Neil O’Brien: the best teacher I ever had

Memories crowd me as I think of my mentor Neil O’Brien. My first meeting with O’Brien (or sir as I referred to him) was at his Freedom House office in Kolkata. I was working with a printing press in Kolkata, and that day, I was at the Oxford University Press office to appear for an interview for a position in the production department.

I was early, and reach the office around 1.15 pm. I was nervous when I was told that O’Brien would interview me. Immediately, my Bengali-medium-educated-self started crumbling; I could feel butterflies in my stomach. Then I noticed a plateful of rice, dal and fish curry go to the room, which was supposed to be occupied by O’Brien. (Much later, when we used to have lunch together, I asked him about his food habits. He told me in his usual baritone, “Subhasis, I am also a Bengali. My grandmother Dr Nellie Bela O’Brien was a Bengali, Banerjee, before marrying my grandfather Daniel O’Brien in 1904. So why should not I enjoy the local food?”)

The call for interview came at sharp 2 pm, the scheduled hour. O’Brien was particular about punctuality. Even after leaving the party at sales conferences after midnight, he would always be present at the conference hall the next day at the schedule time, while we all would struggle to keep ourselves awake.

Within a few minutes, O’Brien must have understood my discomfort about English, and smoothly he steered the conversation to fluent Bengali. I was relieved.

Only after he confirmed my appointment at OUP, he told me, “Subhasis, you need to work on your English. I will help you.” And my learning started with the best teacher I ever had.

Learning from him was fun. He never preached. Instead, he always asked, “What’s new? What’s your next plan?”

O’Brien was a thorough gentleman, always well dressed and always supportive of his staff. He was always open to new ideas and encouraged everyone to take up challenges.

As his trusted lieutenant in publishing Aloke Raychaudhury once said, “O’Brien was a colossus in publishing. He knew the market better than anybody did. It was uncanny the way he would evaluate a typescript. If he chose to publish it, the book did well.”

Back in 1990s, all school textbooks were predominantly monochrome, with some exception of two-colour forms here and there. Full-colour textbooks were yet to be seen in the Indian textbook market. It may sound strange today, but it was the reality 25 years back. We enviously looked at the textbooks printed in Hong Kong, China, Europe and the US.

OUP was planning to bring out a general knowledge series authored by Neil O’Brien and his son Barry. The title had been finalised – Find Out. In the briefing, O’Brien opened the challenge to the creative and production team – “As the title is Find Out, the design should represent the spirit of the title and ideally, it has to be in colour.”

It was a huge challenge to work out the costing and choosing the right partner. As colour textbook printing was not common at that point of time, it was not easy. Presses equipped with colour printing were not interested in textbooks. Also, the costing did not work. On the other hand, presses that printed textbooks were not capable of handling colour printing efficiently.

There came O’Brien, with his out of box thinking. He guided his team from his office like a coach guiding his team in the field. At the same time, he was protective of his team. He always enquired about our food, and if we had any problems, he would try to sort them out in his own flamboyant fashion. So the team was charged to run an extra mile for him at any point of time.

The world knows him as a quizmaster. In fact, he was the father of Indian Quiz. I was fortunate to witness the phenomenal Dalhousie Institute Open Quiz Contest Final, with dozens of teams and a thousand-strong audience. The attraction of a Neil O’Brien quiz was the novelty of his questions and his meticulous reliability.

This could not have been possible without his extraordinary memory. At any meeting, he could refer to a book (by mentioning exactly where the copy was kept, on which rack of the room) to the almost exact page number. In 1993-94, he moved to New Delhi to head OUP India, and also took the responsibility as the chairman of the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE).

Around this time, he started restructuring OUP to make it lean and to make decision-making faster. When he retired as chairman and MD of OUP India, the organisation was one of the biggest educational publishers, with a strong hold in schools.

Lately, he was getting old and fragile. His health deteriorated after pneumonia last year, but his mind was still fresh. His favourite question was still the same, “What’s the latest?”

I remember a couple of years back he called me. I was with Penguin at the time and he had retired. He asked me to bring a copy of the Penguin yearbook along with me and meet at his residence in the evening. When I reached there, he scolded me, “What rubbish are you publishing these days? I have found six factual errors in the book.” He handed me the copy of the yearbook I carried for him, with markings on the margins, where the errors were.

Once he asked me about digital publishing. I was a bit nervous to say anything before him, but he encouraged, and it turned out to be an engaging discussion until Joyce mam intervened and forced us to the dining table. To my amazement, I realised that his body may be weak, but his spirit was still high. But the time was slipping.

As his journey ends, there is sadness, of course. But we cherish the happy memories of working with him, his affection, his deep voice, the occasional songs in his baritone, and his compassionate and implicit smile. I miss him telling me, “Subhasis, there is a world outside this office. You must have your own world beyond your work.”

Sir, I will miss you. I would not be what I am today without you.