Dilip Atre (my father), a.k.a. Baba, passed away in February
2014 due to profuse gastrointestinal bleeding. He was
declared to be no more at around 4:20pm after the CPR team tried
their ways to resuscitate him for 1 and 1/2 hours. He was 61 years old, and is survived by
his wife, daughter (me), son, daughter-in-law, both his parents, and
his younger brother and his family (wife and two children).
Baba was the first child of his parents. His
immediate family was very poor during his childhood. Despite this, he
was known to be an extremely energetic and lively person. His father
was a lawyer by education, and worked as Mumbai high-court's
administrative staff, but he wanted his children (Baba and his
younger brother) to lead a career in science and technology. So he
enrolled Baba into Elphinstone Technical high school (Fort,
Mumbai) -- one of the finest technical education schools in India at
that time.
Baba was an all round personality. He did not like
to limit himself to mere school books. He had a great musical talent.
He learned to play harmonium and mouth organ on his own in his
childhood, and was very good at it. Baba had a natural aptitude in
technical and engineering subjects, so he enrolled himself into the
course of "Licentiate of Electrical Engineering" (a diploma
course) at Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (that time
known as Victoria Jubilee Technological Institute). In the final year
of that course, he came out with flying colors, and topped his
graduating class!
Coming from a very poor lower middle class family, he took up a job to start
earning immediately after his diploma, although he had all the
required credentials to pursue the Bachelor of Engineering
(B.E./B.Tech.) degree. He took up engineering jobs at various
companies of different disciplines for about 5 years. During his
employments he was known to be a person who would go out of his way
to do his duties. The turning point of his career was his employment
at Wanson, today's Thermax -- a boiler manufacturing
company. Due to his exceptional sincerity and problem solving skills,
he was very well appreciated by the customers to whom he provided
services. He was appreciated even more, because he refused to accept
bribe when some of the customers tried so. But he was deeply hurt due
to some workplace politics at Wanson, and hence left the company
despite being offered a handsome pay raise.
After Wanson, he
worked at a few different companies before starting his own boiler
manufacturing company along with a partner in Panvel (near Mumbai).
That partnership didn't seem to work out well, so he decided to part
ways. Around that time, his younger brother was completing his
studies, and Baba offered him to join. His younger brother accepted
that offer, and they continued their business partnership for the
next 10 years. During this time, the business prospered a lot, and
their company's name became a leader in the boiler manufacturing
industries in India. Their enterprise and hardwork removed the "poor"
tag from the family's name. We had facilities and gadgets like personal
cars, refrigerators, multiple telephones, fax machines, pagers,
mobile phones when they were considered "luxuries" back in
that era (1980s and 1990s). Their company was specially honored by the
Maharashtra state government with the "Gaurav Chinha"
(Appreciation Medal) in 1991, and he also received the "Udyog Shree"
(Brilliant Entrepreneur) award in 1996.
Ten year long
partnership with his brother also surfaced some of the stark
personality and vision differences between Baba and his brother,
which started interfering in their partnership, and so they parted
ways after that. Around the same time, Baba was detected with
diabetes, with a really high blood sugar count. Baba was always a
very positive person, but due to that he often refused to accept
health related problems and realities, with a view that -- nothing
bad will ever happen!! So he neglected his diabetes for several
years. Around his early 50s, when the ill effects of a long term
neglected diabetes started becoming apparent, he started taking care
of his health bit more seriously.
Over the last 3-4 years he
was getting weaker and weaker. Baba was a first generation successful
entrepreneur -- he brought entrepreneurship to a poor lower middle
class Maharashtrian family made of service class people. He helped
uproot poverty from his family, purely with his hardwork and
smartness, with no financial assistance from his ancestral family,
and without any formal coaching in the business management. He was a very
strong willed person, and a weakening body was often mentally
unacceptable to him. He kept on following his outdoorsy schedule with
his will power even when his physical strength was going down.
Over
the last 6 months, he was faced with many diabetes related health
complications. Over the last 3 weeks, he was in a lot of physical
pain. To top it off he self administered some wrong medications as
well. The adverse effects of all this together deteriorated his
health at an exponential rate. He still had not given up!
On
his last day, he was in the hospital. In the morning he
had his breakfast and lunch at the scheduled time. He had even
instructed my mother to make some arrangements in our home, so that
he can walk without any human help! But, destiny had something
else in mind. It was probably not acceptable to the destiny that such
a strong willed, self-made person will spend the rest of his old-age
on a wheelchair with external help. So around 3pm, his
gastrointestinal vein bursted, and he succumbed to death with profuse
internal bleeding.
Just like any other human being, Baba had
some negative aspects to his personality too. I myself wrestled with
them from time to time, but I believe the positive aspects of his
personality far outweighed the negative ones.
He was the man
in my life, whom I could always look up to, and I don't know how I
will fill this void now!
-- March 5, 2014