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.

steal from the world (and not a stone)

There was this party organised by Jasmine’s uncle. It was supposed to be a social get together with all of Jasmine’s relatives etc. We knew about this since some time and knew we hadn’t received the invite. Jasmine’s sister in law kept asking if we had received the invite. Jasmine and I are pretty unsociable characters. We don’t like to go to too many social dos or marriages or functions. We just avoid in the hope that we will slowly become outcastes.
The sweet uncle in all probability forgot about the invite. We are really not the types to count it as a snub. Honestly we don’t really care too much. It does not change equations at all for us. Where’s the harm, when you are ultimate goal is social exclusion.
Me especially; I hate taking calls as well as making small talk with all the relatives. That’s why most the time I am busy playing with the tiny tots. I don’t connect and it probably is felt by the others. Most of the time I am so bored. Of course in wedding the saving grace is the atrocious embroidery, colors and hairstyles worn by the close relatives. Those are many times worth going miles to see. I think Jasmine’s cousins are worse than mine in this regard. But of late I haven’t had too much opportunity for comparisons. I hardly get invited by any of my relatives. Also the source has dried up. The second generation is now coming of age and now on we might have reason to be called as they start getting hitched one by one. Till then it’s relax time.
On Saturday mid way into the party, her uncle calls up and apologises to Jasmine and me for the faux pas. No problem uncle, it really does not matter. We are comfortable. We still love and respect you. But then he insisted that we come. Ok ok. Now I was tired from office and we had to go to my mom’s house as well. But then if we then do not go that would mean that we would count not being invited as a snub. If Jasmine went without me then it would mean that I counted that as a snub. Oops. So we both went for the function and then went to mommy’s house.
The sweet uncle for all apologetic at the function. I told him it’s ok, don’t bother. Shit happens. I am glad that both Jasmine and I don’t really care about it. We like to keep our egos in close check. There are so many mistakes we make in the course of our lives as social creatures. Lots of energy and time is devoted to ensure that egos are placated and crazy rituals are involved to ensure everything, from who sits where and who eats when. It’s stupid. The last thing I would want is to accentuate it by feeling ill will over something I don’t even want to get into. Got invited… great. Did not get invited… greater. They forgot you existed… greatest. I think in ninth or tenth standard I read a poen in school which had these lines to close the poem. “Steal from the world, and not a stone tell where I lie”. Google search mind refresher – the poem was by Alexander Pope.

Hey I just read the whole poem again. It’s pretty inspirational. I had forgotten the words. But is so clearly remember the class in which it was taught. I think one the best things that happened in those days was that the school principal Fr Adolf, came to teach poetry in class. He only took the poetry lessons. The principal is not normally expected to teach and his predecessors hadn’t taught us anything. But the fact that the principal took one poetry class every week for us, signified the importance of poetry, at least in my head. He came in and dicussed a poetry from the book. He used to allow us, rather encourage us to think. We were a boy’s school and the only person we really feared was the princy. And this princy was feared as he was a bit authoritarian, came in and taught poetry. Opposites reconciling? It is from him that I learnt to throw chocolates in class for good answers. He threw éclairs and melody chocolates to kids giving answers. I still use that as an effective strategy when I teach for encouraging people to think and students after many years still remember that and tell me that they really tried their best to get a chocolate in my class. And these are ‘hard nosed and bored’ college students, no less.
This poem was taught to us by this princy. I had a difference in the understanding on the last lines. I read it as the poet wanting not to steal even a stone from the world and was challenging the world to prove if he ever lied. The sweet princy heard me, thought through, agreed and then explained the right interpretation. Not once did he say I was wrong. In fact I remember his argument as if it was yesterday. He said ‘I would have agreed with you if not for the comma put before the and in the line. If the comma came after the word – stone, then your interpretation might hold good, but now if you pause at world and the word ‘and’ comes there, it almost like starting a new sentence with ‘not a stone…’; and hence the conventional and straightforward explanations.

Here, read the entire poem. I don’t know if I really liked it then. But I seem to like it now. Probably it resonates better with my current being.

Ode on Solitude

How happy he, who free from care
The rage of courts, and noise of towns;
Contented breathes his native air,
In his own grounds.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide swift away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unheard, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

-- Alexander Pope