Written on July 14 , 2017
Some of the underground mines are getting closed. Verdict have been passed , the time of discontinuity of work have been decided , the people are being put on notice to get transferred either by opting themselves or by obliging management’s order.
In fact by the latest diktat doing the round , these mines are to be shut and sealed literally. And I observe metaphorically also. These mines which are mostly half century or more old are not simply a few coal producing pits or inclines ,rather much more than that. With closure which were almost inevitable and expected for so many days(or years!!) are leaving behind them a string of stories , legacies and the allegories typical of any mine specially the underground which have been always the crude incubator of all those management theories and tools normally people goes to management school to learn. In the most raw and rustic form, these under ground mines or collieries have always been the birthplace of all those hyped word of corporate jargons like risk management , sustainability and scrums or project management which have been entrenched in running of the mines right from its inception or its first digging of the shaft or incline. The hunting ground of all those bravados , adventurer , chivalrous miners who just got enough seasoned to be called the veteran to cruise against all odds and have been winning the coal with so much stakes they put including their lives , these mines have been always like full organizations themselves. The miners who worked there are like those smart forces battling deep inside the terror zone of middle east Asia or land of insurrection back home fighting some asynchronous war with fast network , prompt decision and loads of intelligence inputs to run them smooth and safe .
By inheritance , these all mines own completely different combinations of tools and techniques and never follow any uniformity of management or standard operational modules although legislative frameworks , centralized formats or definitive functions have always been there in plenty. And here in this divergence of ways to do the same work (winning the coal and warranting the welfare of the people) lies its legacies , distinctively individual, indigenous and highly inspiring for any case study if we love to understand how an organization runs or ruins in a functional anarchy and continuous chaos . And here we saw every mine has its own stories of struggle, survival and then succumbing to the basic business principle which calls for closing a loosing mine because it just infects others , fast becomes a money sucker black holes and gets contagious.
Bearing the burnt of phased misadventure and occasional mishandling by promoter in its pre -nationalized period , union and management in post-nationalized era every mine had so many allegories and anecdotes to say , so many narratives to utter! Always being stuck up in the cross fire of greed(producing coal at any cost ) and grind(stringent rules and regulation) these all mines simply could not remind when they crossed over the wrong side of the LOC or Loss-making Operational Cost . It is a journey started long back which even before reaching the pick just are reverting back to zero thanks the cumulating of all those misadventures and meshed up planning and propositions.
The closure now will definitely pull the curtain over all those pains and paeans these mines have gone through all over these decades and if it is to be enliven at all they will be only in the scattered stories in the dismantled shadows of head gear , the engine room , the haulage cabin or the disappeared twilight rays in the dark inclines. Or the dilapidated school bus while withering way its hustle and bustle it left past so many years before kept mere witness of another demise , the demise of its tenant , the mine which sheltered it so long. Let’s hope the big old trunks(or pipple , mahogany )in front of the Pit Tops and the deep bushes surrounding the sumps will shelter those stories for the time to come.
Those great legacies are now going to be lost , long live those legacies.
Amen