The Uses of Tragedy

As I look back, I sometimes recall my two heart attacks with some fondness. No, no , not because they were not traumatic for all concerned – they were; but because paradoxically they remind me of the periods when I was in the midst of some of most exciting and productive work of my professional life!

The first occurred some thirty years ago. It was July of 1981 and I had been the director of offshore oil operations of our national oil company, ONGC for about eighteen months and was busy in hectic preparations for doubling our offshore oil output. Some two years prior, I had written a piece about how India could double its offshore production in five years and I had been summoned by aides to Mrs Gandhi ( I had been her science adviser some five years earlier) and grilled on my assertions. In one of those strange twists of fate, six months later the then director of offshore operations was denounced as a US spy and removed from his post forthwith and I was pitchforked into that job – hoist with his own petard, some observers were heard to snicker. Anyway I put together a plan to double the offshore oil output, which our French consultants, CFP asserted was simply not practicable given Indias bureaucracy and red tape. But in the next four years, we installed 48 deepwater offshore platforms at an average of one platform a month and by 1985, offshore oil production had not only doubled but grown four times. I write of these exciting times in my book “ A Passion to build”.

The second heart attack came in March of 2005 as I was in the final stages of my career in Vietnam where one of my major projects was providing electricity to the rural areas in the country. Starting in 1997, we had been able to provide power to over 30 million rural people and by 2010, Vietnam had reached the unprecented level of 98% rural access. Of course, this would have largely remained unknown- as many of World Bank’s most successful projects do- but for a chance visit by the new President of the Bank, Bob Zoellick. He visited some of the rural areas and talked to the policy makers and returned to Washington, deeply impressed by the country’s achievements and enthusiastic about Bank’s role in helping make them possible. On his return he directed his staff to produce a film to document this achievement and to help other poor developing countries. Here is that 20 minute documentary called "The Last Mile".

But he also wanted to know how it was done and what lessons it held for other developing countries. Again by the fickle finger of fate, I was asked in March of this year to produce a handbook for bringing power to the people which could be used as a companion piece to the documentary above for politicians, policy makers and practioners in other developing countries. I just finished writing this handbook and here it is: Bringing power to the people: a handbook.

As they say, sometimes tragedy comes attended with some good fortune as well! Perhaps we do not look hard enough. After all were the heart attacks a protest of the body to my overwork and stress or were they telling me “ you have only a little time left on this earth. Use it wisely”.