My dad and DK Sharma (DKS) grew up in the small town of Samastipur in Bihar. DKS comes from a political family. DKS’ dad was an advisor to one of the early Chief Ministers of Bihar – Karpoori Thakoor. I still remember being influenced by his dad’s opinion on defence spending. (Disclosure: my dad was a defence employee for most of his life.) He felt that Germany and Japan bounced back after the second world war because the Americans took care of their defence budgets. Pakistan and India lag behind because we guys spend so much of our money in our preparations to fight each other. Another insight that I have got about politics from DKS is about the ineptitude of Nitish Kumar. DKS is a big BJP fan, so I have been taking his opinions about JDU with a pinch of salt. But the recent elections seemed to have proved our friend right. DKS hopes that Nitish, in his last stint, will eradicate corruption in Bihar.
DKS’ initial years of schooling were in the village school. Middle school was a 5 km walk from home. For 9th and 10th grade, he shifted to King Edward High School in Samastipur, before shifting to Patna Zilla Parishad High School for matriculation. He then went on to do his Diploma in Mechanical engineering from Ranchi Engineering College – which was then the only engineering college in Bihar. His first job was a Bihari’s dream – a PHE maintenance engineer in charge of civil projects for 3 districts of Bihar. But he didn’t like it there. The heart was in Mechanical. His school senior, Ramdev Singh, was working in Tisco at that time. Ramdev encouraged young DKS to apply to the Diploma Trainee program at Telco. In those days, there was no campus recruitment. If you were interested, you appeared at the gate, and they would let you in for the entrance test. 120 people landed up from all over the country for the test. 12 got shortlisted for the interview. DKS was 11th. Compared to the written test, the interview was a breeze.
DKS maintains that no one should leave the first job for at least 3 years. (He did leave his own first sarkaari job in less than a year, though!) And during that time you need to be a sponge. Don’t just be a frog in your own departmental well. Absorb everything around you. Find out how the company actually runs. In the first two years of training at Telco, the trainees were put through workshop skills, and had stints at different departments of Telco. At the end of the training period, DKS was offered a choice between toolroom and maintenance. He chose maintenance. And for the next 3 years, he spent an average of 12 hours a day at the factory, picking up not just maintenance skills – but poking his nose into production, quality, and what have you. He believes that this grounding in the overall business, helped later on when he reached top management.
Folklore of Telco is that the young DKS could repair machines that his German bosses had given up on. After three years of total learning, DKS decided to start taking technical vacations. His idea of these vacations was interesting. He would apply for different companies and they would inevitably invite him for an all expenses paid interview. He visited Haryana, Delhi, and Calcutta interviewing with the PWD, MMTC, and Usha Fans. 10 years into his career at Telco, as part of this technical vacationing, he also got an offer from Bajaj Auto Pune, to be the 2-in-c of mechanical maintenance.
DKS would always get the offer letter – and would inevitably refuse the offer. There was a group of 6 friends with whom he would play his favourite card game – Flush. His wife, who he married during his Diploma days, and who normally supported DKS in whatever decisions he took, used some satire on him in front of his flush friends to throw him out of his comfort zone. Also around that time, Telco HR policy had just changed. They had decided to focus more on the Graduate Trainee program – and this in turn placed limits on the upward growth of Diploma holders. The ambitious DKS was unsettled. His friend, Sharad Jakatdar, was just being shifted to Pune to start the operations of Telco, Pune. This had been slated to happen in the early sixties, but the Indo China war had pushed back the plans to the early seventies. Sharad Jakatdar promised to take DKS into Telco, in case he didn’t like the Bajaj job. With this safety net in place, DKS decided to take the plunge.
DKS recounts meeting Rahul Bajaj during his interview, sans his famous Safari suit. In the early days, Rahul Bajaj wore a simple bush shirt, pants and chappals to work. On the day of his interview, it was already evening by the time the appointment with RB happened. RB enquired about where DKS was staying. DKS told him that he was put up in a retiring room at the Pune railway station. Those days ST buses were the only mode of transport between the city and Akurdi. Rahul Bajaj arranged for a company car to drop off DKS after the interview. This personal touch was one of the reasons for DKS long stint in Bajaj. I have never ever seen DKS criticising Rahul Bajaj even in private fora. I am reminded of Horse Sense. DKS latched on to the Bajaj horse – and as the company grew he grew. I may differ with DKS’ definition of loyalty, but I would agree that this loyalty was rewarded well.
DKS shifted base with his young family to Pune. Bajaj was a very different company then. It was much smaller than Telco. Telco was strong in technology, Bajaj was strong in efficiency. DKS says that for a similar machine making similar parts, Bajaj produced thrice the output, compared to Telco. 3 years into his job at Bajaj Auto, DKS’ boss – the mechanical maintenance head was transferred to production. Instead of promoting our man to the vacancy, the company decided to advertise the post. DKS felt snubbed and put in his papers. He joined Tata Exports, which was planning to set up a plant, with French collaboration, to manufacture leather processing machines. DKS spent a couple of years at Tata Exports, but the machine manufacturing plans never really took off.
A chance meeting with Rahul Bajaj at a paan shop got him back to Bajaj, as the head of mechanical maintenance. Within 3 years, DKS was promoted to look after overall maintenance of the Pune plant, with added responsibility of the safety department. 5 years later as DGM and head of maintenance, DKS again started feeling restless. He would have to move again to grow. This was the time that Bajaj was coming up with a new plant in Waluj, Aurangabad. And DKS moved there to join the production function. 3 years later, he would move back to Pune, a move that was necessitated when his wife was detected with cancer. Also his move to production had teething troubles as he was quite mentorless in Aurangabad. He shifted to the Pune plant and went on to head the production function for 5 years.
His next assignment was change management – where he headed the newly created TPM department. Bajaj was a company that was notorious for its lack of listening skills. Most consultants who were hired would find that they ended up seeing the wisdom in the company’s philosophy rather than vice versa. Case in point was Kawasaki – this Japanese motorcycle company ended up learning more from the Indian company – than teaching Japanese manufacturing practices to the Indians.
DKS remembers the TPM consultant who came down from Japan to help in the transformation. He was a person who minced no words, and was very in-your-face. This caught the goat of the Indian managers who resisted this guy tooth and nail. DKS’ wise counsel prevailed as he pointed out to his peers that the positives in the consultant’s advice far outweighed the peccadilloes of his harsh behavior. The consultant was retained – and a new culture of seeking engineering principles based solutions to manufacturing problems was born at Bajaj. This led to a lot of process and layout changes which reduced waste. A lot of leanness was built into management, with the number of levels in the hierarchy going down from 11 to 5, yet maintaining a reporting span in the range of 5-8. Transparency increased leading to improved decision making.
DKS association with the TPM program continued till 2016, when he celebrated his 75th birthday. The last 5 years were spent spreading the TPM message to the vendor base at Bajaj Auto. Productivity went up 2X during DKS’s stint at TPM. The biggest regret ath DKS has about his TPM work was that top management used these productivity gains to slash the very workforce that had delivered these gains. DKS believes that this demoralisation of the workforce is one of the biggest reasons Bajaj was not able to regain market leadership.
My own criticism of Bajaj has been more to do with quality. Over the years I have been the owner/user of a Bajaj M50, Bajaj Cub, Bajaj Chetak and a Saffire. Except for the Saffire, which was a lemon, the remaining have been rugged workhorses. But what was missing from them was ergonomics and finishes. Off late, Bajaj has done much better in the aesthetics side of the design – I think we bought the Saffire simply because of its looks – but the execution leaves much to desire.
The other critique I have of Bajaj is its slowness to adapt. Probably the DNA of having prospered in the licence Raj – makes this elephant only do slow dances. In the eighties, when the government made turn indicators compulsory, it was Bajaj which fought vigorously to delay the execution of this new law. I remember a small chat that I had with Sanjiv Bajaj in the nineties. Greaves had just come out with a diesel rickshaw – which I had started seeing more and more on Pune roads. I mentioned to Sanjiv that Bajaj Auto also needs to come in quick with a diesel model. The advice was dismissed with a ‘Have you seen the kind of vibrations that contraption makes?‘ I see the same approach at work today when it comes to Electric Vehicles.
Am not too sure if dad and DKS knew each other too well in the growing up days, but finding a fellow Bihari in big town Pune in the seventies was like meeting a long lost friend. So the families grew closer. What helped was the geographical location of our house. A very small detour from the Bombay Pune road which was the only access road to Pune City for anyone staying in the Bajaj Auto Colony in Akurdi.
My first memories about DKS are actually about the family dropping in at our Dapodi home in their Ambassador. Those were the days when my young mind would form impressions about people based on the vehicles you saw them in. Our only motorized asset at that time was MTI 3913, our golden yellow Bajaj 150 scooter. So anyone whose vehicle had 2 more wheels was considered to be in God territory. The contrast between my relatively poor 2 wheeler owning government servant dad, and the rich private sector car owning Sharma uncle – made my young self clear in its ambition. There was no future in the government. To get rich quick, it was the private sector that one should seek employment in.
As I grew older, I realised that there was a lot more to DKS than his car. I have spent most of my life in the education sector. If there is one thing that I have learnt about education from DKS – it is that education has no correlation with degrees. Like our old Tata Motors Pune boss, VM Rawal, DKS also stopped his formal education after his Diploma in Engineering. But I am amazed at the continuing education program he chalked out for himself through his career. In the days when Bajaj was VRSing guys left, right and center, DKS was busy getting extensions and post retirement contracts.
DKS has made good decisions about investing in land. And this land has allowed him to connect to his family’s agricultural roots. He has always been a weekend farmer. And it has always been so much of education to visit his farm plot in Ravet – and learn about what works and what does not in the farm. At his home in Nigdi Pradhikaran, you will find mango, litchi and myriad other trees. I learnt that onions stay better hung up on a rope that dumped in sacks. Another area where the Gopal parivaar has benefitted from DKS gyan has been in the share market. DKS has been an active punter in the share market – and I think he had some insights which the Gopal parivaar never had. My dad would always rue the losses that he made by investing in companies like Oswal Agro, and would turn to DKS for advice on investing.
DKS is a guy who has enjoyed his paan, cigarette and daru.There was a curiosity about how so much of virtue coexisted with this variety of vices. DKS has an interesting answer. It’s about respecting limits. And his definition of limits extends even to relationships. This was taught to him by his dad. When DKS was in school, his dad once received a haldi smeared postcard. It was an invitation sent by the then CM of Bihar for the janevu (thread) ceremony of his grandson. DKS was thrilled to see his dad in the close circles of people in such high places. He actually went around town showing his friends the postcard as a proof of his connections. His dad ended up seeing this invite only much later in the evening. When DKS handed over the card to his dad, he just kept it aside. Young DKS wanted to know about his dad’s plan for attending the event. His dad informed him that he wouldn’t be going. The wisdom was to know when to say no. The wisdom was to maintain the maryada. The wisdom was to know one’s aukat. And DKS has followed that principle in his life.
DKS lost his wife pretty early – she succumbed to her cancer in the early nineties. He has 3 great daughters – and I think they did a great job of taking over the household duties since then. DKS takes family seriously. One of his nephews was encouraged to move to Pune – and has moved on to a great career with Microsoft in Seattle. He helped his younger brother move from Samastipur and start a factory here in Pune. I asked DKS about why he did not turn entrepreneur. Working on an empty stomach is not his style. And empty-stomach-work is what defines entrepreneurship.
DKS has seen his success genes passed on to his grandchildren now, as they have moved to different corners of the world. His role modelling started for me when I was a kid – and continues even as he ages. As he turns 80, my admiration for him continues to grow. Even today, I see him walk up the tekdi with friends and attend yoga class after that. Both my parents passed away at 78 – so I go with an assumption that I was born with a sell-by-date of 75. What I would definitely want: to live the rest of my life the way DKS has shown all of us.