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The Mortensen legacy
The bridge over the ‘River Kwai’ under construction in Ceylon and (down) P. H. Mortensen
July 4th was celebrated by Larsen & Toubro Ltd. as the birth centenary of one of its founders, Henning Holck-Larsen. He and fellow engineer Soren Kristian Toubro, both working with F.L.Smidth & Co at the time, in 1938 formed with virtually no
capital to speak of what is now one of the biggest engineering conglomerates in South Asia. But for all their involvement with India – and both as individuals as well as L & T Directors they supported numerous worthy causes – they paid surprisingly little attention to Tranquebar, the capital of their country, Denmark’s eastern territories. Now that Denmark is showing greater interest in the restoration of run-down Tranquebar – as are the Germans, who are looking at greater remembrance of Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg of the Halle Mission who was sent out by the Danish King as the first Protestant missionary to Asia but who, instead, fuelled Tamil scholarship – I look forward to L & T taking a greater interest in Tranquebar which promises, with the right help, to develop into a significant heritage tourism destination.
Just a few days before the Holck-Larsen commemoration, another Dane associated with L & T – more accurately, with the Madras-based subsidiary known in his time as Engineering Construction Corporation Ltd., the ECC now translating into the Engineering Construction and Contracts Division of L & T – Paul-Helge Mortensen, was remembered in Madras at a public service institution to which a Trust he formed has contributed considerably. The institution is the Kamaraj-associated Bala Mandir and among his contributions to it, supported also by L&T-ECC, is the P.H. Mortensen Industrial Training Centre. It was at the inauguration of an extension to the Centre – where training will now be possible in crafts beyond the existing carpentry and electrician courses – that Mortensen’s links with the Bala Mandir from 1962 were remembered.
That the training centre focusses on carpentry is appropriate, for Mortensen was a carpenter who came out to join L & T as a carpenter-foreman at a project site in Mirzapur in 1951. When L & T established a construction firm in Colombo, Mortensen was sent out to assist there. And that was where he built ‘the bridge over the River Kwai’, the film set still a tourist attraction in the Island. Mortensen’s bridge certainly appeared like a carpenter’s masterpiece; in fact, it was made of wood cladding on a steel frame, yet looked just like the original in northern Thailand.
The project was a Rs.8 lakh one, but when the final bill was presented it was for Rs.16 lakh. Sam Spiegel refused to pay the cost overrun. “You won’t get so much as an extra nickel out of me,” he had shouted at Toubro who had gone out to negotiate a settlement. “You then won’t be able to blow up the bridge for your climax, according to this court order,” Toubro gently responded handing over the relevant injunction. With stars like Alec Guinness, William Holden, Grace Kelly and Jack Holden all kicking their heels doing nothing as they waited – at considerable cost to Spiegel till the dispute was resolved – Spiegel agreed to a negotiated settlement. And The Bridge on the River Kwai we
nt on to win an Oscar and become an all-time film success.
Mortensen returned to India, was posted to Madras where he helped build the Port’s Jawahar 8-berth Wet Docks. He was then appointed General Manager of ECC – and made Manapakkam its headquarters. And that’s where it still is, contributing a greater part of L & T’s turnover.
S. MUTHIAH
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