Salted Away

Of the many interesting clients I had in my career in venture capital, Ranga was the nicest.  That he was, like many small scale industrialists of the time, not averse to some self-aggrandisement at the cost of about everyone he did business with, was purely a matter of detail.  I use the past tense, for he has moved on, no doubt, to sell a copy of the Bhagvad Gita to Lord Krishna (at discount to the price charged by MNCs).  He was a small, avuncular man, dressed in white and had a clean, dapper look about him that endeared him to everyone.  He ran a small little company in Chennai manufacturing proteins for his erstwhile employer, an MNC, and profits for himself, his business existing on the excise and employee-compensation privileges enjoyed by small units, when compared to the big ones (and, on useful occasion, some tax evasion as well). 

Ranga would have been most content bagging the local award instituted by his street for small scale industrialist of the year, but for a chance meeting.  It was widely rumoured (and such rumours are often perfectly true) that he had met my company Chairman, an old schoolmate of his, at the December music festival.  Now, Ranga, among his talents, could recognise the difference between an opportunity and a protein and, in a trice, he had sold his project idea to make iron-fortified iodised (and God-knows-what-else) salt to the unsuspecting deficient public.  The benefits of such salt seemed numerous, and my Chairman should have promised to consume a packet or two, for there is no better way to put off such entrepreneurs than by becoming a customer.  He couldn’t though, you see, due to his blood pressure, though till the day he retired, he never hesitated to rub salt in others’ wounds (particularly on issues of salary hikes for his star employees, one of whom is the writer).

Sorry for the digression, but let’s pull back.  I was asked to manage the investment in this new goldmine.  Not evaluate the investment opportunity, mind you, for that had been done by God himself, but only manage it.  Ranga got his first 20 lakhs from our fund and sat down to make the iron-fortified iodised salt in a stable, marketable form.  Iron – the lonely bugger - has a tendency to attract oxygen and, rusted salt, you will admit, is unlikely to be the next big thing (unless you are aiming for toxicity).  Every quarter, I’d visit his lab in Chennai and come away deeply impressed at the diligence, the sheer assiduousness, the focus exhibited by the team of scientists, entirely comprising him and his daughter.  They’d show me the R&D register of about a hundred combinations tried, without success, and would watch my face carefully to gauge any expressions.  There were none, since I had no clue anyway.  

Ranga, nevertheless, remained the eternal gentleman.  Shortly after my wedding, he informed me that his son-in-law’s Fiat car in Chennai was up for sale, if I was interested. It was in very good condition, he affirmed, and would be available at an attractive price of Rs. 62,000 (those were the days before conflict-of-interest was coined as a watchword).  I put the money down right away and drove the car back to Bangalore with the air of an achiever.  The car, I will assert, worked well for about twenty five days.  Around the fourth weekend after the acquisition, I was driving the family out to Whitefield, when a persistent rattling sound attracted our collective attention.  I looked at all the cars on either side to warn them of a problem with their vehicles, but was surprised to see some of them point to mine.  We stopped and I got off to take a look.  The exhaust pipe – a long gloomy-looking metal barrel – was trailing the Fiat by a good two metres, attached to the car by the thinnest of pieces, and enjoying itself in the process, bouncing up and down the road.  There were some pieces of metal sticking out below the chassis as well: no doubt these had, once upon a time, held the exhaust in place.  When I looked under the chassis – the first time I had done so, of course, much of what I saw was corroded, the rest was rather brown, much as if the iron-fortified salt had been liberally applied for keeps.  Other than a smoky sort of smell, all else seemed under control. 

Well, one can be generous and optimistic; these things happen.  With a cloth in my hand, I picked the exhaust pipe up gingerly and dropped it in the boot and we decided to continue.  The engine though now sounded less like a car and more like a rather angry aircraft carrying a bovine with an upset stomach.  Passers-by stopped to stare and shake their heads and, of course, one could not stay immune to feedback.  When, a few minutes later, a couple of lights dropped off, I knew that I was pushing my luck.  That the vehicle brought us back home was a tribute to its will-power and desire to do the right thing by its owner.

The head mechanic at the garage that repaired my car was delighted, for, as he explained gleefully, he had never seen such a decrepit piece.  After changing about everything in it and pocketing the substantial cash (about 15% of the cost of the car), he advised me to sell the car as soon as possible. 

It was time to call Ranga again.  He was his usual courteous self and, when I told him that I had decided to upgrade to a Maruti and wanted to sell the Fiat in Chennai – I can lie to keep a friendship - he was deeply moved and promised all help.  I sent the car to his place and he put an ad in the local paper and, on my behalf, actually negotiated the same price that I had paid him, which convinced me that, when it came to rip-offs, he was non-pareil.

Coincidentally, this period was when the team of respected scientists, led by Mr. Rip-Off got their product stable.   They now had the solution.  But, a solution to what?  For, was there really a problem?  Those who needed iron, I now learnt, were getting free-of-cost pills from the Primary Health Centres and the Tamil Nadu Government did not seem to fall over itself chasing the product. We had invested some more money (our Chairman was known to be persistent) and we virtually owned the company, having put up all the risk capital.  Ranga, in his gentle way, blamed the absence of sales (there were no sales at all, a unique record of sorts) on the bureaucracy, an easy and convenient villian.  In about three years, I gave up, and our Fund moved the investment to a category that could be called “Hopelessly written off, with no Earthly chance of any money coming back.  Try Mars.”

I learnt later that some of our money had gone into a new car, no doubt, for the son-in-law.