This is a post on my two brief meetings with KRK Menon, the first Finance Secretary. But, let me first start with a brief on the son. A person of Indian origin heading a global MNC no longer makes waves. Nevertheless, it is still surprising that the passing away of Bhaskar Menon in March this year, aged 86, went largely unnoticed in India, barring a few odd write-ups and mentions.
There was more coverage abroad, including in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Hollywood Reporter, and The Daily Guardian (see here, here, here, here, here and here). Menon was the first Indian to become the CEO of a global MNC that at one time, as per estimates, controlled over 30 per cent of music that was being produced globally. Moreover, he was singularly responsible for finding, nurturing, and promoting some of the most creative talents of the period.
Famous father of a more famous son
Doon School, St. Stephen’s, and Christ Church, Oxford. Thereafter, dedicating his life to Western music from a young age, Bhaskar Menon climbed up the ladder by sheer passion and hard work, and became the CEO of EMI, the record company.
At the EMI, Bhaskar Menon was responsible for discovering amazing new talents, and moved around with the likes of Ravi Shankar, the Beatles, Freddie Mercury, and Pink Floyd. As CEO of EMI, I believe he had on the Board people like Gregory Peck as directors. He later on became CEO of its controlling group, the Thorn Group, which also had interests in consumer electronics, defence, and retail business. Bhaskar Menon was a name spoken about at home with awe, back in the 1970s, when he reached those positions. I had no occasion to meet Bhaskar Menon (More on him here). This post is about Bhaskar Menon’s father, KRK Menon, India’s first Finance Secretary, who I had met briefly on two occasions.
Finance Secretary
KRK Menon is a name familiar to collectors of old currency notes. As independent India’s first Finance Secretary, he signed the first one rupee note issued after independence. After about a year, the new issues were signed by K.G. Ambegaonkar, who was later Governor, Reserve Bank of India, for a short period, and never signed a banknote. Some online resources therefore deduce (see here) that KRK was Finance Secretary only for a short period. This is not correct. He continued to be Finance Secretary, in charge of Revenue, till the mid-1950s (I presume, 1955), when he retired.
KRK belonged to the Revenue Service, and owed his position as Finance Secretary to the paucity of ICS officers soon after the British withdrew from India. He must have been the subject of envy (just as VP Menon was) among the regular and younger ICS officials. That probably explains why BK Nehru (who had refused the post of Governor, Reserve Bank, in 1967) had no nice things to say about KRK in his memoirs, Nice Guys Finish Second (Penguin India, 2012). But, KRK was one with a good sense of humour, as I found out in one of my meetings with him.
Later life
KRK was member of a Committee on Indirect Taxation, which was headed by John Mathai, the second Finance Minister. In his later years, KRK was Chairman of IFCI, the financial institution, for some time. He was associated with the Administrative Reforms Commission headed by K. Hanumanthaiya in some way. He was also on the Board of many companies. This included being Chairman of the Western India Plywoods, the Cannanore-based company which belonged to AK Kaderkutty (more on him on a future date), the great visionary, and pioneering industrialist of Kerala. So would Bhaskar Menon in his later years.
39, Jorbagh
When I first went to New Delhi in 1981, my father gave a list of persons to meet. All were in either Lutyen’s Delhi or South Delhi. Topping the list was Dr KNS Nair, about whom I have written elsewhere. Fondly known as Amminichettan to friends, he was my grandfather’s contemporary (a year senior) at the Madras Medical College, in the late 1920s. We bonded well, as he knew my grandfather and father quite well, and had also known and had high respect and regards for my greatgrandfather, who was serving in Madras. The good doctor would later treat me through a series of health issues starting with dengue (there was an epidemic in Delhi), followed by malaria and typhoid, ruining my one semester to long-term effect. A chronic bachelor, Amminichettan was staying at 39, Jorbagh, as a guest of the Menons.
My first meeting with KRK was very brief and uneventful, as my priority was to pay my respects to Amminichettan. By the 1980s, Jorbagh Colony was already a posh central locality, with the Lodi Gardens just next door. But, Amminichettan told me that when KRK built the house, the new capital was still under construction or in its early days, and people wondered why he was going so far away to build his house, that too next to the airport (Safdarjung, then known as the Willingdon Airfield, as many things in India were named in those days)!
Harrington Road, Madras
The next meeting was in 1992, when KRK Menon was in his early 90s. By then, I had joined the Reserve Bank of India, and was posted to Madras (now Chennai). The trio had moved to a bungalow in a lane off Harrington Road, Chennai (No. 2, 3rd Street/Lane, or No. 3, 2nd St.). As I had noticed over the last four decades, after most of ones contemporaries have moved on, life in Delhi for a senior citizen can be quite dehumanising and impersonal, even if you were once a Finance Secretary. That explains how they moved to Madras in their late 80s. Harrington Road was always a location of choice for many a retired civil servant of that generation, as it was for serving British ICS officers of the 19th and early 20th century.
On entering the bungalow, we bumped into KRK who was taking his evening walk around the house. We had a long chat standing near the gate. On knowing that we were with the Reserve Bank of India, he made enquiries about the stock market scam which was then quite the rage. He went on to add, “I was Finance Secretary for seven long years. I couldn’t do much damage, however hard I tried.” He guffawed out loud, visibly pleased with his humour, emphasising it with an extra strong stomp of his walking stick. Without waiting for a response, he continued with his walk, disappearing round the corner.
Last days
A year or two later, maybe more, by when we had moved to Mumbai, I learnt that KRK Menon had passed away. The other two lived on into their late 90s spending their last period in a nursing home somewhere in Kilpauk. Amminichettan passed away a few weeks after Mrs Saraswathi Menon, both aged around 97 or 98. The nursing assistant told my mother that it seemed he was waiting for her to pass away first.
Related trivia: KRK’s son Bhaskar Menon was married to Sumitra, who was the only daughter of KCS Paniker, the pioneering Indian abstract painter.
Note: This post was updated following the passing away of Bhaskar Menon on 4 March 2021.
© G. Sreekumar 2021.
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