Rubbery Life
Activity in West Germany
There was a drastic shifting of scenario when I moved to West Germany in mid 1960’s. From the relaxed research and cultural atmosphere to a practical industrial life, switching over was definitely not an easy task. I had no money, no knowledge of German language and knew nobody personally in Germany when I went there. Then the ordeal started. The first few months, may be the first year, was really tough in all respect.
After completion of Doctorate, like all others I also started writing letters to Professors / Institutes in different countries for Post Doctoral research fellowship. After some period I received a reply from one of the well known rubber scientist (Dr. Otto Lorenz ) who was with Goodyear in USA. He was German and back to Germany as Director of a rubber industry (Koelnishe Gummi Faeden Fabrik GmbH, Cologne) and offered me a job in Industry Research Laboratory. The offer was accompanied by a one way Air ticket to Germany and a letter telling that if I have the courage to take the challenge, I should prove my capability in one year time limit. Thus started the long journey through rubber science & technology and industry which continued for more than four decades in different industry and country spanning over half of the world. Looking back to the achievements results, I am sure that I proved myself capable as I continued many years with the German company in Cologne, becoming the development in-charge of the company.
This was a productive period as I learned the language, the technology and industrial production techniques over the period of my stay with the company in Germany. It was the second largest Latex Rubber Thread manufacturing company in the world handling 5 MT of latex per day. Besides latex thread , there were Solid rubber thread, Polyurethane thread, Household and Surgical gloves, Swim caps and Condoms. For German standard it was a medium size company with about 1200 work force.
During this period we developed different new products like food quality rubber threads and identification process and methods for identification of different chemicals, polyurethane polymer & threads by extrusion process, special swim caps etc. This led to research publications in German journals which was well recognized.
On behalf of company and as member of Deutsche Kautschuk Gesselschaft ( DKG ), I used to attend conferences and meetings in different part of Germany and in other countries of Europe. I still remember my first visit to Natural Rubber Producers Research Association ( NRPRA ) in UK and interaction with well known rubber scientists & technologist. During one of such seminar organized by DKG in Germany , I met the Director ( Dr. Rosenthal ) of Technical Service , Rubber of Bayer AG who invited me to join Bayer . Subsequently I joined Bayer India as Technical Manager and returned to India.
While working in Koelnishe Gummi Faeden Fabrik GmbH, Cologne, I had an assistant in the Laboratory, an old lady, who used to take care of me very much. She had very good analytical hand and was joint author with me in our publications. Initial days she taught me and corrected my German language which helped me to perfect my control over the language. She also introduced me to French language which I started learning in evening classes.
There were short term courses available on wide range of subjects and I used to attend such courses, both technical and cultural. Also sports facility was abundantly available in the city, especially swimming pools. Going to swimming was a regular affair as I like swimming very much , being the past University Blue at Banaras Hindu University and State Champion during end 1950’s. Even in winter swimming was regular as the pools were heated.
My first experience with snow was in Germany. I vividly remember the first snowing which I watched through the window of my Laboratory and was so exited that all my German colleagues had a hearty laugh. Later living at sub zero temperature was normal and playing with snow was enjoying. Also, in Germany I got my first driving license and bought a Fiat car. Driving was a pleasure in Europe because of good roads and disciplined driving unlike in India. The countries are small in Europe compared to India and it was possible to drive down to other countries on week end. Those days Indians did not need a visa in most of the countries in Europe. Unfortunately, later period this facility was withdrawn by all countries due to misuse of the facility and certain activities by Indians.
Being young and actively employed was obviously enjoying in Germany, though in those days Germany was not so developed economically. While living in Germany there were ample scope to travel throughout Europe on official work and holidays. This opened the wide horizon of historical and cultural heritage of different countries of Europe which was worth seeing. Italy may be the foremost among these countries which offered a wealth of history worth to study.
Those days Germany was still a conservative country & society and was not well disposed towards non-white foreigner. There were large number of foreigner (guest worker), mainly of Italian, Spanish & Turkish origin working in German industry which was growing strongly and needed manpower for their industry. Language problem and social difference often led to problems between German and these foreign workers. Even in 1960s there was substantial number of population with Nazi feeling, specially the older generation. Germans could never digest their Second World War defeat and had grudge against allied countries, especially England. With the help of Marshall Plan, economically Germany developed faster compared to the winner allied countries like France , England etc. who always had mistrust towards Germany. Eastern part of Germany was under Soviet control which was far behind in development compared to the western part.
Those were learning and productive years in all respect. Traveling widely in Europe and interaction with different nationality helped to broaden the ideas and understand world scenario. Those years the left leaning group had strong influence and activity in Europe, especially in France ( Con Bendit ), Germany (Rudi Dutschke ) and UK ( Tariq Ali ). In fact, in 1968 there was a massive upsurge in these countries by the students and left leaning groups. We, being young and coming from under developed countries, obviously had strong sympathy towards these groups and their activities. Often in different meetings and seminars we used to clash with the establishment on these points.
We were member of an international organization, known as Carl Duisberg Gesselschaft , which was the meeting point for all young people from different countries and utilized the platform for heated discussion on wide ranging subjects. This club was the meeting point for us, a group of Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankan, some time organizing our country’s special cultural & food evening. Those days it was difficult and costly as well to find proper Indian food restaurant in Germany. There were few Indians in Germany those days. If I remember correct around 3000 Indians were living in Germany at that time, a substantial part of this were nuns from Kerala who never used to mix up with other Indian. Hardly about a dozen Bengalese were in Cologne and in a month once or twice few of us used to meet at one Person’s place, cook food of our liking and gossip with drinks, often playing Bridge game of cards. However, our life pattern was typical German, speaking in German language, eating German food , weekend drinking and dancing etc. Communication back home in India was not easy those days, only through letter which used to take about 10 days to reach home. Quite a few Indians German girls and settled in Germany. Getting German citizenship was quite difficult at that time.
During my stay in Germany I developed fascination for German literature (that of Goethe & Heinrich Heine and later days that of Gunther Grass and Heinrich Boell) and German theater and opera. Also the music of Bach, Bethoven, Mozrat etc. were highly enjoying. Especially that of Taschaikovsky , who was a Russian composer. These coupled with Rubber Technology & Research work went very well for years and the stay in Germany was highly productive. Obviously, I developed friendship with many people in Germany which continued for very long period even after return.
Bayer AG
As a member of Deutsche Kautschuk Gesselschaft (German Rubber Society) I used to attend different meetings and conferences in Germany at different places and also abroad.
During one of such conference on Vulkameter (equipment developed by Bayer AG for studying cure characteristics of rubber compound ) I met the Director of Anwendung Technisch (Application research ) , Rubber Chemicals Division of Bayer AG , Leverkusen , who showed strong interest in me and invited me to join Bayer AG for eventual Technical Manager of Bayer India Ltd. at Bombay.
Those days Rheometer from Monsanto was still not popular and not so widely used. Bayer introduced the Vulkameter which was technically a superior instrument than Rheometer. But Bayer could not exploit the market commercially and soon Rheometer captured the total market.
Thus my activity started in the Technical Service Department ,Rubber Chemicals Division of Bayer AG at Leverkusen . The Department was known as KA AT (Kautschuk Anwendung Technisch ) and was equivalent to a medium size rubber products manufacturing company. It was equipped with Banbury ( two ) , number of Mixing Mills, Extruders, Four Roll Calendar, Hydraulic Curing Presses, Continuous Vulcanization System for Cable & Tubing , Rotocure Unit and above all a Tyre designing / building and curing section . The Lab was staffed by a large number of technical people of which more than a dozen were Doctorate in Rubber Chemistry & Technology.
Those years, for more than two decades, KA AT contributed substantially towards rubber product & technology development in Europe and many other countries including Asia & India. Many old timer still recollect those years activity of Bayer. Literature published by Bayer AG were highly useful and popular. This trend we followed in Bayer India also.
Return to India – Bayer India Ltd.
Early 1971 I returned back to India as Technical Manager of Rubber Division , Bayer India Ltd., at Bombay. Bayer India Ltd. was manufacturing different products – Rubber Chemicals, Pesticide & Pharmaceuticals, at the Plant at Kolshet Road, Thane , near Bombay. Head Office was at Express Tower, Nariman Point. Rubber Division was headed by a German gentleman named Mr. Liedtke from Bayer AG. I was heading the Technical Service Laboratory situated in the factory. Our responsibilities were of two prong – to provide Technical service to the rubber products manufacturing industry and carryout development work in the Laboratory. Another important duty was maintaining communication with KA AT, Bayer AG. Also, we participated in other national activities like Standardization related to rubber, seminars & conferences etc.
When I joined Bayer India Ltd. early 1971, the then Managing Director (Dr. Wagner ) told me to spend 2 – 3 months in each branch ( Calcutta , Delhi, Madras / Cochin besides Bombay where I was posted any way) to know the customers and market personally so that it will be easier to control the functions sitting from Head Office.
Thus I started my journey all over India, starting in April 1971 till November 1971, returning to Head Quarter intermittently for short duration. The journey took me all over India , to locations having rubber Industry. It was Chandigarh & Punjab, Haryana & Delhi, UP, in North. Calcutta and neighbouring areas (Rubber industry was mainly concentrated in & around Calcutta ) in East and to different parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala in South. This was a great experience to see the technology status of rubber industry of India , especially small and medium rubber processing units. Also to know your own country. Such visits brought me close to many people throughout the country with whom I had contact over long period of time, meeting them frequently at different places, meetings and conferences.
During this period I came in contact with prominent technical personalities, both from tyre and non tyre industry. There were limited number of tyre companies in that period, Dunlop & Inchek Tyres near Calcutta , Firestone & Ceat Tyres in Bombay, MRF at Madras and nearby places , Premier Tyres in Cochin, Goodyear near Delhi. Other tyre companies like Modi Rubber, Apollo Tyre, JK Tyre, Vikrant Tyre came up during this decade. Quite a few medium size tyre companies also started at a later stage.
In the non tyre field there were quite a few major player like in Shoe industry Bata, Carona Sahu etc. – (today’s big name like Lakhani, Relaxo , Ajanta, Paragon etc. all came up later), Belting – Dunlop, Nirlon , Andrew Yule, Hilton etc., Hose – Dunlop, Cosmos etc. and Cycle tyre – NRM, Dunlop, East India, Oriental Rubber, Cosmos etc. ( today’s big players of Ludhiana were not existing or were very small units ).
While visiting different units I developed good proximity and friendship with many technical personalities like Peter Dey, Shyamal Mukherjee, S. Ganguly of Dunlop, Sahaganj , D. Datta of Inchek, George John of MRF, D.C. Verma of Goodyear , S. Nandi and Dr. Sanjay Roy of Bata , Dilip Chaterjee of ACCI, D. Bose of BWW, Lalitmohan Jamnadas of Cosmos, Vijay Makkar of Oriental Rubber, Hariraj of Ceat Tyres, Samson of Firestone among others.
The TSL of Bayer India , as it was known every where, had a very young team, average age below 25 years. The oldest was our esteemed colleague Mr. R.R. Pandit who was passed 40 years. The team was dynamic and motivated & hence produced very good results during the decades of 1970’s , the period I was associated with Bayer India Ltd. We had highly qualified and experienced senior people like Mr. R.R. Pandit, Dr. S.K. Bhatangar , Mr. D.J. Bharucha, Mr. K.J. Janakar etc. The team was spread all over the country. There were four branches Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Madras ,where one each of regional technical manager was stationed to provide technical service to the rubber industry of the region. This was a highly productive and fruitful decade.
R & D activities
During this decade a series of development work were carried out and a large number of research publications made in different journals, both Indian and International. Some of the literaturesbased on our work in India were taken by Bayer AG as the standard literature of Bayer AG. This was the period when Sulfenamide Accelerators and p-phylenediamine antioxidants were just introduced to the rubber industry in India for which massive work had to be done to show the industry the advantages of these chemicals and how to use them.
Antioxidant HS
The most noted development was the introduction of cheaper general heat resistant antioxidant namely Antioxidant HSL( a liquid product ) followed by HS ( solid version ) which became a huge success for Bayer India in later days , both technically and commercially . Bayer did not have any general purpose economic heat resistant antioxidant ( like ICI at that time with a complete range of such antioxidants e.g. BL / BLN / HFN etc. which were popular with the rubber industry and widely used by all , including tyre companies ) and could not participate in substantial part of the market. This led our team of three ( Mr Pandit & Dr. Badrinarayan besides me – assisted by Mr. Sridharan ) to locally develop and push in the market against ICI products mentioned earlier. We were proven correct very soon. However, there were skeptical people in Bayer India as well as in Bayer AG regarding the development and introduction of Antioxidant HS. We neither got encouragement nor support from others , who in-fact benefited from this development immensely later .But our small team were determined and persuaded doggedly to introduce the product in spite of all criticism and we were proven correct ultimately. This left a little bitterness with the team because of such cynic comments and behavior from a group of people in Bayer India , which was primarily out of jealousy.
Peptizer ( Renacit 7)
During this period major development work with certain chemicals were carried out which made strong impact on the rubber industry and such applications were taken up for regular usage. Most prominent was the studies with Peptizer (Renacit 7 ) explaining both experimental & theoretical aspects of Peptizer usage resulting in cutting the mixing time / increasing out put and cost saving by the rubber industry, especially tyre industry. Direct Master Batch system in Banbury in tyre industry was successfully introduced using this peptizer. Publications were made in Kautschuk u Gummi and Indian journals and presented in different conferences.
Vulkacit DZ
The next important work was the introduction of Sulfenamide Accelerators which benefited the tyre industry immensely. Series of studies were carried out with different sulfenamide accelerator to prove it’s advantage over Thiazole accelerators. Outstanding work was carried out with storage stability of Camel Back using a sulfenamide accelerator Vulkacit DZ (DCBS) which allowed the tyre retreading compound storage for a longer period without loosing the property. Massive work was carried out by preparing compound batches in Banbury in a tyre industry , storing the compounds in four different corners of the country under ambient condition for one year , drawing samples every month and conducting all evaluations over a period of one year thus producing actual experimental proof of superiority of this accelerator over other sulfonamide accelerators for tread rubber manufacture. These findings were published in national and international journals.
Training course
A noted contribution of TS Laboratory was organizing and conducting Technical Training Course every year. Initially this was started for domestic rubber industry and customer .It became immensely popular and it was difficult to control the number of seats for the course as everybody demanded entry to the course. Seeing its success and affectivity Bayer AG suggested to conduct the course for Asian countries including Japan in India and thereafter TS Laboratory conducted every year such course for all the Asian countries which was also very popular. This was continuing successfully even after I left Bayer India Ltd. end 1970’s.
PRI / IRI
During Bombay days I was involved with the activity of Institution of Rubber Industries ( IRI ) and later Plastics & Rubber Institute ( PRI ), UK . Organizing the activity of the Institute, taking lectures to our regular course classes etc. was regular matter. Later I took over the responsibility of Secretary of the Bombay branch of IRI / PRI . Chairman of Bombay branch was Mr. Vijay Makkar of Oriental Rubber who was a fine gentleman and it was a smooth working with him. We used to conduct PRI examination on behalf of PRI UK at VJTI College, Bombay. Those days examination papers used to come from UK and the answer books had to be sent back to UK for evaluation. The local branch had to certify all the formalities associated with the examination. Typical of Indian nature , the PRI activity was not without politics from vested interest group.
During the activities in 1970’s I came across senior established personalities in different cities of the country with different companies like Dr. D. Banerjee, father of Indian Rubber Industry, Mr. D. Bose of Bengal Water Proof Ltd. & Mr. Dilip Chaterjee of ACCI in Calcutta , Mr. Lalitmohan Jamnadas in Bombay whose contribution in the development of rubber field in India & IRMRA is yeomen along with Mr. K.M. Philip , Mr. M.M. Patel of Synthetics & Chemicals , Dr. A.S. Ghag of Monsanto, Mr. R.R. Pandit of Bayer India Ltd. etc. I would specially acknowledge the support to younger person by Mr. Lalitmohan Jamnadas and the finest colleagueship from Mr. R.R. Pandit in my rubbery life. Mr. Pandit unfortunately did not receive the recognition which was due to him. Great injustice have been done to Mr. Pandit by rubber fraternity of the country, especially by the vested interest group in Bombay and Bayer India. It is amusing to see all sundry getting awards & positions in rubber field but not recognizing a person like Mr. R.R. Pandit. Very few people know him better than me though we were poles apart in our nature. Mr. Pandit suffered because he was quite and introvert while I suffered because of my talking truth bluntly. Both of us never belonged to any group – language, state or vested politics of rubber field, which are and were well known to all. However, such attempt to ignore and by-pass us did not affect our achievements & stature.
There were certain personalities with whom experience were of mixed nature, some were highly positive and helpful and some always twisted the situation and were calculative of personal gain. Some were spineless and did not object to injustice to others and just remained stuck to their chair & benefit.
