Khera: Lessons learnt at home

Ranchi, March 17: Dhanbad-born Shiv Khera, the globally-known consultant, author and motivator, is overwhelmed by the response he received during his first lecture tour to the state, 38 years after he left it. He was here last week, addressing huge gatherings at Ranchi, Bokaro and Jamshedpur.

“I have no words to express my gratitude to the people. It was certainly a great experience. I never addressed so many people as in Ranchi. Over 55,000 people were in the audience while about 5,000-10,000 waited outside the stadium. I am surprised because even Bollywood stars and popular politicians do not attract such crowds, I am told,” he recalled in a telephonic interview from New Delhi on Wednesday.

Khera’s grandfather Waliram Taneja had shifted from Punjab to Bihar and started from scratch. He went on to own several coal mines. “He was also a freedom fighter. Rajendra Prasad stayed at our house when he came to Dhanbad. My maternal grandfather was very illustrious. He lived in Manitaand area and anyone could go to his house from the railway station by merely asking for Lalaji’s house. Nanaji also owned mines. He had given several mines to my dadaji,” he said.

Not surprisingly, Khera plans to visit Dhanbad and Hazaribagh in the near future with sponsors organising his lectures. “Of course, I am a product of undivided Bihar and Jharkhand can claim me as its own; but matrubhumi has the first claim. India is my matrubhumi, Jharkhand is my janmabhoomi and Dhanbad my janmasthaan,” he said, precise as ever.

Khera fondly remembers Dhanbad which he has not visited since he migrated to Canada in 1975. But even while studying in New Delhi, he would regularly visit Dhanbad during vacations, he recalls. He remembers the Railway Club, which he frequented to watch English films, the De Nobili school, where many of his cousins studied. He also remembers the bad roads and wonders if they are still as bad.

“I also remember the aerodrome where I spent many evenings with a family friend, Gupteshwar Singh, whose wife Manorama Sinha was a local MLA. Their son Arun Singh is a well-known cardiologist in Patna and happens to be the son-in-law of renowned physician Shivnarain Singh,” he said.

Still basking in the warmth with which he was received, Khera recalled, “A few years back an insurance company’s development officer attended my programme in New Delhi by paying Rs 50,000. He had come along with his wife and small daughter. They told me that they were from Dhanbad. They were putting up in a guesthouse. I dropped them there. Recently, the same family came to Bokaro to hear me again. I was touched. A sardarji came to me in Ranchi and told me that he worked as a driver with my family for over 25 years in Dhanbad. I was touched again. Can you buy such loyalty with money?” he exclaimed.

Khera, who once washed cars on the streets of Canada and claims to have bought a company in California with no clients in 1984—only to sell it in 1997 with as many as 500 clients — says he was a poor student. He flunked his Class X examination and passed B.Com in third division. But single-minded determination and hard work, he felt, had given him everything.

His latest passion is electoral reforms and he plans to move court with a PIL seeking the right of voters to reject all candidates in the fray. “ No option” or “None” , he says, should be a legitimate alternative before the voters. If more than half the electorate exercises this option, all the candidates should be disqualified and the election held afresh. “This is the practice in USA and Canada and nothing unusual; in Australia and Belgium too, people can select or reject candidates,” he points out.