Water From Stone

About thirty years ago, I worked in an investment team that was led by one of those superior types, who walked around with his nose at 45 degrees to mean sea level.  For the record, he had much to be modest about, as indeed all of us did, but that was lost on him (self-delusion cannot be suppressed with paracetamol – old jungle saying). 

One day, a proposal for investing in a textile mill in Coimbatore that had gone bust landed up. The company was up to its neck in debt (and it had the neck of an ostrich, lemme tell you), yet needed more money and the family that ran the business asked one of its own – a US-MBA type - to take over (the fact that he agreed was indicative of his IQ, but it did not occur to me then).

If you know anything about textile mills, you are probably in stitches by now and laughing yourself sick.  The general rule is, the more spindles you have, the higher your societal value in Coimbatore, and the more losses you show in the financial statements.  The only way to make money off a textile mill is to keep digging below the factory floor till you strike oil.  

Under every circumstance, we would have neatly stacked this proposal document in the weekly waste paper sale to the raddi-wala (which was at that time the only profitable activity we did), but that year we were hopelessly behind the annual investment target (those who set targets should be tried in a court reserved for War Crimes), so the team head – I shall call him Mr Vapour – decided that I should take a look.

…which in his language generally meant, We should take a Good Look and hit the Invest button.    

I was ok about it for two reasons:

- I had now some work to do to keep myself occupied

- I was heavily into reading Warren Buffett in those days and he too had begun with a bust textile mill (Warren, do note that’s where the similarity sort of ends).

(talk of vested interests)

Now, there were a thousand reasons to be cautious as hell about this deal, but Vapour had made up his mind (or what was left of it).  So, I waded through mindless stuff on spindles, cotton and jargon, without understanding anything.  What I did understand – the balance sheet – reminded me of Jaws 3, because it was terrifying.  We then made a case for investment (which must be under the Deep Fiction section somewhere in the archives of the company now), while I prayed for divine intervention (Indian Express headline, “Lightning strikes Coimbatore Mill, machinery to be exchanged for eighteen bags of peanuts”) and waited anxiously for the Big Day to present this basket case to our Board. 

If you have ever doubted the existence of The Higher Power, please note: He’s There, alive and kicking.

A day before the Big Day, the company’s MD – influenced no doubt by a kamikaze pilot or by something he had illegally inhaled – called me and set out a list of conditions if we were to invest. 

Hang on: we should have been setting the conditions! 

So, knowing what Vapour would do (which is to succumb to this lunacy), I went to his boss, i.e., my super boss – that’s nowadays called ‘doing a skip level’.  He let out a sardonic, low-decibel sort of laugh-cum-growl, used a string of rich, colourful adjectives to describe the MD, his parentage (which was cast in serious conjecture) and about most of Coimbatore's textile industry and asked me to tell the MD to fly a kite, which message I passed on at once, asking him to choose from either flying kites or digging for oil.  

ps: I did not actually do the last part, but it makes the ending sort of cool.  

ps2: Vapour may have forgiven me, I suppose, but he does not show it.   

…and, finally, 

ps3: and, here is what the Oracle from Omaha has to say in general:

When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

Kaziranga One Fine Afternoon

Kaziranga,
March 11th

Big Horn Buffalo with Bar Headed Geese

I am the only person in the Gypsy and the driver stops at Kohora gate to pick up the other three who have booked their safari with him.  They clamber on, a young couple and their friend who takes his seat beside me, camera in one hand, coke in the other.  

Now, I know they say you should not judge people at first glance.  Actually, they say you should not judge people.  And I say they speak rot.  

I promise, it is not the coke (which they finish in turns in about 30 seconds because the bottle has to be discarded outside).  But you learn to identify idiots when you see them, call it perverse experience. 

Mr Couple is full of questions to the driver.  Such as, will we see tigers?   Coke is not satisfied: will we see white tigers?  How many tigers are there?  So many?  Well, then why no white one?  How many rhinos?  So many?  Then, do tigers eat rhinos?  Coke does not ask why white tigers don’t eat rhinos, so I am deeply grateful.

It’s all that sugar in that bloody bathroom-cleaner drink that makes them delirious.

  

All three have their mobiles with which they are 

1. Sending messages

2. Taking photographs

3. Scrolling on Instagram

4. Combing hair (Mrs Couple) and checking if that seven-micron scratch on the nose is now visible.

We haven’t begun the journey yet and there is a rhino in the distance and Mr Couple asks Mrs to take his photo on his mobile with rhino as dot-in-horizon wallpaper. 

Then,

Mr clicks Mrs with rhino-in-horizon

Coke clicks both and shares with larger planet on Insta

Then Mrs clicks Coke and Mr

Then Driver clicks them

Then, our Gypsy is joined by another Gypsy at the hip, which has a large Bengali family of about 63 adults and 22 kids that are doing this team outing to have an incisive debate on why someone’s brother-in-law is not to be trusted with an agreement to sell a flat near Gariahat?  

I understand enough Bengali to not want to buy this flat.

Then, we begin the safari.

Then - immediately - we see a tiger crossing a lake.

Which I somehow feel deep inside is bloody unfair, though it is unfair, I know, to feel unfair.  

I am watching it swim through the binocs (the tiger is swimming in the stream, not through the binocs, hope you got that right), and the three are so excited that they forget that You Live For Reels.  As the tiger walks up the other bank and enters the bushes, about 84 Bongs want to know where the tiger is and are looking, with heightened animation, in the wrong direction, while, from the 85th, I learn that the lift isn't working in the Gariahat flat.  

The bird life is, as always, incredible!

The utterly majestic grey headed fish eagle

European Widgeon, Mr and Mrs.  
My first ever sighting

Bar headed geese are philosophers.  Always searching.

and we see a herd of jumbos by the side and they are chilled out (I wouldn't want them any other way, incidentally).

And one showed us his backside

All this while, the Couple pose, share, repose. Coke is impatient.

One more TIGER, says Coke (he is ok with non-white now).  And the more I hear about the brother-in-law, the more he makes Amrish Puri in Mr India seem like a Buddhist monk. 

I whisper a question to Driver: can we separate at the hip from Gariahat please and he smiles knowingly and slows down.  Sometime later, we are by a stream, I am staring up at the canopy and Mr Couple is standing, mobile video at work.  Something in the water, he says, in our area, we call it Oondh.  

I swivel and see smooth coated otters!  Three of them, swimming steadily in the middle of the stream and up close.  They have seen us too, the one in front popping up, periscope-like, the others right behind.  They are beautiful, graceful, effervescent and as enigmatic as ever  and to see them there on a lazy late afternoon in one of the world’s most beautiful wilderness regions! We watch - in absolute silence - until they are gone.

And all is forgiven.  

Maybe I will consider that flat in Gariahat if these three buy it along with me.

And the Great Hornbill.  What a magnificient species this is.

Home

 Sunday, March 16th

It's a beautiful warm morning and we set out to see the forest from afar.  Today, we will not go in, for an elephant walked our way a few hours ago and is in there somewhere.

Somewhere in those hundred-odd acres that once belonged to a Jagirdar, but is now protected, the result of which is the sort of biodiversity we dream to see.

The flowering of jalaari -Shorea roxburghii - is an annual dream-come-alive, as this little forest responds with a burst of colour, fragrance and, to a fervent imagination, delightful melody, for the bees and the wings sing.  It is short and ineffably sweet, as indeed all good things must be.  

This year, it's done.  Fresh bright green leaves have taken the space left by the spectacular flowers that now cover the ground in a brown crunchy layer.  Perhaps there is philosophy there too - ashes to ashes, dust to dust, as that old one on Lillee and Thommo, those fast bowling relics of the '70s, goes.  

In the distance, we see a tree-in-red: that is the coral tree, Erythrina indica, in full bloom and it is a rich and fiery colour.  The lemon-yellow that is closer?  That is a favourite, the laburnum or konnapoo tree offered to the Gods in about a month from now during the lovely festival of Vishu.  This tree has bloomed well and is getting a rich dressing on its canopy as it awaits the real summer......

And amidst this cornucopia is a tree shorn of flowers and leaves; the fruits dangle with the bareness of deciduous magnificence.  This is Diospyros melanoxylon, thubre mara, and we savour the pulpy, tangy, astringent fruit and chat and laze around and pray that forest fires and human desires keep away.  Close by is a tree with astonishingly similar fruits that can give you a hard time if consumed, maggari mara or Catunaregam spinosa, fruits that in those days gone by were used to work up a solution to wash clothes.

Next week, elephant permitting, we will wander in on a fine morning.

For the forest is home.  

Bovinity is not for me

February 2nd 2025

The other day, Seenappa and I, on examining the lime plants at Random Rubble, the farm, carefully concluded that they had been attacked by stem borers.  Now, as you know, I keep myself abreast of the latest developments in scientific thinking, so I immediately thought of cow urine.  

The head of IIT Madras, in a deeply emotional moment of bovine divinity (which phrase shall henceforth be termed bovinity and is my unique contribution to the language),  has endorsed cow urine as a panacea for a variety of diseases (including dullness between the ears because of a pre-existing vacuum).  Since he has not specifically mentioned stem borer, I asked ChatGPT for help and, accordingly, Seenappa prepared a solution of cow urine + garlic + chilli with a teaspoon of asafoetida, a pinch of which will otherwise repel a blue whale.

I have some advice for you if you have never experienced a solution of cow urine + garlic + chilli + asafoetida.  

Don’t.

We applied this to each plant with a brush (the IIT Director, in keeping with his astute scientific temper and bovinity, would have emphatically disagreed and asked us to apply this with a cow’s tail, but Seenappa’s cows were deeply and violently reluctant to lend their tails and one needs inter-departmental cooperation in these matters).  Besides, you could end up dead, and, as they say in the Wild Wild West, dead men tell no tails.  

About three minutes and twenty two seconds into the application, Seenappa, who was holding up the bucket - had he been in Citibank, he would have been Executive Vice President (Liquidity Management) - began to smell strongly of cow urine + garlic + chilli+asafoetida and I was forced, abandoning table manners and societal decorum, to ask him what he had had for dinner.  

Now, if you have read my earlier posts about this stellar representative of Sapiens ruralicus, you know that when his IQ is compared to that of Winnie the Pooh, Winnie turns out to be an intellectual giant on the same infrared wavelength as Carl Jung.  He stared at me blankly (Seenappa, not Winnie the Pooh) and remarked enquiringly that I was smelling of 

1. Garlic

2. Cow urine

3. asafoetida

4. Chilli

and appeared surprised by the coincidence except for the order of odour (which is such a cool phrase and hence to be bookmarked for future use), all of which, of course, got me raving mad, but there was nothing to be done.  

As we progressed, the lime fruits on the plants, which are world famous in Bangalore for their citrusy fragrance, began to smell of bloody cow urine + garlic + chilli + asafoetida, birds abandoned their chicks, the yellow-billed babblers announced their opposition with screechy alarm calls and fled and I saw a mongoose shoot past with a clearly disgusted look in our direction.  

When we were done, I hung up my gloves after rinsing them and dropped my clothes in white vinegar, had two baths with lux and Dove, lit seven incense sticks in a never-before seen display of devotion and left a bottle of eucalyptus oil open.  

The next morning, I woke up to a beautiful day smelling of

1. Cow urine

2. Garlic

3. Chilli

4. Asafoetida

William Anders – A tribute, a story and a pledge to think about

 William who?
 
Anders was an astronaut who was assigned to Apollo 8, a particularly dangerous lunar orbit mission in end December 1968, as humans had never been outside earth’s orbit before and he didn’t expect to make the return trip.  Yet, he and two others went off into space and he was hardly excited when they reached the moon itself, for it was a stark, grey, barren and bleak moonscape of depressing monochrome.  ‘Ugly’ he often said when recalling the sight.
 
But they had to do their task of finding the proper landing sites for the missions to follow and photographing these sites, so they got down to work. All of them were equipped with cameras, and Anders was photographing the grey and forbidding moonscape in monochrome when – unexpectedly – he saw something unusual in rich colour from the corner of his weary eye, ‘a shining blue marble that was rising above the moon, wreathed in cloud’, a gorgeous, fetching sight and he realised, with surprise and feverish excitement, that this was the Earth.
 

It was so beautiful and enthralling to see - that little, shining blue marble - that he was emotionally overwhelmed. “Oh my God!  Look at that picture over there!  There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!” he told the others and scrambled to load the camera with colour film.  He had no light meter, so he took a number of photos, changing the F-stops and the aperture with every click, hoping that a few would come out well. 
 
Once that was done, all Anders wanted to do was to look out of the window at the Earth.  It was Christmas Eve and that little blue marble looked like a fragile, delicate, gorgeously ornate ornament on a Christmas tree.  Anders thought of the tumultuous events that were underway in that marble beyond the moon: a catastrophic Cold War underway in Vietnam, a young generation across the developed world in rage and protest with riots in Europe and campuses in the US in flames, the ravaging of soil, water and mountain and burning forests leaving depredation in its wake….all in that delicate blue marble that needed people to work with each other, not at each other, that needed collaboration, not conflict, hearts not guns, forests not giant dams and gouged-out ravaged land.
 
Years later, Edgar Mitchell, an astronaut on Apollo 14 and the sixth man to walk on the moon, memorably put it like this: “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a ---.’”
 
Three of Anders’ photographs developed well and one of them became known as Earth Rise.  It was printed on the covers of magazines, on stamps and on posters that decorated countless walls in campuses. It was the catalyst that, alongside Rachel Carson’s book, ‘Silent Spring”, birthed the environmental movement in the developed world, for a photograph is worth a thousand words and stirs a million emotions.  One of the world’s greatest wilderness photographers, Galen Rowell, described it as “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”  
Those photos did more that capture our earth, they captured our imagination. 
 
And he was repeatedly reminded of the wonder he had seen and of what he had said on his return: “We went all the way to the moon to discover the Earth.” And William Anders always wondered if he had actually said it.