Robert Tyabji

Once I’d completed my schooling at Cathedral, pursuing an academic path didn’t really interest me. But my parents thought otherwise and so I allowed myself to be admitted to Bombay’s prestigious Elphinstone College. Here, the marble plaques on the walls of the entrance hallway displayed hallowed names of India’s finest, including my grandfather and great grandfather. I opted to follow the generic science course, but I found the lectures uninteresting and downright boring. The challenges offered by life beyond the college’s musty old lecture halls were infinitely more fascinating!

The period between 1962 and 1972 were the most significant years of my life. I started working in 1962, and in 1972 I launched my career with UNICEF, and began life with Hootoksi at my side.

It was in the late sixties that I met Suresh Nanavati. He was a freshly returned chemical engineer from Stanford and full of novel ideas. I was instantly interested in what he said about his plans. He said he was looking for someone who could transport hexane, an industrial solvent, to his Ulhas Oil Pvt. Ltd. factory in Bhanvagar, Saurashtra, from a chemical plant in Bombay; and on the return, carry processed groundnut oil to Hindustan Lever’s soap manufacturing plant in Bombay. Apparently transport contractors were not very interested and promised only three round trips a month per tanker truck, which was many times too low for his factory’s capacity. (To me, this didn’t add up as the job involved full loads both ways; no tanker ever operated full 100 percent of the time!) Suresh was processing locally grown groundnut oil, first by pressing it for use as a cooking medium, then by extracting the remaining oil from the pressed cake by using hexane as the solvent. He exported the resulting oil cake to Europe while the extracted oil was sold to the soap industry in Bombay. His production levels were much too great for the existing logistics setup to handle. There were many issues: the 600 km. road was in poor condition with unfinished sections and broken and often impassable stretches washed away by rain or sinking because of poor drainage; and in any case, transporters were reluctant to load chemicals in their tankers! To make matters worse, the only way to cross the Narmada River near Broach was over a bridge which was only broad enough for a single lane of traffic, the cause of long and frustrating delays. Very few trucking companies were willing to take on such a risky contract.

I was intrigued and the idea of taking on a big and challenging project like that was very tempting. But I would need a partner and so I approached my like-minded friend Rui Jassawalla. Suresh was willing to provide the trucks and pay us on a sliding scale; a generous base rate and then more money for extra trips. After doing a few recce trips I told Suresh we could assure him of at least five round trips a month, subject to conditions. He agreed and purchased two Tata trucks which were fitted out with 12,000-liter 'mnax section' tanks, and our requirement of extended cabins with a bunk for a second driver. He also provided 24-hour access at the factory with tanks to discharge the hexane into, and an excise-cleared storage tank from which to load the solvent-extracted oil at any time of day or night. In addition, he would provide gratis accommodation at the company’s guest house whenever needed.

With four drivers on the job, we were averaging from 5 - 7 round trips, and even managed nine a few times! Our drivers were instructed not to stop except for essential short breaks, not even when other vehicles had become stuck in the mud; they had to press on regardless! Many leaf springs and shock absorbers were ruined so we set up a 24-hour emergency repair garage at the factory, with replacements in stock. Rui and I drove the trucks ourselves periodically as a reality check.

I confess I never obtained a license to operate a heavy vehicle, and neither did Rui. But this never bothered me, as it most certainly would nowadays!

On one such trip, we arrived late at night and I decided to walk around the darkened Ulhas plant. Suddenly, without warning, I found myself sinking in a warm, thick, foul smelling liquid heavy with chemical sludge and sewage from the factory, and probably effluent from the factory's toilets. My swimming experience must have kicked in involuntarily; my feet touched bottom and I remember kicking violently and breaking surface. Luckily, I had been speaking into my walkie-talkie when it happened and Rui, alarmed by the sudden silence, ran up to discover me struggling to keep my head above the stinking goo. He extended his hand and pulled me out and I collapsed on the ground. With Rui’s help, I managed to stagger into the factory office which was closed for the night. I stripped and washed my hands and face. Rui removed some of the window curtains which I wrapped around myself. We drove to the guest house where I could bathe but I couldn't forget the awful stench for weeks afterward!

But I didn’t care, I had survived and was alive and well. Rui had saved my life that night!

The contract went well for several months and we began mulling ways to increase turnover. The possibility of using a barge to transport the oil across the Gulf of Khambhat to Bhavnagar Port, just a couple of kilometers from the factory, looked workable (brown dotted line on the map). It would permit us to double and even triple our turnover! But even the most promising plans can come to naught when circumstances change. And that’s exactly what happened when drought struck and the Gujarat government banned the export of groundnut oil, ruining our business overnight.

But Suresh already had other plans. He had returned from the US with new ideas and bags full of samples. He left managing Ulhas Oil to a family member and launched a new business in advertising and public relations, which he named Western Outdoor Advertising Pvt Ltd.

He said he was looking to us to bring his ideas to market, and he was positioned to bankroll the costs! He mooted the idea of introducing an emerging technology – video – to Bollywood initially as a rehearsal tool, but he also spoke of myriad other applications for video recording. He had brought a reel-to-reel Sony video recorder (get this: it was one of the world's first semi-portable video recorders and recorded grainy analog video at just 405 scanning lines!) to demonstrate, and the thought of its possible applications just blew me away!

But there was more, much more to come! He showed me a box with a plastic screen which when plugged into an electrical outlet projected a multitude of coloured shooting star-like lights radiating outwards from the centre, with a backlit message prominently displayed. He called this the Galaxy. He then produced another box which streamed a ticker tape-like message across the front, which he called the Starstream. Lastly, he showed photos of huge outdoor billboards which displayed three separate faces and messages, each face dissolving into the next after a short pause, which he called the Triad. He even showed me a very heavy set of steel cams and gears which turned the unit’s triangular louvers.

Clearly, these gadgets had the potential to revolutionize the advertising, promotion and film industries in India overnight! I could barely imagine what effect all of them together could have!

An artist, Mr. Potdar, screen printed a Galaxy screen and the disc which rotated behind it. Suresh imported a stock of small 4 rpm motors to turn the Galaxy's discs. The geometrical patterns on the screen and disc produced the shooting star effect when the disc was rotated behind the screen and was backlit. A local metalworking firm made a few Galaxy cabinets and I hired a young man, Rahim, to come over to my place (I had my own room at my parents’ apartment) to assemble prototype Galaxies. We removed the mattress from my bed and used the bare bed as the worktable! Soon I was able to demonstrate working Galaxy prototypes which Suresh used to secure lucrative orders for dozens of units advertising Wills cigarettes and other consumer products. The units were leased to Lintas and other major advertising agencies and placed strategically at airports, inside cinemas and public buildings.

By this time Rui and I had rented an old warehouse in the industrial Mazagaon area where we produced the Galaxies. We also started development work on a 20-foot Triad hoarding. We already had a small workforce by now; Mr. Potdar and his daughter, Rahim and his cousins Ramzan, an electrician and Rehman, an expert welder, Dattu and Mahadev.

An electric motor powered the Triad through a reduction gearbox, a Geneva cam manufactured for us at Vashi's machine shop, a main shaft and a pair of bevel gears for each of the 18 louvers of the unit. The 120-degree triangular louvers were fabricated out of sheet aluminium. Each louver was held in place by a pair of cast aluminium cups, the driven one at the bottom and the other on top. The unit’s steel frame stood 10 feet high by 20 wide. Once the Triad was installed by the roadside or on top of a building, painters prepared the artwork for each face. We produced and installed many Triads in Bombay and other cities. We also built a 40-foot Triad which was installed on the Marine Drive pedestrian overbridge at Chowpatty.

Suresh had been busy promoting video technology in Bombay's advertising, film production and education circles. Soon, demand for video capturing, recording and broadcasting via cable began to skyrocket. NV Philips wanted us to use their equipment and offered to train me in the use and maintenance of their latest cameras. They arranged for me to attend courses at their facility in Eindhoven, Netherlands, for a period of three months. Suresh paid the air fares. A Philips director, Harry Wouters, and his wife Anatje, offered to let me stay at their traditional farmhouse home in Vechel; in exchange I helped Harry remodel the living area. It was in that very living room on 29 July 1969, that I watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the moon! Harry and Anatje were wonderful, generous hosts and I will always remember them with great fondness.

Meanwhile, the major Indian racecourses were keen to introduce live video (CCTV) to broadcast the races to hundreds of non-grandstand spectators. Rui, my team and I set up large CCTV systems in seven major race courses around the country. For more on this, see the story Providing Video Coverage at Indian Racecourses.

Video was rapidly eclipsing our work with Galaxies and Triads. To cater to the burgeoning demand, we converted Suresh’s spacious office premises in the downtown Fort area into a recording studio. The office occupied half the fourth floor of Sir Vithaldas Chambers at 16, Apollo Street. This was the perfect location for busy advertising executives who would otherwise have to use established Bollywood studios which were located mostly in Bombay’s suburbs. Suresh made sure that only the best and latest equipment was installed, and the best available recording engineers were hired. It wasn’t long before Western Outdoor became the most sought after production house in the city for film and video. Rui had started working for Western Outdoor and had taken some of our staff over too. To film and video were added tape-slide audiovisual production capabilities using up to 24 slide projectors simultaneously. This technology became popular for large sales conferences and product launches around the country.

Click here to read Sound Stories: How the Western Outdoor Recording Studio Influenced the Indian Music Scene.

I first saw Hootoksi in the studio when I was mixing a track for a film called Going Going Goa I had made with Kabir Bedi. She had entered the studio with Suresh who wanted to hire her for a new discotheque project. I was immediately and fatally intrigued and attracted to her! On making inquiries I found out that she wanted to travel overland to Europe which I too had often dreamed about! I finally met her a few weeks later at an event I was working on, the launching of Hindustan Lever’s Liril soap. I was using my father’s car that day so I offered her a lift home, and the rest is history!

One day in 1970 I fell sick and as the fever mounted, my stomach began to swell and the pain became unbearable, our family doctor was perplexed and my worried parents insisted I be hospitalized. I chose Nanavati Hospital which was part of Suresh's family trust. I went through hell for the next three months; I had emergency surgery because nearly all of my liver had been destroyed by amoeba and my stomach wall was torn. In hindsight, I'm sure that the amoebic infection ocurred when I was struggling to survive my near-drowning in the factory cesspool. I had to stay in hospital for two months before I was well enough to be discharged, albeit with a gaping wound where my navel used to be.. 

A friend, Anil Srivastava, was developing small format film technologies, 16 mm for documentary production and Super-8 for use in classrooms. He had secured contracts from a US university to produce a series of documentaries on India, and wanted me to work with him. However, it meant I would have to move to New Delhi! My wound had barely begun to heal but the surgeon, Dr. N N Shah, told me I could go as long as I took care to change my dressing regularly, to avoid alcohol and physical strain, and to get back to him in a year's time. So I moved to a barsati (terrace studio) in Safdarjung Enclave in New Delhi.

We constructed a recording studio and began producing the documentaries. I remember three of them well; one was about village life in Uttar Predesh called Behind Mud Walls and the others were on Bombay’s Dhobi Ghats (the city’s vast manual laundry facilities for the city’s residents), and the famed Dabbawallas (home cooked lunch delivery system for the city’s office workers). Apart from film production, we were developing a Super-8 loop projector that projected a cassette containing instructional films.

One day I decided to see a movie and in the foyer I bumped into Hootoksi! Stunned, I managed to stammer something like "What are you doing here?" Over coffee I learned that she had come to Delhi to work on a play to be staged in London. She was staying in a barsati nearby. I hadn't seen her for months and now that she was around I was over the moon! Looked like my life was really taking off!

A year later, in 1971, I went back to Dr. Shah and had to have another operation to repair the hernia that had developed, and to fix a related lung issue. Once I had healed, I returned to Delhi to resume work and pursue my love affair with Hootoksi. And so we were married by the end of 1971, in the middle of the Indo-Pakistan war.

Meanwhile, the UNICEF Regional Office for South and Central Asia (ROSCA) in New Delhi contacted Anil for assistance in producing a series of advocacy films. Ken Nelson, UNICEF’s communication officer, arranged to provide needed editing equipment in payment for our work. The relationship grew and a few months later UNICEF offered to take me on as a fulltime consultant working under Ken.

And that’s how my 30-year career with UNICEF began, with Hootoksi by my side.