In Beyond Punjab, the author Mr.

Tandon starts with the description of

the job scenario during the pre-independent period of India and the status
and attire of Indian people working at foreign companies. Before
independence, Indian people were not allowed to held responsibility
positions in foreign companies. Getting a job in foreign companies was
quite difficult, and a person could be in luxury of a foreign job only by an
influential recommendation. The mentality during that time was that
Indians were ready to govern but book-keeping was not their part. Mr.
Tandon was a little confused about his career, as he was offered a job in
the advertising department, when actually he had a degree in
Accountancy. He was reluctant in joining Unilever, but a week later he
joined Unilever. There was quite a difference in the pay scales of Indian
workers and foreign workers, apart from differences in the clothes people
workers dressed in. Foreign workers were provided with a lot of luxury at
work.
Mr. Tandon stayed at his Uncle, Mr. Fateh Chands place during the initial
days at Bombay. From Mr. Chand, Mr. Tandon was introduced to the
diversity of Bombay, its culture, communities and their ways. Bombay,
unlike any other city in India, was unique in having the smallest proportion
of locally-born population. People came from all over India and worked
hard to earn money and later on return to their native places during the
years of retirement. Mr. Tandon reminisces about his colleagues, John Rist
and Thompson Walker, and he puts out about Mr. Walker who explained
him the essentials of market research. Advertising was a pretty tough
affair during those days and with so much of an intricate culture in India, it
was quite surprising how many girls or rather what kind of girls would
apply for the post of market research investigators. The final selection
included an Anglo-Indian, two Indian Christians, and a Maharashtrian
Hindu.
Until 1944, Indian guests werent permitted to enter clubs (the Yacht
Club). The rule was taken out when the Indian members of the Bombay
Port Trust threatened to terminate the lease of clubs. Mr. Tandon was
concerned about the Indianization in foreign companies as it seemed
meaningless to him. With success hitting the market survey plan
conducted by the market research girls at Bombay, Mr. Walker extended
market research plans to the rest of India, to Lahore, Calcutta, Madras,
Trivandrum, Hyderabad, Nagpur and Allahabad. Mr. Tandon accompanied
Mr. Walker to conduct market surveys all over India. Mr. Tandon conducted
market research for soaps Sunlight, Lifebuoy, and Lux.
From day one, Mr. Tandon learned a lot of things from Mr. Walker,
especially his dignity, meticulous planning and the perfection in execution,
but he hated the systematic life which took his independence of doing
things by his own. He felt lucky enough to be travelling to so many parts
of India in train, which was a luxury during those days. Karachi in January
was pleasant, air was cool and dry. Winter weather was a perfect mixture
of sea and the desert. In Karachi, Mr. Tandon and Mr. Walker selected only
Christian and Anglo-Indian girls for market research, since the community
nature over there was quite orthodox and Muslim women were not
allowed to leave their homes. Mr. Tandon loved the four course English
meals served in train during his journey from Karachi to Lahore, but was
shocked to see the division of train compartments into 11 layers, with the
first class having Europeans and the last having Live Chickens!. Lahore
was quite developed in culture as well as infrastructure when compared to
Karachi. During weekends, Mr. Tandon was visited by a lot of visitors who
either came with an alliance or a job recommendation for their sons. Mr.
Tandon was quite in dilemma whether to reveal his parents about his affair
with Gard, his Swedish girl-friend as the number of marriage proposals
built up.
Mr. Tandon was totally taken back by seeing the condition of Calcutta. The
busy traffic on the roads, men bathing in the muddy water on streets,
skeletons sprawling on the pavements etc. demolished the picture of
Calcutta which Mr. Tandon had built in his mind. However, the simple,
clean, orderly and well balanced atmosphere in Madras was a pleasant
experience for Mr. Tandon. Mr. Tandon went to Trivandrum after visiting Mr.
Walker at Bombay. Mr. Tandon was welcomed by the tropical lushness and
an air of perpetual summer in Trivandrum.
Mr. Tandon was shocked by the struggle in Travancore between the people
and the Indian Government headed by the Maharaja. The place was filled
with mass demonstrations, picketing and police firing which actually was a
fuel for making the turmoil even worse. When Mr. Tandon landed in
Hyderabad, he experienced a different extremity, filled with mountains
and well educated people. While Travancore had small landowners, in
Hyderabad the landowners owned enormous estates. Mr. Tandon was
welcomed in an elegant manner at the palace of Maharaja which was
followed by a grand lunch. Later on during card playing sessions, Mr.
Tandon realized that he had made an indiscretion when Raja Sahib literally
shouted at him.
After his long and tiring official journeys, he decided to get settled in the
suburbs of Bombay which had a charming combination of old
Maharashtrian and old Portuguese customs. During one of his journeys,
Mr. Tandon met a young Indian who was returning from Cambridge and
had a limited view about the industrialization in India. The person brought
about the fact that Indian industries are developing faster and there was
no need of Indianization by the British firms. After spending sometime in
Bombay, Mr. Tandon again set off for his next all India trip. During the
journey, he was pondering over the thoughts of his girl-friend at Sweden.
After the Second World War effects calmed down in Europe, Mr. Tandons
girlfriend started the preparations to set off her journey to India in order to
get married. After a long journey with some minor hassles, finally his
girlfriend got united with Mr. Tandon and they started their married life.
Market Research was closed down during World War II and Mr. Tandon was
put up in the press section of the advertisement department. The new
profile made Mr. Tandon get acquainted with several newspapers that
approached Unilever for advertisements. Mr. Tandon interviewed the
representatives of newspapers and identified the best ones based on
publicity and circulation. Even though most of the newspapers were
politically biased, Mr. Tandon was instructed by Mr. Walker to keep the
advertising free from political bias.
After some days of marriage, Mr. Tandon started getting invitations from
superiors for attending ceremonies and parties at their homes. Even
though he had wisely rejected those offers, the European counterparts
were completely disturbed by his indifferent behaviour. Mr. Tandon was
reluctant in mingling with the European society because of the ignorance
he faced from them during the past. Later on, he changed his mind and
started attending parties along with his wife.
As the war got stronger, Mr. Tandon developed a strong urge to join the
British Army and informed his office about the same, but Mr. Walker
denied his request. Mr. Tandon was completely disturbed by the arrogant
and dominating behavior of English soldiers, who set up camps near his
place. Mr. Tandon went through a lot of pain and tough situations because
of the issues with English soldiers; through later on it was resolved.
In the meantime, Unilever thought of launching a new product named
Dalda - a vegetable cooking fat in India and had sent a British employee,
Mr. Harvey Duncan for advertising the product in India. Mr. Duncan
thoroughly understood how Indians used to test natural ghee and
developed a similar advertising method wherein the people were actually
made to test the new product and were offered cooking trials. This
innovative way of marketing attracted enormous crowd and was a huge
success. Soon Mr. Tandon and Mr. Duncan were transferred to the
Marketing department from advertising. They started the sales promotions
of Dalda in an aggressive manner by setting up a lot of demonstration
stalls, advertising in newspapers, leaflets etc. They even produced a short
film on Dalda, theme song of which gained a huge popularity. They built
up a strong sales network which consisted of a lot of distributors and
wholesalers. The sales network was managed very efficiently by
maintaining a very good relationship with the stakeholders. All these led
to the wide acceptance of Dalda all over India and the product became a
huge success, since it was a cheaper substitute for ghee.
Even though the British Raj system had helped India to develop a lot of
systems like post, telegraph, roads, schools, hospitals, most of them were
concentrated in the cities and villagers were untouched by their
technological innovations. The traders in India started to exploit the law of
supply and demand and started charging exorbitant prices for goods when
supplies were low. Mr. Tandon had to face a lot of hurdles when the sellers
were arrested by British administrators for exploiting the demand supply
gap. As the war was nearing its end, American soldiers started arriving in
India. The British generally disapproved and ignored them while
Americans did not conceal of the poor job done by British in India. Being
fascinated by the American lifestyle, few Indians who had mingled with
them closely started adopting their culture. Meanwhile communal riots
broke out in several parts of India and the whole country became restless.
British were forced to grant Independence to India and Jawaharlal Lal
Nehru assumed the post of the first Prime minster of Independent India.
This actually marked the end of a long tyranny.
Immediately after the new rule had assumed power in India, Unilever got
involved in a crisis. In a clinical test it was proved that Dalda had some
side effects and the Government of India imposed a nationwide ban on
Dalda. Even Gandhijis successors who were against technological
revolution supported the ban and it greatly affected the sale of Dalda in
India. Mr. Tandon was successful in convincing the Government and the
ban was later on withdrawn and Dalda resumed its growth in sales. This
helped in proving Mr. Tandons superiors that Indians were good in
managing also.
When Mr. Tandon got a chance to pursue higher education in Cambridge,
he utilized it efficiently and the thirteen weeks of his life in Harvard
Business School changed his perspective about business management.
Back in India he tried to apply the management principles he had learned
from Harvard but found it very difficult to get implemented. In those days
the acquaintance with Maurice Zinkin, a Jewish historian made Mr. Tandon
dig out his perceptions about the British Raj System which was deeply
sowed inside his mind. Maurice believed that the process of Indianization
was inherent in the British Raj system and had transmitted itself to its
commercial and industrial successors which Mr. Tandon always
contradicted.
It was Maurice and Mr. Tandons wife who identified the strong and fresh
roots of Punjab in Mr. Tandon and made him to write a book and thats
how Beyond Punjab took its origin.