Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached

Story No. 4 : Sitar

I knew Mr. Dhruva Chaudhuri very closely. He was one of the most educated persons in our organization - IIT, Delhi and IIM Kolkata. He was very friendly to all our staff members. I do not recall that he ever misbehalved with anyone. He used to maintain a french cut beard and loved to go out with his family once in 6 months either to Goa, Gangtok or Gujrat. His father was the Income Tax Commissioner of Delhi before I met him in our office. The Finance Company where I joined he was a vice-president. His only weakness was he could never excert himself over others or get his work done by putting pressure.

My friendship started with him when I joined this Venture Capital Fund having an office at Basant Lok, Vasant Vihar. It was a very prominent location among a shopping complex and a multiplex cenema hall. I joined Mr. Chaudhuri as his Secretary. At the time of Harshad Mehta fiascco, the Bombay stock exchange crashed and all our investments with companies went down to Rs. 2/-As Vice-President he came under pressure from the management to prove his worth. Naturally, as his Secretary the pressure came upon me as well. After a few months of terrible time we both remained in the company and got good rewards for our hard work. After two years our office shifted to a new location in Vasant Vihar, C Block market area taking two floors.

As the stock market started looking up, our venture fund also started doing well. Things got stabilized in office and Mr. Chaudhuri joined a sitar class near to his hauzkhas house in Delhi. Three days in a week he would take off early from the office and join his pratice session of Sitar. After the first class, he straight went to a music shop to buy a new Sitar. His mood was very upbeat at the beginning and the little kids who too were in the sitar class would teach him a lesson or two before Guru ji appeard in the class. He was happy trying out his hand in sitar playing. Soon the dry lessons and its related practice demanded more time on his already hard pressed time, he started to absent himself from the class. Once I went to his Hauz Khas home and saw the sitar standing at the corner of the drawing room. I asked him about his progress in sitar playing. He said, "I did not know it is so difficult to learn how to play Sitar."