Remembering Amitda

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Indian IT Industry has lost a pioneer. Amitda, as we all knew him, was not a flashy in-your-face-in-the-media kind of person. Yet he counseled and motivated many of the young men and women who are today playing a key part in the IT industry in India.

What can I say about a colleague, friend, philosopher and guide with whom I have had the pleasure of sharing over 30 years? He is no longer amongst us. That still has not sunk in.

I remember the days when I used to visit Calcutta to meet prospects and customers. We had the HCL office on the 17th floor of Chatterjee International Center. Thanks to the frequent power cuts there, Amit Dutta-Gupta and I would walk up and down those 17 floors two to three times every day.

I remember on one of those visits the entry to the building was closed because of a 'gherao'. People inside could not come out, and those outside could not go in. We needed a set of loaded floppies (8"ones, in those days) to give a customer demonstration. Amit stopped at the traffic on Chowringhee while I collected the floppies in bubble wrap that had been thrown out of the 17th floor window.

Then there was the cycle manufacturer in Ludhiana who told Amit that his biggest problem was accounts payable...he had to keep his suppliers happy, else something small not delivered on time would stop his production line.

After doing a detailed system study (as was the norm then) we recommended he buy our two-floppy machine (HCL 8/C Level 20). To Amit’s surprise the client wanted to know how many chakkas (floppies) was in the machine that Amit’s team had sold to Vardhman. That was a three-floppy (Level 30) system.

Then, said the customer, “I want one with four chakkas!” And he was sold an HCL 8/C Level 44. The trip back from Ludhiana to Delhi was fun, with Amit trying to explain to his sales trainee that this was not the norm, and that this was not how top-of-the-line computers were sold!

When Amit was head of marketing at HCL, he and Dadan Bhai (in the East) had a special working relationship. With Dadan’s high-risk thinking and Amitda’s practicality, we had many interesting stories. Lots of them are part of HCL folklore that fresh trainees were told.

Once, a day before Diwali, Amit left for Calcutta, because Dadan wanted him there for a big presentation at Bhubaneswar the day after Diwali. Dadan said there was a lot to prepare, and so they would drive overnight by taxi. During that Diwali night, as they headed to Bhubaneswar, a detailed briefing followed. And Amit figured he had little or no role to play in the presentation. So why am I here, he asked? “Good English,” Dadan said. “We need Good English.

Only good-natured Amit would have found that amusing, and he enjoyed telling me about it when he returned to Delhi.

I worked very closely with Amit on the  “Breaking the Common Computer Myths” campaign that catapulted HCL from being just another computer company to the leader of the pack. This was my first and only experience of Primary Marketing where we created and addressed a virgin market of computers for first-time users.

People who had never thought they could afford or use a computer. Marketing segment really excited Amitda, and he did a fantastic job on that campaign. The first ad tag-line was “A computer is so simple, even a typist can operate it”. This was immortalized in HCL by S N Chaudhry’s comment to a prospective customer CEO at a road-show: “Why a typist...even you can operate it.”

For the hundreds of bright young men and women that came through HCL’s portals in the years that Amit was there, he was their philosopher, guide and guru. For them he was the soul of the company. It did not matter whether their problem was work-related, or personal, or even an issue on world politics or religion or capitalism or socialism or any subject under the sun. Amitda had a view. He was well read and he could discuss and argue both sides if needed. I educated myself in many of these areas in numerous taxi journeys around the country with him.

What can I say about a friend and colleague who has helped me think through some of my most difficult moments? Who has very often helped me look at the world in a different light, and has helped me keep my feet firmly on the ground? I was looking forward to spending my retired days continuing some of our discussions that “would change the world”.

Where will we get another person like him who is so intelligent and innovative, yet humble, full of humanity?  We have lost  a giant. I will miss having him around.

(Arjun Malhotra is chairman of the board at Headstrong)