In Memory of Raju

Appa used to work at the TOMCO (Tata Oil Mills) office, and there was one D. R. Iyengar who was the manager of the office. We always thought the entire TOMCO was owned by him, but he was only a petty officer of the company. He had never even gone to school, and as a penniless child, he had stolen a silver tumbler and pawned it in order to escape to Madras. He rose all the way to be regional sales manager for TOMCO, he was fully a self-made man. Once D. R. Iyengar offered Appa a promotion that would require him to go to Bombay. Appa refused as he was not interested to move out of Madras office. In fact, even Devu whose first job was with TOMCO in Madras, refused to move to Bangalore for a promotion for the same reason. Many people have told me the Madras office of TOMCO was practically fully run and managed by Appa and Devu only. TOMCO was purchased eventually by Lever Brothers Co. Appa was extremely distressed to hear it has been purchased by another company (even though he had already retired), since he loved it so much and the name TOMCO would disappear from the face of the earth, which is what actually happened.