A tear-fill farewell

A tear-fill farewell

P K Routray

 

 

Squint-eyed bespectacled face,

squeezed smile with benign grace,

swelling with expertise in overabundance,

hallowed with calligraphic artistry par excellence,

neat, clean and systematic with a cool calm composure,

never showy nor arrogant for his experiences and exposure,

gentleman to the core with sincerity to adore

G S Panda served the industry throughout his life staying at the fore

braving the sound, the speed, the dust, the heat, and the humidity

the brickbats of unions and the criticisms of the superior authority

compromising at domestic fronts for their health, need and comfort

but never compromising with a deed where the company’s interest gets hurt

caring a fig for his health at old age and retirement with youthful vivacity

just an infinitesimal recapitulation of a gigantic but a humble personality.

Unlike his young engineering friends after the university

to go to foreign lands to earn and role in opulence and plenty

he preferred to settle in his state and serve the society

where from womb to the wisdom he was nurtured to grow and exist

-a philosophy, Panda babu adopted, many may argue to differ

His creation is infinite; Hypocritical man goes off but takes its shelter.

He set up examples for his subordinates, peers, and superiors

by his expertise, experiences, expressions in all managerial spheres.

His protection to his subordinate at his own cost

with gratitude, in many hearts those will remain embossed

Many of his subordinates and superiors alive and gone

the incidents the events, the gratitude they will dwell upon.

NALCO was lucky to pick up persons like G S Panda to be its architects.

they proved their worth and for NALCO’s success we bow at them with respects.

Nostalgically I remember his handwriting, his diaries, his notes in files

I recommend. The management institutes to exhibit them for their styles.

I recollect with tears his morning meetings sitting adjacent to me

never lost his temper, in every subordinate a younger brother he perhaps did see.

His mental and physical agonies, he kept to himself enduring them in silence

as he was certain that he was an actor and to play the role fixed by the Providence.

We in NALCO in service or retired with gratitude to Mr Panda pray to the Lord

“ Hey Lord! We collectively in one chore pray “He deserves a seat in your abode.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

(N. B-Mr Gauri Shankar Panda, a Mechanical Engineering graduate from than Burla Engg College(presently VSSUT)  in 1963 joined TTPS and later joined NALCO in 1983 and retired as its Director. I had worked under him as a colleague for many years and observed keenly with interest his impressive calibres. He left for Heavenly abode on 15^th January at the age of 77. This poem is a tribute to him as his subordinate colleague and younger brother.)