“You guys write anything,” said the elderly gentleman across the table to us two journalists-myself and another colleague. The gentleman in question was Dr H N Sethna, the man who was the driving spirit behind India’s first peaceful nuclear explosion in 1974 and we were meeting him in his capacity as the chairman of the Tata Power Company. Dr Sethna was clearly making known his disdain for journalists. At that time (around 1997) I was a correspondent with a leading business daily tracking the power beat and my senior colleague who was covering the Tata group had arranged for this meeting. It was in some ways a dream come true for me as I was aware of the history of the man and also getting to meet the chairman of any Tata Group comp any was not easy for a junior journalist like me.
To get back to the meeting, my senior colleague protested and laughed his way out of the rhetorical statement while Dr Sethna too answered his questions with considerable vim and vigor. After that meeting I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting him on a one –on-one basis although I did meet him at the company annual general meetings.
It was the last annual general meeting that he chaired where I had another interesting conversation with Dr Sethna. I had been tipped off before the meeting that he was going to step down on that day. Sure enough he did. As he walked off at the end of the meeting, I had to ask him the question: Why? “I am too old,” he shot back as he walked away. What he meant was that he had attained the age of 75 under which Tata Group none-executive directors had to step down at that time. I could not help chuckling at this.
A fortnight back, when I read about his death at the ripe old age of 86, memories of my two meetings with him came flooding back. I could not help smiling again at the thought of my last meeting with him. Or at the thought of the message that was sent when India successfully tested its first nuclear bomb in 1974: The Buddha has smiled. For India’s rivals who got the message loud and clear, it was no laughing matter.
RIP: Dr Sethna
