 Encounter with the big boss
June 1973, Coimbatore
 Soon after I joined as assistant collector on training in Coimbatore there was a great hub-hub in the district. The Chief Secretary was coming on a visit. It was none other than Mr. Sabanayagam who was visiting Coimbatore and then proceeding to Ooty to address the UPASI (the United Planter’s Association annual meeting). We were told to be ready with our diaries to follow him to Ooty at the spur of the moment. In the culture of the revenue department, nothing may happen but you should be ready for everything.
Diaries were to be written by the trainees as the day to day account of the work done. These were presented to the district collector weekly. In addition, every visiting dignitary of the state had a fundamental right to summon the diary of a poor vulnerable assistant collector and find fault with it.
It was like a festive occasion. In the morning we went to the railway station to fetch the dignitary alongI with the district collector. (No planes flew to Coimbatore then). Later we were all invited to have breakfast with the Chief Secretary in the collector’s bungalow. Mr. Sabanayagam had a thundering voice and the whole state used to be in awe of him and so we the new recruits were utterly nervous meeting him.
 He is one of the outstanding officers of the Tamilnadu cadre and belonged to the first batch of the Indian Administrative Service, which was constituted in 1948 to replace the old I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service). He came from an aristocratic family of Tamilnadu and was trained by British officers. He held many important posts in the Government of India, like Union Education Secretary etc.
The first question he asked me was whether the collector was feeding me properly? If I had full access to his kitchen? If I had the authority to open the refrigerator and pinch the chocolates (I had to decline that one as the collector did not possess a refrigerator).
He then started narrating his own days as the assistant collector on training in Coimbatore District when he trained with a British officer, Mr. Morris, ICS. Mr. Morris was so well integrated with the people of Coimbatore that he was known as Morris
Gownder.
After breakfast, he ordered all the three trainees, Ramesh Chandra Panda, Elangovan and myself to jump into his small Volksvagon, and so jampacked we drove off to
Ooty.
Enroute he kept regaling us with the tales of Morris Gownder. He told us the story of the discovery of Ooty accidently by two British officers who had lost their way. He told us about the ‘Todas’ the original people of Ooty and about coming of tea and eucalyptus plantations to Ooty. By the time we reached Ooty, all our fear of him had disappeared. On arrival he handed us over to Mr. Swaminathan, district collector of Nilgiri, with instructions to send us around to see all the lovely parts of the district.
He took so much of interest in finding out whether we were happy, being cared for, being groomed properly, and made us feel wanted in a totally alien ground.
He gave us our first lessons in human resource development. We were taught in the National Academy that the chief secretary is our friend, philosopher and guide in the state of allotment. Mr. Sabanayagam was more than that. He was a father figure and the confidence which he created in me then, has enabled me to sustain my faith in all the chief secretaries to come.
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