A Titan is Laid to Rest— RIP, Kohli Sir
The shining 21st century Indian tech industry might not have heard enough about or know much about F.C. Kohli who departed mortal earth yesterday. Indisputably, he was the grandsire of Indian IT industry, the Gen 1 technocrat manager who laid the foundation of TCS which continues to be India’s biggest IT company.
For someone who had the good fortune of having interacted with him very closely on numerous occasions over several years and with the added advantage of not being a TCSer, many memories about the legend come alive.
Fearsome, fastidious, fanatic, formidable, fierce, fussy…….the F in F.C. Kohli’s name signified all that, so it was rumored. But there was a gracious, beatific, warm-hearted side as well to him that I got to experience on many occasions.
My senior colleague, Hoshie Ghaswalla, took me along to meet F.C.Kohli in August 1991. This was my first meeting with him and I was instructed to tame my zeal (I was just 22 then) and speak only when asked to. His tall stature and aura were evident. He barely acknowledged my presence; his attention was glued to the report we had submitted to him. Several meetings later with him alone, he softened up and started calling me by my name.
Soon I became adept at detecting whether Kohli was in office the moment I walked in. The 11th Floor of Air India building wore a tight look when Kohli was in. His office assistant in starched white uniform with a white cap came out to escort visitors who had come for their appointment at Kohli’s office, you later saw him serve tea in the most well-practiced way.
When Kohli stepped out of his office, there was a deafening silence on the floor. Once when I was about to take the elevator down from the TCS office, Kohli came out to leave for the day. I stepped back so that he could get into the elevator, but he broke into a smile and asked me to get in and he followed. I casually asked him what he does when he got home. He said he listened to jazz and he caught up on his reading. He further enquired, “Do you like jazz?” Unschooled that I was in that genre of music, I fumbled for an answer. When we reached the ground floor, he stepped out first and waited for me. With a gentle wave of his hand and a tap on my shoulder, he invited me home for a cup of tea along with some of the choicest jazz classics. It was an evening to remember.
In 1993, during the DQ Top 20 survey at Dataquest magazine, TCS became the first company to cross Rs.100 crore in revenue. It was a milestone for the entire computer industry as it was then called. Together with Nasscom playing the role of bringing together the software exports industry, the 64 kbps lines getting available, STPI setting up software technology parks round the country, and PV Narasimha Rao’s liberalization of the Indian economy all augured well for the growth of the Indian industry. TCS enjoyed galloping growth because it was all plotted by Kohli.
Kohli started playing more of a public role in championing the industry. Even earlier, in the eighties, through the CSI and DoE, FC Kohli was active in creating visibility and influence for the industry far beyond the company TCS. But now, there was a new age feel to the whole thing, India’s global market explorations were getting mature and sophisticated; Kohli had an undeniable role in making it happen.
In 1996, he passed the baton of the CEO role at TCS into the able hands of S. Ramadorai whom he had handpicked as a trainee in the late sixties. But he continued to remain active in various forums and advisory committees for several more years thereafter. The fire inside him continued to burn. The problems that occupied his interest were even larger in scope. Promoting adult literacy, scoping out clean water technologies, and India’s role in electronic hardware were his major interest areas. He was passionate about raising the standard of engineering education in India and he even took up the active role of being the chairman of the board of governors at College of Engineering Pune (COEP).
I got chided by him in my last interaction with him in late 2017. I had approached him for a guest contribution from him for a special issue of the Dataquest magazine which I edited. I wanted him to write on his reminiscences about how the software industry in India got shaped. He rebuked me, “I don’t want to talk about software. What about hardware development and computing in Indian languages in India? Where are we on that? That’s what we should be talking about.”
There would be no parallel to this titan who dedicated a lifetime to advocating the use of information technology for business and societal good. RIP, Kohli Sir.
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