Sharma: Going strong

Jamshedpur, Jan. 9: One may identify him, sitting on the verandah or strolling in the marketplace, thanks to his signature hookah or the turban.

Meet Ugrasen Sharma or masterji as the world knows him. A teacher and a headmaster whose career spans an amazing 42 years and a resident of Ramdas Bhatta, Bistupur, he will turn 100 this year along with corporate giant Tata Steel. This coincidence could not have been more pleasant for Sharma, who is a former Tata Steel employee himself.

A perfectionist Sharma did not have an easy life, but it was, as he says with a smile, “interesting”. He came and settled in the city way back in 1930 after a top brass Tata Steel officer spotted him. He started his career with Rs 23 remuneration and a family of seven — his wife and six children. “I walked to work everyday and when I was late I would pedal to work,” said Sharma with a smile that suggested that a bicycle was the only luxury that he could afford then. “Today, there is a huge rush thanks to the rising number of vehicles plying on the roads. Even children cannot walk to their schools,” he said with a sense of regret. Sharma is walking encyclopaedia of snippets. Having met Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi when they were here in the steel city, he remembers having asked them what they intended to do with the collected money. Mahatma Gandhi had replied: “We plan to keep it for ourselves.” “They deposited the entire money in the bank later,” remembers Sharma. Tata Steel would send him for training, all over India, and Sharma gathered experiences that are marvellous to say the least. “It was Abab, a trader from Mecca, who sowed the first coffee seeds in his courtyard, which marked the coffee revolution in the country.”

Though he owes a lot of his rich experiences to Tata Steel — regrets remain. “After my retirement I have not even received a free copy of the Tisco News. None of my three sons received any employment offers from Tata Steel and they were left to seek their employment,” he adds ruefully. And he does not understand Tata’s decision to outsource all schools to private players.

Though the city he has lived for more than 42 years has changed a lot, very little has changed in masterji’s life. The fair, slight and spectacled teacher still goes for his morning walks and greets his old students like always. He loves his gourd curry for lunch and papaya curry with chappatis for dinner. His weakness, he acknowledges with a laugh, is his hookah.