‘I slogged my guts out to get that order, Mr Mukherji, and you know it. It has changed the fortunes of this factory. You virtually promised it would be handled in my department and under my supervision. I’ve told my workmen. What will I tell them now?’
‘I am sorry.’ Mr Mukherji shook his head. ‘It was felt that you had a lot on your plate. Let your new department start up slowly and iron out its problems; it will then be ready to undertake a big job like this. HSH will give us other orders. And I am impressed by the possibilities of this other scheme of yours as well. Everything in good time.’
‘The new department has no problems,’ said Haresh. ‘None. It is already running better than the others. And I’ve been working on the details of fulfilment ever since last week. Look!’ He opened the file. Mr Mukherji shook his head.
Haresh went on, anger building up under his voice: ‘They won’t give us another order if we mess this one up. Give it to Rao and he will butcher the job. I have even worked out how we can fulfil the order almost a fortnight before it is due.’
Mukherji sighed. ‘Khanna, you must learn to be calm.’
‘I shall go to Ghosh.’
‘This instruction has come from Mr Ghosh.’
‘It couldn’t have,’ said Haresh. ‘There wouldn’t have been time for that.’
Mukherji looked pained. Haresh looked perplexed before continuing: ‘Unless Rao himself telephoned Ghosh in Bombay. He must have. Was this Ghosh’s idea? I can’t believe it came from you.’
‘I can’t discuss this, Khanna.’
‘This won’t be the end of the matter. I won’t leave it at this.’
‘I am sorry.’ Mukherji liked Khanna.
Haresh went back to his room. It was a bitter blow. He had banked on the order. He wanted more than anything to get to grips with something substantial that he himself had brought in, to show what he and his new department could do – and, yes, to do something first-rate for the company of which he was an officer. For a while he felt as if his spirit was broken. He conjured up Rao’s contempt, Sen Gupta’s glee. He would have to break the news to his workers. It was intolerable. And he would not tolerate it.
Disheartened though he was, he refused to sit down and accept that these unfair dealings would form the future pattern of his working life. He had been ill-treated and used. It was true that Ghosh had given him his first job – and that too at short notice – and he was grateful for that. But such swift illogic and injustice shredded his sense of loyalty. It was as if he had rescued a child from a fire, and promptly been thrown into the fire himself as a reward. He would keep this job only as long as he needed to. If on a salary of three hundred and fifty rupees he had concerns about supporting a wife, with a salary of zero he could forget about it. He had heard nothing useful from anyone to whom he had applied for a job. But soon, he hoped very soon, something would come through. Something? – anything. He would take whatever came along.
He closed the door to his office, which he almost always left open, and sat down once more to think.
9.23
IT TOOK Haresh ten minutes to decide on immediate action.
He had wanted for some time to explore the possibility of a job at James Hawley. He now decided that he would try to get a job there as soon as he possibly could. He admired the establishment; and it had its headquarters in Kanpur. The James Hawley plant was mechanized and fairly modern. The shoes they produced were of better quality than those that CLFC considered adequate. If Haresh had any god, it was Quality. He also felt in his bones that James Hawley would treat his abilities with more respect and less arbitrariness.
But, as always, ingress was the problem. How could he get a foot in at the door – or, to change metaphors, the ear of someone at the top. The Chairman of the Cromarty Group was Sir Neville Maclean; the Managing Director was Sir David Gower; and the manager of its subsidiary James Hawley with its large Kanpur factory (which produced as many as 30,000 pairs of shoes a day) was yet another Englishman. He could not simply march up to the headquarters of the establishment and ask to speak to someone there.
After thinking matters over, he decided he would go to the legendary Pyare Lal Bhalla, who was a fellow khatri, one of the first khatris to have entered the shoe business. How he entered this business and how he had risen to his present eminence was a story in itself.
Pyare Lal Bhalla came from Lahore. He had originally been a sales agent for hats and children’s clothing from England, and had expanded into sportswear and paints and cloth. He was extremely good at what he did, and his business had expanded both through his own efforts and through the recommendation of satisfied principals. One could imagine someone from James Hawley, for instance, on his way out to India being told by a fellow clubman: ‘Well, if you’re in Lahore, and you’re not happy with your chap in the Punjab, you could do worse than to look up Peary Loll Buller. I don’t think he deals in footwear, but he’s a first-rate agent, and it might very well be worth his while. And yours too of course. I’ll drop him a line to say you might be coming to see him.’