India started its new life after independence with socialist trappings. Centralised planning and license Raj were implemented, which led to stifled growth and large-scale corruption, essays RM Rajgopal in his latest book Retro India.With an extensive experience in Human Resource Management, Rajgopal went on to serve in different corporate houses for more than 40 years. Now retired, the author believes that corporate India has very little to contribute to the literary lexicon.
“Few of this ilk read and therefore fewer write. What I have tried to do, is to record the travails of what I call ‘The Indian Company Man’,” shares the author. The people who appear in this book are the “aam aadmis” of Indian companies — the production supervisor, the purchase officer, the industrial relations manager and the like. Their voices, he writes in his book, rises above the din of their workplaces.
Talking about the transformation India went through, Rajgopal says, “With the economy at the Hindu rate of growth, India was going nowhere. It took an aging Prime Minister, without a clear mandate in Parliament, and his turbaned, quiet, self-effacing Finance Minister to unshackle the economy. India then zoomed as it was always meant to.”
The landscape and scenery of urban India, has transformed radically over the past 25 years. Take three product offerings, he says. Instead of having to wait for a phone connection for two to three years, India now has 750 million personal telephone connections. From a choice of two cars, the Ambassador and the Fiat, today there are over a hundred models.
From a single monopolistic airline run by the government, there are over eight players in the Indian sky. India is booming but the dire problem of poverty still needs to be tackled vigorously.Rajgopal has used four-page vignettes to hold the average reader’s attention. Each vignette is holistic, independent and full of action and mirth.