, 1974, I joined as Graduate Engineer Trainee (Management Trainee) at BHEL. In fact, much earlier to that, there were two job offers for me. One was Engineering Supervisor in Hyderabad District Telephones and the second, Junior Engineer in AP State Electricity Board (APSEB). They had their own merits and hence many of my friends suggested that I join them. My family was very particular about APSEB job. Some of my friends who were doing PG left the course and joined the jobs. Even in BHEL, people joined immediately without asking for extension and left their PG course in the middle. I was discouraged to join Indian Engineering Service (IES) as there would be a lot of political interference in the career. Job in BHEL worked out as the best option for me. While on the job, on the appointed day, I had gone to REC, presented my MTech thesis and answered viva-voce. Subsequently, I was conferred with MTech by JNTU (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University) as REC, Warangal was affiliated to it.

Of late, labour union activities had gone up in BHEL, due to which working was not comfortable. BHEL being a PSU, job promotions were very slow as per number of years of service, and very little importance was given to able hands and capable people. Among engineers, there was no distinction between graduates and post-graduates. As I wanted to grow fast, I had decided to leave BHEL and join a company in the private sector.

I had moved to Bombay region by joining Mukand Iron Steel Works at Kalwa, Thane, in December 1981. We were given accommodation in their colony and my son was admitted in one of the best schools in Thane area. I disliked the job as the working conditions were the worst, full of dust, heat, vibration, noise as well as utter chaos and confusion. Moreover, there was no change in my designation, I was a Senior Engineer with bleak chances for immediate promotion. Hence, once again, I started hunting for a better job.

With my in-depth knowledge of working on fully automated Spectroanalysis Centre in Mukand Iron and Steel, I published yet another article – Computerised Spectro-Chemical-Analysis in Electrical India.

On October 1, 1982, I had joined Mafatlal Engineering, as Departmental Head and designated as Chief Engineer/Manager (Electrical). We were given good accommodation. The officer’s colony was elegant with a mango orchard. There was no problem for my son, Snehal, as he continued in the same school. My daughter, Swapna had number of friends of the same age group to play and her health had improved a lot, and started looking very pretty. She was talkative and I used to love conversing with her. She was admitted in Holy Cross Girls High School. We had a lot of family friends and used to have get-togethers and card playing sessions. My wife also liked the locality. She had refined both her English and Hindi skills and overcame her weaknesses in social movements.

Since I was very strong technically, I was doing well as head of the Electrical Engineering department. For the first time, I was allotted a separate cabin. When I had joined, the company had just came out of a lock-out due to labour unrest. The company was in the business of manufacturing textile machinery. Even after two years, it had not picked up much financially and hence the management was thinking of selling the company. As I was doing well, I did not want to change the job in India. Instead, I thought of going abroad and hence started moving in that direction.

There were two foreign job offers before me, one in Saudi Arabia and second in Cuba. For the Saudi job, my visa was stamped and air tickets were handed over to me. But I preferred the Cuban job. The profile was of Specialist in Electronics at the biggest Cuban Textile Complex, Desembarco del Granma at Santa Clara, around 300 kms away from Havana, capital of Cuba. I was in a group of 10 specialists of different disciplines, one of them being the Team Leader. The team was selected by Central India Machinery Manufacturing Company (CIMMCO), a Birla group, New Delhi, to work for Cuban government.

After job hunting for few months, I got one and joined as Head of Plant Maintenance in Larsen & Toubro in Hazira, Surat (Gujarat) on March 29, 1989. I had shifted my family to the company accommodation in Smith Park. My children were admitted in KRIBHCO Central School (CBSE). After about 6 months, I bought a car through company scheme and got settled.

L&T at corporate level, came out with VRS (Voluntary Retirement Scheme). Since I had complained to the top management earlier on many occasions that I was not elevated at par my age group, they advised me to take VRS. As Snehal had just joined MD, post-graduation in medicine, in Jamnagar, Gujarat, after completing MBBS and Swapna was already in a professional course, I felt that it was the right time to move back to Hyderabad after more than 20 years. Hence I took VRS taking advantage of all goodies in it. As we moved to Hyderabad, Swapna joined her college hostel for completing the final year of her course. As our own house was already built in Bowenpally, Secunderabad, I shifted my family there.

As there were no openings for senior people like me at the corporate level, the Senior VP of REIL, PBM Rao selected me within purview of his powers after a couple of interviews. Thus, I joined REIL, Somajiguda, Rajbhavan Road, Hyderabad, as Technical Consultant on April 15, 2002. I invested my VRS amount in real estate i.e., in buying plots at Ravalkole near Medchal and Ameenpur near Chandanagar, BHEL.

About the Author:

I am Jagannatham Erabathini. I have completed BE in Electrical from College of Engineering, Osmania University. Currently, I am working as Technical Consultant at Reliance Industries Ltd.

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