Life-long relationships | Business opportunity | Friendship

How a man in the 1960s started a roaring business by giving a free car ride to a stranger?

A real-life tale of friendship, opportunities and business

Early 1960s. Undivided Assam. North-East India.

Chapter 1: A graduate’s dilemma

India was heavily reeling from the after-effects of a 200-year colonial rule that ended in 1947.

The country was steeped in unemployment. It was even worse in far-flung states like Assam which was geographically and culturally disconnected from the rest of India.

Assam, like the rest of the country in those days, was mainly an agricultural and labour-intensive state. White-collar jobs were mainly in the government sector and for people with technical degrees.

For non-technical graduates, it used to be an uphill task to grab a decent job.

Amongst the many young graduates, a guy named Ambika Dhar from the riverine city of Guwahati dropped out of his History Master’s degree and got into a graduate job in a bank.

The job required him to manually enter data into a large register with multiple rows and columns.

Only a week into it and he resigned!

His creativity, instinctive and adventure-seeking personality could not hold him onto that job.

He came back home.

Frustratingly and nervously he went into his father’s room to inform about his resignation.

His frustration and nervousness were justified.

At an age where jobs were hard to come by and a Masters degree increased the potential to land in one, Ambika dropped out of both.

And societal and peer pressure was slowly beginning to mount on him.

What happened next in that room with his father triggered such a series of surreal events that changed the young man’s life forever.

Chapter 2: Meeting a stranger

After a few days of resigning from his job, Ambika took his father’s car to meet someone in Shillong, one of the prettiest hill stations of the country and the then-capital city of undivided Assam.

Ambika was a talkative and social chap. What he did next gives me dollops of bewilderment and I still chuckle at the weirdness of his action.

Before he had set out on his journey to Shillong, he first went to the city’s central bus station in Paltan Bazar and went around looking for someone; anyone he thought would be decent enough to be given a lift to Shillong.

He was absolutely fine with the idea that the person could be a complete stranger.

His simple rationale was that driving and talking with hopefully a nice stranger was far more interesting than driving alone for 3 hours!

Ambika’s eyes fell on a young man, slightly older than him, who was impeccably dressed in a suit, tie and hat and was waiting for his bus to Shillong.

He approached the man for the lift.

This guy was equally weird. He chucked his bus ticket and got into the stranger’s car.

And so, the two strangers undertook the journey — a journey that lasted for the next 60 years!

“Not sure why, but neither of us thought that one of us could have been a psychopath. I guess it was not a thing those days” — Ambika Dhar shrugged smilingly.

Chapter 3: The bureaucrat’s office

During the drive, Ambika learnt that Mr. R.K. Dutta came from Bombay and worked for a private company that manufactured agricultural fertilizers.

Mr Dutta had a meeting with a senior bureaucrat in the capital city to discuss business expansion goals in Assam.

They reached the bureaucrat’s office.

Mr. Dutta alighted, thanked Ambika and just when he was bidding him goodbye, Ambika asked if he could accompany him into the office.

Although Mr. Dutta, by then, took a liking to the younger Ambika, he was confounded at the latter’s strange request.

But he agreed.

Now, there was a long waiting time before he could meet the senior government official despite being on time.

Those were probably the early days of the horrendous red tape that inflicted the country’s public services for ages. It still exists albeit the infamous sluggishness can be seen tapering off slowly in the last few years.

Dutta looked frustrated as he was sitting in the reception area now realizing that it could take hours before he could meet the bureaucrat.

Additionally, he did not know what to do with this young new stranger, who he met just about 3 hours before; now uncannily sitting next to him, his eyes actively scanning the office.

Suddenly, Ambika Dhar stood up from his chair, walked down to the receptionist, scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it over to the receptionist.

Within 10 minutes, R.K Dutta was inside the senior bureaucrat’s chamber!

Chapter 4: What happened in the father’s room?

When Ambika went into his father’s room to announce his resignation from the new job, he was clueless about what would happen next.

He cautiously informed his father that he found the bank job boring and probably doing business would probably suit him better.

His father, being a businessman himself, responded, “But sitting and thinking would not lead you to any opportunities. You need to move, meet the right people, see where there can be opportunities and act upon them”.

Ambika: “I have been talking with some friends”.

Father: “Has it given you any ideas?”.

Ambika: “Not really”.

Father: “Then probably you need to meet someone who has good knowledge of where the opportunities are in our state”.

Ambika: “I am not sure if I know any such person”.

Father: “Well, you do. Your mother’s cousin. He is that bright, senior bureaucrat in Shillong.”

Chapter 5: The start of something magical

R.K. Dutta went back to Bombay but not before telling Ambika to reach out to him anytime if any help was needed.

The former started taking an interest in the latter’s career.

A friendship was forming.

“Adding value is a brilliant way to get opportunities. By helping him save time, I provided considerable value that day.” — Ambika Dhar

That turned out to be true. A few days later, R.K. Dutta called Ambika and informed him that his company had decided to do some groundwork in Assam.

Although “internship” as such was probably not a common thing those days in that part of the world, that’s exactly what happened.

R.K Dutta asked Ambika, “Do you know anyone who can help us to do some running around in your state?”

It was not even a second and Ambika responded, “I can do it”.

R.K.Dutta: “Are you sure? There will be no pay for this.”

Ambika: “Yes, I am sure of it”.

Ambika Dhar: “I was not interested in a salary. I saw the bigger picture. I wanted to learn and gain experience with the hope that a business opportunity in the country’s biggest sector might be there in the end. Also, it came with the added benefit of having an experienced mentor which proved to be invaluable.”

R.K. Dutta: “I secretly wanted Ambika to grab that opportunity. I knew he was looking for a break. I just wanted to be sure if he was genuinely interested in the business.”

For the next 6 months, under R.K. Dutta’s mentorship, Ambika Dhar slogged and started laying the foundations.

He did all kinds of work like documentation, handling letters & parcels, distributing samples, and liaising with government stakeholders.

His commitment stood out when during the yearly monsoon Assam floods, Ambika waded through about 8 kilometers of knee-deep water to meet a customer; with both his hands up in the air holding the package lest it did not get wet.

6 months down the line when the fertilizer manufacturing company was finally ready to expand into the region, they wanted to onboard a distributor.

R.K. Dutta rallied for Ambika.

And suddenly, at the young age of 24, Ambika created a company which became the sole distributor of the manufacturer’s products in the entire northeast region.

Just to give you a rough idea of how big an opportunity that was, Assam’s population in those days was 10 million plus. The size of today’s Sweden!

Over the next few years, Ambika went on to build his business further getting distributorship for many other fertilizer manufacturers.

In local circles, it used to be discussed that as a businessman he was probably the first in the region to have sprayed fertilizers on massive plots of land from choppers¹.

Those days in that disconnected and downtrodden part of India, that was an eye-opening feat.

“Consistent hard work and destiny have a strange relationship. You keep on working hard with honesty and focus, and opportunities have a habit of appearing in the most unexpected ways”– Ambika Dhar

This turned out to be true when BASF, the multinational conglomerate, eyed the northeast region. Appreciating his company’s performance, BASF granted Ambika the exclusive distributorship for their products boosting his business manifold in the 70s.

All of the above catapulted him to become one of the most successful business persons in the region those days¹.

Meanwhile, R.K. Dutta went on to grow an illustrious career in many other organizations.

And continued to advise and mentor Ambika as a friend.

Years later, when Ambika Dhar mentored youngsters, he was invariably seen giving the example of R.K. Dutta’s exemplary business acumen, friendship and integrity.

The journey that started as strangers, evolved as business associates and matured into a life-long friendship, gaining on its route mosses of respect and genuine well-wishing that often went to the point of looking out for each other against all odds.

Chapter 6: Present times

“I must meet him. When the summer heat levels down a bit, I will travel to his place to meet him.”

Ambika was increasingly becoming aware of R.K. Dutta’s health issues and expressed his will to meet the latter multiple times.

And maybe he was becoming aware of his own slowly waning health as well.

“I hope you have received the flowers. I wanted to be there, but I can’t move much nowadays. Sadly, in the last few years, we could not meet in person due to our failing health. I will miss your father a lot”.

Those words were from R.K. Dutta to my sister.

Ambika Dhar passed away in 2019 at the age of 81.

His full name was Ambika Dhar Baruah.

My father.

R.K. Dutta passed away two years later.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

¹ Based on anecdotal information gathered from my father’s friends, ex-employees and former business associates.

The 80s and 90s saw Assam plunge into its darkest hours when militancy activity was at its highest. The militant group wanted to carve out Assam from the rest of India as a separate nation.

Any person from outside of Assam feared to do business in the state.

That did not stop R.K. Dutta though. He kept on visiting Assam even during those tumultuous years.

He used to tell his wife, “Don’t worry. Ambika and all my other friends there will always keep me safe and protected”.

And they did.