Partner Channels: Auctions | Auto | Bill Pay | IT Education | Jobs | Lifestyle | Technology | Travel
April 12, 2001
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Channels: Astrology | Broadband | Contests | E-cards | Money | Movies | Romance | Search | Weather | Wedding | Women Partner Channels: Auctions | Auto | Bill Pay | IT Education | Jobs | Lifestyle | Technology | Travel |
||
|
|
||
|
Home >
Money > Business Headlines > Report April 12, 2001 |
Feedback
|
|
|
'Dewang personified what India's IT industry really needed'J Srihari Raju I am stunned at the passing away of Dewang Mehta. It is a very sad day for me because he started his career with me in 1988. I persuaded him to first write some freelance pieces for Computers Today. Then I persuaded him to join us as one of our junior editors. He was very young and full of ideas. He was remarkably versatile. He seemed to be an all rounder. But right from day one, I could sense that we was not comfortable at a typical structured office job. So, I gave him lots of freedom. I could sense his appetite in many areas others than computers. If he ever left the office, he would come back with great stories on anything and everything. It could be on the range of Indian handicrafts. It could be on the films he wanted to make and how he would go about it. It could be about the kind of characters he met in the day. Once he spoke of how he always wanted to build a hospital in the memory of his father. As expected, he did not stay for long with me. After about a year, he left. Incidentally, Dewang is the only journalist I ever sacked. I had to. He just left without any notice. I was forced to send him a notice asking him to rejoin or resign. He did not respond. So I had to sack him. Dewang hated desk work. He was always looking for new challenges. When Nasscom was looking for a new general secretary, the founder, Prem Shivdasani, asked me if I would be interested. I was committed to the growing magazine, so I promptly recommended Dewang's name, though he was so young. I felt that it was the right job for him and he would fit in it absolutely. The rest is history. In the midst of all those arc lights on the centrestage of the software industry, I always knew he was lonely. But he turned that loneliness into some kind of a powerhouse that drove him to do what all he did with the industry. Dewang personified what India's software industry really needed. He really brought the software industry to the focus of the government, the bureaucracy and the common man. Only he could have done that. We used to discuss so many things together. He was a great conversationalist. After he got into Nasscom, we used to be in constant touch. At conferences, he used to single me out for special treatment. The Nasscom conferences were always well done and I used to tell him that. He would retort that he learnt the magic of being organised at Computers Today. I was always concerned about his loneliness. We often used to joke about it. I used to ask him when he was planning to get married. And he would retort asking me if I had a girl in mind. He was very sensitive and sentimental. He used to easily open up. He had excellent interpersonal skills. And that made him so popular. He was very focussed on the needs of the software industry and just dedicated himself to it. Because of his sheer hard work and dedication, he could achieve so much in such a short time. His death is a great loss to the software industry, particularly at this juncture when the US tech backlash jolted India's software exporting industry. As told to Ramesh Menon
YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO SEE:
EXTERNAL LINKS: |
||||
