I publish hereunder a  review of my  Memoirs by Sakuntala Narasimhan, a Bengaluru-based senior journalist, musicologist, a renowned vocalist in both traditions of Indian classical music - Hindustani and Carnatic and consumer activist. It appeared in October-December 2021 issue of Vidura

Book Review

ACCOUNTANT TO ACADEMIC: AN UNMAPPED JOURNEY

Author: A.V. Raman

Publisher: Notion Press, Chennai

Price: Rs 315

Suddenly a lot of former bureaucrats and retired officials seem to be coming out with their memoirs, describing their careers and experiences. Here is one, by one who has had varied experiences as aca­demic, researcher, teacher as well as a management expert. He has chronicled his professional as well as related personal life, weaving the two into a very read­able account of what it is like, to be a bureaucrat who does not merely sign papers and draw a salary but also seeks to contribute ideas to make office procedures more efficient and people-friendly.

Born in 1938 in Tamil Nadu, Raman lived (and schooled) in Delhi, worked in Jamshedpur, Madras, Pune and Bangalore, went abroad on assignments and as a Fulbright Fellow before settling down in Mumbai. His career took him as senior accountant to CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research); he also served in the Rajya Sabha secretariat, besides teaching financial management and economics and did a stint as associate dean at Bangalore’s XIME.

It has been a very varied professional life of over 50 years, in different capacities (as director, consultancy, educator and mentor). Raman also went on to do a doctorate on transportation management after study­ing the public transport systems in different cities, car­ried out various cost saving initiatives in some of them and became a training officer. Very few bureaucrats can claim such versatility.

As if this were not enough, Raman also plays the mri­dangam, having trained under such stalwarts as the late Ramnad Eswaran (one of the leading artistes of his day, during the second half of the last century) and performed in public. He hails from a family steeped in classical music; his sister was a popular broadcaster from Delhi AIR before she moved south to Bangalore.

Raman weaves all the details into a readable account that is also occasionally humorous. His Fulbright Fel­lowship was for a post-doctoral research which saw his talents used as director of business schools and insti­tutes of management (in Chennai and Pune) before retirement. By a curious coincidence, the day I read about how he refused a bribe of Rs 800 from a contrac­tor, I also heard about a sub-registrar in a government department collecting Rs 70000 as bribe in Bengaluru for facilitating a signature on a routine form. (We have certainly ‘progressed’ from the time Raman was in ser­vice, to today!)

Not all civil service personnel are articulate enough to write their memoirs. Most do not bother, or have had uneventful professional lives that have nothing to showcase or learn from. Some, like this account, provide inspiration as well as insights into how one can contribute to improving public undertakings. Not all government officials are mere ‘cogs in a machine’; those who want to contribute in small or not-so-small ways, can. And do. Like this author. May his tribe increase.

(Reviewed by Sakuntala Narasimhan.)