Back in 1983 my self and my colleague Mr MR Kedia were posted to SMS- Germany for 3 months for Engineering works for upcoming LMMM mills at Visakhapatnam. Few interesting events took place and few are worth revisiting. One of them is described here. We were travelling club class in the upper deck of Air India's Boeing 747 popularly also called Jumbo jet. We were overwhelmed by the hospitality of Air India. Since for 26 seats in 7 rows, we had in attendance 8 stewards and hostesses. They would every now and then offer drinks or minor eats. Itinerary  was Delhi-Rome-Geneva with connecting Swiss Air flight Geneva-Dusseldorf. The plane made an unscheduled stoppage at Athens, we were not permitted to go to the terminal building but came down for few minutes and went back due to chilly weather. The reasons for the additional stoppage was strike by Custom personnel at Rome. Kedia and me L-R, Me, Mr GC Pd, Late Sri PL Modi, Mr MR Kedia In Rome Air India was unab...

I was a part of joint team of MECON and Shree Precoated Ltd, Pune to a visit to USA and Canada in March 1993 for evaluation of old mill equipment and to locate vendors for refurbishing as well as for new supplies. I also was required to visit independently Berlin for evaluation of Elpro AG  an erstwhile East German company for tie up or joint venture. We left Bombay with visa stampings for UK, USA, Canada and Germany. We reached Mumbai then called Bombay on Sunday 14th March just 2 days after infamous bomb blast and while travelling  on Monday 15th of March  from Hotel Citizen near Juhu Beach  to Our Office in World Trade Centre in Cuffe Parade, Mumbai  we passed Mahim and Air India building and the devastation was quite visible.. remarkably Bombay was up on its feet and moving! We met officials of M/s Shree precoated Ltd at their Fort office and finally after completion  of formalities  got foreign exchange on Sat 19-3-1993 a bank half day worki...