Heroes who change our world

In these days of enormous distractions, with WhatsApp and television and the ubiquitous e-mails pinging our inboxes, we never find enough time to truly look into the eyes and souls of our friends and build connections. We need to do that deliberately and develop the insights that can help us live our own lives better

Kanchan, India’s first DGP Police

There is a favourite quote that has stayed with me through the years, “Life is perfectly understood backwards but has to be lived forwards.” Call it Twenty-Twenty Hindsight or Reverse Intelligence, it takes a lot of understanding-of people, of incidents and moments of truth to appreciate how to traverse this journey called life. Sadly, these lessons often dawn on us when the people who give us these insights have passed on.

One such inspirer in my own life has been Kanchan Chaudhary Bhattacharya, a 1973 batch IPS officer, who made history in 2004 when she was appointed the DGP of Uttarakhand and retired in 2007 as DG Uttarakhand. She was presented a ceremonial guard of honour by the State police at her farewell parade. After a ten-month heroic struggle with cancer, during which she displayed the same fighting qualities that characterised her entire life, Kanchan left our world in the second half of August.

What makes an ordinary citizen from Amritsar, Punjab who went on to attain new heights so special? One attribute was her complete lack of fear and the willingness to speak her mind and fight for her beliefs. Throughout her stellar service with the police, Kanchan tried to fight the bias against women and it was due to her initiative that women home guards were given the responsibility of manning traffic points in various cities. “I think I have impacted the way the police see the public and vice versa. I have always stood by the weak.” In a statement, the IPS Association said, “We mourn the demise of one of our icons. Kanchan Chaudhary Bhattacharya. An officer with sterling qualities of head and heart, she had an illustrious career, adorned with many firsts and awards.”

Former DGP Jyoti Swarup Pande says, “She was a bit of an exception in the male-dominated police force. A quiet woman who brought with her something police stations lacked: warmth and kindness. And yet no one would think of crossing her. She could be very firm when she wanted. “Driven by a sense of justice, once she ordered the salary of a police clerk be disbursed to his wife’s account after she complained her husband did not spend money on the family.”

I have personally counted Kanchan and her husband, Dev Bhattacharya, as good friends for nearly four decades. We exulted at her accomplishments and I was personally touched when she organised a get together at their lovely home in Mumbai when I finished my fifteen-year tenure leading Zensar Technologies, just for me to share my recollections on work and life. The month after she had an unfortunate fall in Dehradun, a bunch of us, classmates from NITIE assembled in New Jersey for the wedding of a friend’s son and Kanchan was on WhatsApp every five minutes, wanted to know every minor detail of the wedding. Her joy for life and love for people never ebbed, even the last time we met her in hospital a few weeks before her demise, where her entire conversation was about the coming weekend when her beloved grandchildren were coming home to visit her from overseas.

She was a bit of an exception in the male-dominated police force. A quiet woman who brought with her something police stations lacked: warmth and kindness

Kanchan and Dev, in the way they battled adversity and accepted the inevitable with dignity and grace, have become role models for many of us who have had the privilege of our lives touching theirs through the years. When I wrote in my last column about the need to show love and inclusion in our dealings with Kashmir, I had Kanchan in my mind along with great leaders like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, who have lived a life of love and inclusion in such exemplary fashion. If Kanchan did that in her life and work, Sushmaji was a paragon of these virtues right through, from the time my wife Uma and I met her in the nineties to help launch the Zee Telefilms- APTECH Joint programme called “A to Z of Computers” to her stellar role as Foreign Minister of India where she rescued so many stranded Indians from foreign lands. And Arunji, in all interactions at CII and other Government- Industry forums always made you feel included as though your opinion mattered. He never ever let his high positions in the party and Government go to his head and was always approachable and reflective in his conversations.

What makes us think so fondly of people who have inspired us and eulogise them after their passing? Have we celebrated them and other inspirers enough when they lived among us? In these days of enormous distractions, with WhatsApp and television and the ubiquitous e-mails pinging our inboxes, we never find enough time to truly look into the eyes and souls of our friends and build connections. We need to do that deliberately and develop the insights that can help us live our own lives better. As my friend Nitin Nohria of HBS told me three years ago, “don’t get so plunged into work and travel that you forget to pause and smell the roses.” Certainly, invaluable advice that I need to take and follow. How about you?