It was 1988, and I had one more year of financial aid left in my PhD program at the University of Texas at Dallas. That meant I had to finish and get out of school by August 1989. Most of my IIT friends in the US, as well as other grad students at UTD, were busy applying for jobs that would eventually lead them to the coveted Green Card and possibly US citizenship. But with my father very sick and my mother alone in Calcutta, I was planning to return to India. However, I couldn’t return empty-handed—I had to get a job first.
Like most PhD students in the US, I was looking for a teaching position in academia. I sent applications to IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, the newly established IIM Lucknow, IIT Bombay, and the University of Pune. Everyone except IIM Calcutta responded enthusiastically. After a series of letters, I had interviews lined up in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Bombay, and Pune. The one place I really wanted to join, IIM Calcutta, didn't even bother to reply. A second letter resulted in a short, indifferent one-liner: “First come, then we will think about it.”
I would be in India during the summer of 1988, visiting several cities. Fortunately, Indian Airlines had a kind of round-trip ticket that let you travel either clockwise or anti-clockwise around India at a discounted fare, and my US travel agent booked this for me. Somehow, Lucknow didn’t fit into this plan and I dropped it—without much regret, since it was a new IIM and few people knew about it.
While all this was being set up, on a whim, I thought of writing to Mr. Rusi Mody of TISCO. I had very briefly met him when he was Chairman of the Board of Governors at IIT Kharagpur, and that short meeting had left a strong impression. It was a wild shot in the dark, and I was thrilled -- genuinely thrilled, not the ChatGPT kind of thrilled -- when I received a very kind reply from Dr. J.J. Irani, the Joint Managing Director of TISCO, stating that they would be interested in speaking with me. I was to contact Mr. Biren Mukherjee at Tata Centre when I reached Calcutta.
Fair enough. I visited Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Bombay, and Pune and had pleasant interactions in all those places. The most professionally conducted interaction was at IIM Ahmedabad, where I delivered a talk and was then taken around to meet a number of faculty members individually. IIT Bombay was a bit chaotic. A very early morning flight from either Bangalore or Ahmedabad had left me so sleepy that I fell asleep at the guest house and was late for the event. At Pune, Prof. Sahasrabuddhe of the Computer Science department was very kind, though puzzled: why would I join his department when I would surely get an offer from IIM-A? He was right --I did get an offer from IIM-A, but more on that later.
After all this, I returned to Calcutta. With ten days still to go before my return flight to Dallas, I called up Mr. Biren Mukherjee at Tata Centre -- and that’s when the Tata Magic hit me.
Mr. Mukherjee told me that Dr. Irani had specially requested him to ensure that I visit Jamshedpur. He would arrange an air-ticket on Vayudoot from Calcutta to Jamshedpur. Since it was an early morning flight, he also arranged for an air-conditioned car (OK, it was an Ambassador—but still, it was AC!) to pick me up from our house on Jatin Das Road and take me to the airport.
This had never happened to me before. We did have a car, and my father would be picked up for official trips, but I had never experienced anything like this for myself. TISCO sending a car and booking flights for me? I was amazed.
Of course, I agreed.
The next morning, I flew to Jamshedpur and first met Mr. Akhil Pandey, the DM of CSD, and one of the DyDMs—possibly Mr. Dushyant Lall --for the initial interview. Mr. Lall was fine, but Mr. Pandey seemed to think that Dr. Irani was shoving a youngster down his throat and was rather indifferent to my presence. Next, I met Mr. K.B. Sinha, GM Personnel, for the HR interview. He too seemed unimpressed. Frankly, I was way overqualified for the kind of people CSD usually hired, and they weren’t too keen on having an interloper “dropped” from upstairs.
Finally, around 3 PM, I was taken to meet Dr. Irani.
He spoke to me for a few minutes and said that TISCO was in the process of developing or acquiring a new computer system from scratch -- would I be interested in working on it? Of course, I said yes. Then he turned to Mr. Sinha, who had accompanied me, and asked about the next steps.
Mr. Sinha replied, “CSD managers have interviewed him, and they’ve decided to make an offer only after he completes his PhD—in 1989.” That was almost a year away.
That’s when Tata Magic V2.0 started.
I still remember Dr. Irani asking Mr. Sinha, “Look, this guy joined IIT Kharagpur with an All India Rank of 39 and passed his B.Tech. Do you seriously doubt whether he’ll complete his PhD?”
Mr. Sinha had no reply.
Then Dr. Irani continued, “I want him to have a firm offer letter in hand before he takes the evening flight out of town today.”
“But sir… there are procedures to be followed, health checkups…” Mr. Sinha was running out of excuses.
“I don’t know what all needs to be done, but make sure it happens before he leaves. Understood? Now excuse me --I have a meeting with the GM (Works).”
That’s when the entire TISCO administration kicked into overdrive.
I was rushed to Tata Main Hospital, made to jump every queue, examined by a series of doctors -- each likely of a different specialization -- and got all the required sign-offs. Then I was rushed back to Mr. Sinha’s office, where an offer letter was typed out. I was being appointed Systems Analyst, with a gross salary of Rs. 4400 per month, and I would be entitled to company accommodation.
Was this good? Was this bad? I had no clue. But my gut said it was OK, and I signed.
With a copy of the letter in my briefcase, I was escorted -- almost carried --to the car park, where a car was waiting, engine running, to take me to Sonari Airport to catch the Vayudoot flight back to Calcutta.
This offer from TISCO was a game-changer in my life.
It knocked me out of the academic orbit and placed me firmly in the corporate one. Had it not been for this, I would have joined IIM Ahmedabad as an Assistant Professor -- they had made an offer too, though not quite at this warp speed. But the prospect of living in Jamshedpur, closer to Calcutta, and the towering brand value of the TATA name made any other choice impossible.
And I’ve never regretted it.
Even when I had to leave TISCO in 1989 -- because my father had passed away and my mother was alone in Calcutta -- Dr. Irani was gracious and waived the bond I had signed for IBM systems training.
Finally, without this job offer, my wedding to Indira might not have been finalized that very week before I flew back to the US. But now, I was no longer an unemployed young man --I was an officer in TISCO. And in India of those days, that meant everything.
