Apart from this unprecedented havoc caused by the flood, the posting in Pune was joyful. Those were the rosy days after marriage. The two had a nice bungalow in the spacious campus of General Post Office in Camp area with a lovely garden in front. Joshi recalled that there were 28 varieties of roses in that garden. After Pune, Joshi’s posting was in Mumbai from November 1961 to March 1965. First as the Senior Superintendent of Postal Services, Bombay West, and later as Senior Superintendent, Bombay Sorting Division. In March 1965 Joshi got promoted to Delhi as Assistant Director General, Post and Telegraph Directorate. This was the first time these two wings of Postal Services came under him. Those were the days before computer and satellite. Telegraph played a major role. Joshi’s specific task was to study various developments taking place in that field in different countries and to find out what could be implemented in India. During his assignment in Delhi, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri passed away while in Tashkent. Indira Gandhi became the next Prime Minister. Her first public function was in the same building where Joshi’s office was situated. It was to release the Postal Stamp issued in the memory of Shastriji. That was the opportunity Joshi had of having a little closer look at Indira Gandhi. Many years later he had mentioned this function in his article. He wrote, ‘I never had great respect for Indirajee. From her speech that day I got a sense that she had serious reservations about her ability to shoulder the very heavy responsibility that had fallen on her because of her father’s legacy and the feeling of insecurity that emerged from that reservation could be a major danger for the nation.’ One person Joshi remembered from that posting in Delhi was his boss S. B. Velankar. Joshi writes, 42
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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage
