you never know what you can get

It’s always great fun to meet a veteran, from any business and at the same time it’s pretty irritating to meet a cousin (especially wife’s) who you have never ever met, but you have to and exchange pleasantries. So last week I was pretty unexcited at the prospect of meeting one such relative. But since my mom in law doesn’t normally ask me to come and meet, I thought of going nevertheless.

He was Jasmine’s cousin and a veteran in the old coconut oil trade from Cochin. It was quite nice and mentally I ate some humble pie. I judged before I met and if I don’t meet then how would I learn from others. There were a few things that he said that hit me. One of it was when he explained why the middle men in Cochin in the coconut oil business completely died. It seems Jasmine’s grand dad from her mother’s side was a kingpin of sorts in the business. The business died when Marico professionalized and bought directly from the manufacturers. The middle man was bound to die a natural death. He said that three things contributed to the death of the middle man. They were road, mobile telephony and banking. Bang on. These three improvements surely have contributed a large amount to the productivity gains and of course productivity can’t be enhanced without squeezing the middle man.

 14 years ago I worked as a sales guy in rural Guajarati. The mobile telecom boom hadn’t happened and I had to call up the Area sales manager in the evening at his home to get through to him. There was no contact possible when I was on the road and my ASM’s would have no clue what I was up to. I also used it to my advantage in those days by disappearing and fudging reports. I learnt later the power of diligently working and not bunking office. But at the time, I was shuttling between Gujarat and Mumbai, trying to squeeze every second I got by coming home. I wouldn’t recommend slacking off to anyone. But the point is that mobiles would have greatly enhanced our productivity. We would be in touch a lot more with each other in the sales system. I for one would not have gone missing. Though I did not see this one coming, it surely

Roads for sure would help. Rural Gujarat meant a lot of travelling. It was evident that road network needed improvement. I travelled all across the place to encounter bad roads. I travelled in buss, three wheelers, trucks, matadors, scooters and what not. It definitely screwed up my back completely. The lack of a road network would mean that we would not be able to transport goods cheap and fast across the country. Markets would remain inaccessible and the transfer of goods based on price movements would be severely curtailed. Roads are great and having roads is a greater leveler than what I had imagined.

Banking. I had got this one right. I remember my first cheque quite clearly. It was a non MICR cheque. In other words, Ahmedabad did not participate in MICR clearning – that is the cheques did not have the magnetic ink at the bottom. This is the number that helps the RBI in clearing the cheques. I found it highly amusing. Gujarat had a plethora of co-operative banks in every nook and corner. When we collected cheques from the distributor we had a list of approved banks. The thing was that for cash management services we had tied up with a third party provider. We used to have blank cheque leaves signed by the distributor at our end. We would send the stock and write the amount on the cheque and give it to the third party whose job it was to get the money. When I first heard the concept, I was quite confused. Why would you need someone to help you clear the cheque. Our deal was that I would get the money within two or three days of presenting the cheque and the third party would somehow get the clear funds from the banks in question. This is pretty stupid archaic concept. You present a cheque you should get the money, right? It seems there was a huge delay in banks clearing payments. Especially if it was a cooperative bank. Some of my distributors were the heads of the banks themselves and cheques would be held back for two weeks before being released. The third party would give us a list of banks they thought were acceptable and would accept cheques only from them. This was a system that was plagued with obvious difficulties and inefficiencies. During the 2000 dotcom boom, I knew that the banking industry would be able to add percentage points to a nation’s GDP by digitizing all their transactions and records all over India. Access to credit, access to creditworthiness and the ability to effect instant payments would be a huge booster to business and productivity. It had to work.

So banking, telecom and infrastructure were the three buzz words that removed the middle men in India. Well said ‘cousin of Jasmine’. Well said. I agree whole heartedly. Sorry Jasmine. Next time I will come without whining.

wasted chores

‘DOMESTIC CHORES SAP WOMEN’S ENERGIES. IF THE FAMILY BECOMES THE LIMIT OF YOUR WORLD, THEN YOU CAN NO LONGER THINK BIG’

Haha. Well said Krishna Sobti “Hindi fiction writer and essayist” in the Tehelka.

I have always believed that women have much more potential than is being used. The potential being eaten up by the domestic chores. I don’t believe that domestic chores area waste of time and effort. They definitely add value to the family and keep them going. The question is of margin. Like the old Surf washing powder line – agar kum dam mein utni safedi mile toh phir koi surf na le? If you are wasting potential on chores that can be done by others leaving you to focus on what you believe is important to fulfill your potential, then something is wrong.
Jasmine has been a housewife and we think its important part of Jispa’s growing up. We believe that not having a 24X7 maid in the house for Jispa is important to Jispa’s growing up and our sanity. We can take care of her better and nurture her better. We are also ill prepared for a maid whom we see as a liability. It mean we have to sacrifice a bit but its worth it. Jasmine is definitely adding value to our home by making the conscious call of being a full time mother. But I have always urged her to look around and expand her interests in the free time she gets. We missed having her working before Jispa, something I blame both her family and my mother equally for. I thought it was important for her to work somewhere, anywhere… but hell, we have lived with a lot of calls that conservatism thrust upon us. Add one to that total.
I have seen many women enter the workforce in the time since I started working. You get equal number of them being dim or bright as the men in the workforce. The poor dim women are highlighted and being ridiculed as they are women where as the men, as dim or worse tend to get spared. My take is that given equal probability of intellectual capacity, the women breaking through the glass ceilings and prejudices tend to better than the men. I first tried to have women in my team to balance the ratio, then when it got women centric I tried to balance the ratio the other way. It just couldn’t work. I just couldn’t get any decent men. After specifically asking human resources for men, I still ended up hiring women. The men were just so dumb. Or maybe we just attracted the worst men to apply. Whatever the fault, I ended up having one guy and three girls in the team and the team is kick ass.
Yesterday we were at café coffee day and there also I have been seeing a trend of women being the waiters. These are typically women from possibly middle middle class, speaking simple English and having confidence to talk to customers. They are better than the men waiters for sure. The men tend to be dumb, stupid and lead headed. The women tend to be sweeter, receptive and understand service. You get your oddballs everywhere but I think the probability is better with women. I think it’s the same reason. It takes much for a woman to break tradition and hence by natural filtration the good one pass the sieve. This works at all income levels, as I have seen equal prejudice even at higher incomes.
With so many women entering working class, it creates more competition. It’s a GOOD THING, in case some chauvinists were wondering. There are gains in eth economy that this workforce will add. In India my belief is that this huge economic multiplier is missed by many economists. It is rarely spoken of. I find it quite odd. The benefits go beyond the increase in income level. There are benefits of exposure, understanding, confidence and the like that permeate the population. Mindsets change, minds open, options emerge, directions change.
Do whatever you want as long as you get to choose what you want to do. House must be a choice not a chore. For too many years we have needlessly corked this potential. What a waste!