Must have been a big shot in India otherwise he would have stayed back in US to
pay for his cost of studies at Harvard Business School (it doesn't have
scholarship for MBA students??). Seems an interesting read.
Umesh
***The book gives an account of the society in Assam around the time India
became independent and after that. It also details how Barooah became the first
person from the North-east to obtain an MBA degree from the prestigious Harvard
Business School (HBS). In fact, he belonged to the HBS's famous Class of 1949
and has batch mates who went on to transform the destiny of American business.
The book talks about Hemen the art collector, the connoisseur of music, Hemen
the racing enthusiast, and Hemen the tabla player, having been a disciple of
Ustad Munwar Ali of Calcutta.
Article:
'ULFA had traced me to Philadelphia
': Assamese Tea Baron's Biography Released
By admin on 14 July, 2007 22:53:00
http://www.assamtimes.org/index.php?news=190
Guwahati: Noted tea industrialist Hemendra Prasad Barooah has revealed in a new
book about being traced by the ULFA to Philadelphia, about his English
acquaintance involved in the Great Train Robbery in the UK, and about the
search for Dr Bhupen Hazarika's lost Rolex watch one dark night on a street
near Sivasagar. The planter, a multifarious personality, who has remained away
from media glare, shares many intimate details of his life with eminent
journalist Wasbir Hussain in 'Life and Times: Story of an Assamese Tea Baron',
an authorized biography. The book, published by Spectrum Publications,
Guwahati/New Delhi, was released by chief minister Tarun Gogoi at a function in
a city hotel here on Saturday. The packed gathering included guests of honour
Jahnu Barua, a celebrated filmmaker, playwright Arun Sarma, and Hemen Barooah,
the man himself. The book is not just about Barooah, it is also about the times
in which he lived and the fascinating people he had encountered from
across the world thieves and conmen, painters and politicians, lovers and
musicians, business tycoons and lunatics, god men and frauds, and many more.
Barooah says in the book how on June 11, 1990 he along with 13 other top tea
company captains from across India met ULFA leaders at the tea garden bungalow
of a leading business family in Dibrugarh after the outfit summoned them to
'discuss the active participation of the tea industry in the economic
development' of the state. The then chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta
advised Barooah not to meet the ULFA leaders. 'Who advised you to go for the
meeting?
I suggest, you don't go,' Hemen remembered Mahanta as having told them. But,
the tea captains were prepared to take the risk and face the rebels. Barooah in
his biography recounts how they went in three cars to meet the ULFA leaders
the meeting ended just before the crack of dawn with the rebels talking to the
planters individually and demanding hefty amounts. The ULFA, however, did not
demand any money from Barooah in that meeting. 'An ULFA caller one day
threatened to kidnap me from Calcutta. That was the first time I got scared. I
could not sleep that night," Barooah said in the book. Such was the pressure
from the ULFA that Barooah was even traced in the US where he was on a holiday
with his daughter, trying to beat the stress. The phone buzzed at his
daughter's home in Philadelphia. "Dada, are you all right? How's your
daughter," an ULFA militant said on the phone at a time when there were reports
in the media in Assam that he had 'fled' India.
On the lighter side of his life, Barooah in the biography recounts the night
when he and Dr Bhupen Hazarika searched for the music icon's lost Rolex watch
on a desolate road near Sivasagar, besides his encounter with the man behind
the Great Train Robbery in the UK. Hemen narrated many fascinating tales in the
book, including his 'secret' meeting with Mrs Indira Gandhi at the Circuit
House in Jorhat, and her bus ride to the sleepy town of Golaghat.
The book gives an account of the society in Assam around the time India became
independent and after that. It also details how Barooah became the first person
from the North-east to obtain an MBA degree from the prestigious Harvard
Business School (HBS). In fact, he belonged to the HBS's famous Class of 1949
and has batch mates who went on to transform the destiny of American business.
The book talks about Hemen the art collector, the connoisseur of music, Hemen
the racing enthusiast, and Hemen the tabla player, having been a disciple of
Ustad Munwar Ali of Calcutta.
Speaking on the occasion, Hussain said: " Aside from writing about his life, I
have tried to give an account of the challenges facing the Assamese planters
during the British Raj. The British, after all, never wanted the locals to
enter into the business of tea. The story of Bisturam Barooah, Mr Hemen
Barooah's grand-father, is indeed remarkable, because here was a man who
displayed both foresight and tact by venturing into forbidden territory, by
keeping the sahibs on the right side. The battle with tea giant Williamson
Magor, agents of the Barooahs, had indeed been interesting. The links finally
got snapped between the Barooahs and Williamson Magor in the early fifties. By
that time, Assamese planters had come of age."
Photo © : UBPhotos.com
bg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: http://www.assamtimes.org/index.php?news=190
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Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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