Beyond Punjab is part of trilogy Punjabi Saga, Beyond Punjab and Back to Punjab.

The book is an autobiography of the author but at the same time, as it belongs to pre-independence era as well, there is bit of national history involved in it. These books explains the experiences of author and his family during partition and then it moves onto the authors career, from cost accountant to becoming first chairman of Levers India and then when the author switches from private sector to public sector. Beyond Punjab is spread over 18 chapters. This book focuses mainly on the authors career right from his decision of leaving London and coming to Bombay for a living, his various experiences like an Indian working in area where bruisers have a stronghold and then his train travelling experience to name a few. The author starts with how he managed to get into Unilever (even though he was an accountant he accepted the marketing role) and how being an Indian he was not given the same salary as some foreigner would have got had he been selected. The author then goes on to explain about the mentality of Indian people towards Indian people i.e. even the Indian people were bit skeptical about an Indian holding a position which usually is given to foreigner and initially he did not get the similar treatment as other foreigners holding similar position. The author then explains the city of Bombay, its origins and current inhabitants and that even in those days it was a cosmopolitan city. His first assignment a market research and how he proceeds for it even when he didnt believe in it totally. The author then tells us the authors about his experience in finding a good residence in Bombay. Here he focuses on the club culture prevalent at that time. The author criticizes the

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people who had indulged in discriminating people on their colour. The author proves his point by saying that his colleague Thompson Walker, a British national used to receive invitations from clubs from yatch owners and people never used to invite him. The author also describes his interaction with Roshan, his college friend. He says that even educated people like Roshan know that Britishers are wrong in number of ways but he didnt dare to show his unhappiness in front of them. This was the case with most if educated Indians because they were working for these people only and going against them may prove disastrous for them. The author then explains his encounter with Indian railways. According to the author, the Indian railways were also divided amongst various classes based on colours/caste and money like special class was for people with white skin and there was one bogie exclusively reserved for Anglo Indian. The author describes that even Anglo Indians were not treated at par with other foreigners. The author also shares his experience in Karachi about how his colleague was differently treated just because an Indian was with him, how even his British colleague was not invited to any party or clubs just because people didnt want to invite the author. The author then moves to Calcutta as part of his marketing research assignment. He explains his encounters with Marwaris and Bengalis in Calcutta. He is of the opinion that past of Calcutta was more affluent that the present Calcutta and that this loss is due to cosmopolitan nature of the city. The author explains by saying that the city was run by Marwaris and so not run efficiently and hence the reason. The author also says that another reason for this loss is that Bengalis hardly believed other outsiders.

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Next the author moves to Madras and then to Trivandrum. The author says that in Madras even the women are literate and hence people are forward compared to other states. But one thing the author didnt like is the caste divide. There is lot of importance attached to Brahmin/ Non Brahmin attached and nothing was spared from this. The author then moves to Hyderabad, Nagpur and Allahabad. The author then narrated his experience in Travancore where he did some social work and after that he moved on to Allahabad and he speaks about the attitude of people here. After Allahabad he comes back to Bombay and he receives a sweet surprise i.e. he gets confirmed as a permanent covenant in Unilever, the first Indian to do so. The author continues to say that once he got confirmed, it removed all the doubts from his co-workers mind and now he had become an actual manager and people started accepting him. The point the author is trying to make is that Status plays a very important role in Indian society. The author then talks about Gard, his lady love. She was from Sweden and the author was worried that she would find it difficult to leave her country and come here and also that it would be difficult for her to mingle with so many different cultures in India. The author talks about Sweden and their rituals before marriage and also the difficulties gard faced in getting the Indian visa. World War II was about to begin and Indians supported Germany, which the British opposed. The war affected the authors work also. He was supposed to travel various cities in India to conduct the research but due to the war he had to cut down his trip. The author is then transferred to the press section of the advertising department. The author describes here that

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again people had problems in accepting him and many times they used to bypass him and go to Rist, his immediate supervisor . This was because people always interacted with Englishmen and when the author came in, they found it difficult to accept him. He also talks about advertising in papers, dailies and how people used it for political intentions. The author then talks about Petit, Chairman of Unilever who retired at that time. He also talks about Harvey Duncan and James Wheeler, his colleagues. He went on to describe Duncan as the man who with his innovative marketing made Dalda a runaway success. He tried a very innovative method. Duncan opened a small wooden stall outside Bombays novelty theatre and hired three man to run it who invited the passersby and distributed the leaflets .One of man used to cook the dough and distribute it to people to taste it and at the same time second person used to give dalda to people, who would rub it on their skin, taste it and smell it and only when they were fully satisfied they would purchase it. The third person used to tell people that they could use this as a substitute for ghee and can prepare sweets and other stuff using Dalda. The author then speaks about the traders in India and how trade became a caste in India accepted by a system of hereditary rights, not to be poached by others. He also explains about the Hundis or the Bills of Exchange, which were honored all over the world. He then explained about the Quit India movement and all the top leaders were put in jail except Gandhiji. He narrated how he ran into arguments over which system was better communalism or western world, the former says that everyone should be good and the latter says that democracy is good. He explained how minority community misunderstood their

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position and worried that they will be isolated. At the end of the rule, British did a few wrong things such as they did not favor traders and sent distributors to jail for not selling the products which aggravated the situation. He then talks about Roger Heyworth, the eldest chairman of Unilever. He was sent to India when the Britishers were leaving the country. The author says that Roger bought with himself a different perspective; he was adaptable and always gave candid answers. Roger came to India to find in a new leader. The author than speaks about the Americans, who started coming to India. Indians liked Americans because of their leniency. The author then speaks about his encounter with Pandit Nehru in the train and also about Nathuram Godse, a newspaper editor in Poona, who became infamous for his act of assassinating Gandhiji. The author than shifts his focus to Dalda again , when the government was contemplating a complete ban because a research study on rats diet containing dalda showed that the rats went blind and lost all hair . It became a widely debated issue. Nehru ordered an enquiry into this and the result came after 2.5 years but the damage had already been done as one of the newspapers had already published this story. The author says that he personally met the editor and explained it to him that dalda was made for people who cannot afford ghee. He then explains the indianisation of Unilever, his England board meeting where he learnt a lot. It was in this meeting that the author was asked to go a new position. The author than explains his visit to Ahmedabad to visit a Jain family. Ahmedabad was famous for its textile mills. Author was impressed that in Ahmedabad most of family head of mill owners and their children studied at top Business schools and were brought up in different traditions patronized

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education, science, art and opened research institutes for textiles, physics etc. He then explains his experience of Harvard Business School, where he found that Americans are practical people and are easy and comfortable to work with. He gained lot of insights from his 13 weeks stint in America and he now looked at things from management perspective with the help of learnings from Harvard Business Case studies. He concludes by talking about various management problems he faced in Unilever. He talks about his Unilever colleague, Maurice and his wife Taya and they were the ones who insisted him to write a book. The author says that he wrote it very easily and enjoyed doing it.

- Book Review by Siddharth Agarwal 10927817

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