…..is a bad idea.
There are far too many things we do not learn in Business School (or any other school) that are learnt later the hard way. When I first interacted actively with Dada, as I shall call him, I knew that two of my classmates, who were going into the stock broking business with him, had made a big (very big) mistake.
Dada was (and, unfortunately, continues to be) full of himself. There is no doubt that he is a smart fellow, knows his Poisson distribution from the bell curve or onion peel, can pattern a technical analysis out of a cow’s random burps and make a presentation on the random walk theory that will stone a professor (but have a somnific effect on the audience). On campus, I had stayed away from Dada, but we now met often, as he lived in a bachelor pad in Indiranagar with other classmates, one of whom was a close friend.
A tall, generously built fellow, with a smile (that superior knowledge of the Poisson distribution always endows) and an infectious enthusiasm for anything to do with the stock market, he always dominated a friends’ conversation. What made his company particularly tiresome were his paens to his three loves - I, me and myself - never ceasing to advertise his proficiency. This made me step back and question the friendship – he didn’t, I reasoned, need friends, he needed an audience.
After a year and a half at a dead end job in Bangalore, Dada mooted the idea of starting a stock broking firm in New Delhi. It was late 1992; Harshad Mehta was on a roll, the stock market was ringing away and all was right in the best of all possible Worlds. One evening, there were five of us sitting in the bachelors’ pad, amidst a sea of stock market reports, magazines and dusty newspapers (that never failed to induce a bout of sneezing). I watched his voluble persuasion - a sales pitch to the gang to join up and start a broking company - affect two vacillating classmates, while the third (the friend I was close to) stayed unmoved. He spoke about the Tata Steel Secured Promissory Notes with a conviction that would have done Newton (or JRD) proud. Research was sniffing out the little gem, he intoned, not re-establishing that a donkey has two ears. Dada had his way; the two came onboard and another classmate joined later.
The company began with much promise. This was actually its problem, for it promised much to all those who chose it to manage their wealth. Dada, as the team leader, had the self-anointed role of the Brains Trust, the Bright Ideas Guy and he backed his ideas with Other People’s Money (that you could christen, OPiuM). This was taken a step further when Dada began to trade on his account – using savings or personal loans to buy shares in his own name.
Now, the problem with the markets is this: when things are going well, a monkey can make money, as indeed it did in a famous experiment years ago, for a rising tide lifts all boats. If you get in then, your success goes to your head and you get in deeper, playing for higher stakes, taking for granted that the music will not stop. This phase is, in the sophisticated language of the sceptics, called the Bigger Fool theory - you are buying in the hope of selling at a profit to a bigger fool.
The music does stop. Always.
A couple of years later, the markets had crashed, the broking business was in shambles, huge amounts were owed to all and sundry, and the fallout began as the company disintegrated, leaving one of the four (not Dada) holding the pieces. Friendship can scarcely outlive such trauma.
Yet, you might ask, how is this different from a situation where the four came together as business partners and not, originally, as friends? Would the outcome have been different?
If, I contend, they were coming together as possible partners (and not friends originally), the three would have been careful before saying ‘Yes’, sizing the others up and listening to their inner voice of caution. Friendship makes ‘No’ much more difficult and its easy to assume that all will be well tomorrow. It gets worse – friendship leads one to believe that the friends-cum-partners will agree on everything. Disagreements, as there always will be, become personal. When, to protect the friendship, a partner keeps quiet, the ‘lose-win’ result does not go away; it lingers beneath the surface. Doing business with those related to you, by the way, whom you know well, is just as risky.
An excellent book by Dan Ariely, “Predictably Irrational”, provides more light on all this (you should read it). Ariely notes that there are two norms for all of us : a social norm and a market norm, both of which don’t really go with each other. Any indication of money moves people (irretrievably) to the market norm. Say, you are a young male software techie who lives by yourself in an apartment complex. An elderly couple live next door : their son is about your age and he lives in the US. The couple tell you that they miss their son deeply; they are keen to build a friendship with you. As you become friends – the chat in the lift, the odd favour to each other including setting Skype up for them – the lady offers graciously to provide you dinner on weekends, cooking a bit more than they need. Home food!
Must you offer to pay?
Ariely says ‘Don’t’. If there is a cash exchange that results, the norm changes significantly to market: is the food good enough, you ask? Is he paying a market rate and what’s my margin, she muses? As the questions increase, the arrangement – a win-win otherwise - becomes tricky to sustain. A far better option is to provide her (or them) a gift occasionally to keep the reciprocity firmly in the social norm zone.
So much for theory. But, what happened to the gang of four and to the Invincible One, in particular? The two initial followers had to toil hard to pick themselves up and have just not met their potential as talented people. The One Who Stayed Back learnt his lessons on crisis management realtime and has done a pretty sound job – always the quiet one, when the going got tough, he got going. And Dada? A tribute to his resilience is the fact that Dada continues to provide advice – generally unsolicited – even as he tosses in the sea of the stock market.
Humans, except the good and the great, never learn.
Very interestingly, relationships where business partners become friends work much better. There are numerous examples, but I cannot think of one better than the equation my uncle had with his business partner, Sukumaran Menon, in Kochi – they ran an accounting firm for, hold your breath, about 52 years together, before this gentleman passed away. Along the way, they - and the families – became friends.
A final note :
I made one exception to my rule of not working with friends. When we decided to build a small cottage in our farm in Javalagiri, I had no hesitation in asking Peeyush, a close architect friend, to help design my home. The final outcome has been wonderful – a lovely home, even better friendship. How did that happen ?
While we set expectations and focussed on each other’s strengths, it was his genial, collaborative nature that was the key. You don’t find many like him.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
With Malufide Intent
I find it very hard to understand the average Malayalee, though I am allegedly one. ‘Allegedly’ since I have never lived in Kerala, but visit a couple of times a year. Where your parents come from or what language they speak has nothing to do with your ‘native’, as we Indians refer to our homeland within the country; it is, instead, where you grow up and what you speak that determines who you are.
The Malayalee I refer to here is the one who has had his upbringing in Malu-land (hence, his ‘native’ is Kerala) and, while you could accuse me of a male bias when writing, particularly since Kerala has more women than men, it is the men who are the subject of my note. The reason I find the average Malayalee a tricky fellow to cipher is because he a bundle of contradictions. But let me start at the beginning…..
The average Malayalee is, well, average. You will find the odd flash of brilliance here and there, yet, unlike his counterparts in the other southern states, you do not find masses of people who invent wheels, silicon chips and stuff, the way, for instance, TamBrahms do. His (the Malayalee’s) primary skill is in being street smart, which is quite different from being brilliant. Put a Malu into a difficult situation and he will emerge, generally, unscathed, his white Mundu spotless and quartered at half mast, while others around him are on all fours, picking up the pieces. Take him out of Kerala into a hostile desert, charmingly and inappropriately called the ‘Gulf’, and he will work his teeth out to survive first and then prosper, showering that prosperity on his relations back home and building a mansion dressed in the colours of the rainbow. Transplant him now on the moon and, since he has once read of Richard Branson’s space flight plans in the Mathrubhumi, he will set up a tea stall that can brew a local arrack as well. Bangalore’s kirana stores business is dominated by friendly Malu souls who will not hesitate to smile and have a brief social word, while they do their jobs with astonishing zest. Yet, in Kerala, the Malu will do nothing.
This is contradiction number one.
On second thoughts, I am wrong. The Malu does one thing, when in Kerala – he talks. And talks. In the power of speech, he is second to none. He will hold forth, with considerable expertise, his tone expressing disdain, always animated, rarely laudatory, on a vast range of topics, and offer opinions and advice on subjects on which he hasn’t the faintest idea. I have sat silent (no mean achievement, for there is a small part of the Malu in me), while worthies around me have exchanged cogent, contrasting views on genetic mutations in agriculture. Yet, this never translates into action as long as he stays in Kerala. Contradiction number two.
Malu-land is itself a contradiction – the countryside is breathtaking, yet the towns are an urban planner’s concrete nightmare. Everyone recognises this, yet there is an overwhelming rush to convert the country into the town, so much so that the length of Kerala is today one large town, and, as you drive, a breather of the countryside is visible, before the next nightmare appears on the horizon. On the same plane of contradictions, the birth of India’s environment movement was in Kerala (Silent Valley, remember?), yet the State houses some of the most polluting factories in India (including the public sector, Hindustan Insectidies Limited, that makes the dangerous pesticide endosulfan), and is itching to convert most of its forests into hydro dams for the energy needed to light up its gold malls.
The State has an excellent palliative care program that is second to none and a developed network of healthcare. A significant part of this program caters to (and here comes the contradiction) alcoholics. Why I see this as another contradiction is because no one has the will to reduce consumption of liquor (as it adds loads of cash to the State’s coffers), but the State offers the best treatment in this country to one who has drunk enough and more to help the State balance its budget. One Malu army man once proudly told me that you could take a Malu out of Kerala, but cannot take Kerala out of the Malu. I am convinced that the itinerant Malu-on-song uses this argument while nursing his whisky. Contradiction four.
The Kathakali is the epitome of Kerala’s fine culture, an intricate and evolved dance form aesthetic and subtle requiring the viewer’s undivided attention. This is in sharp contrast, of course, to the Kodangallur temple’s annual festival, where large groups of men and women sing the most obscene songs and recite salacious poetry, composed in moments of heightened creative endeavour, with devotional fervour. Contradiction five. I am told that the common link is that practitioners of both forms of art imbibe the local brew for inspiration.
The women of Kerala are apparently amongst the most emancipated (if you go by statistics) and, yet, on the footpaths of its towns and on village trails, there cannot be more hazards for them, as men, drunken or otherwise, showcase their humour in peer company. This definition of emancipation is an oxymoron.
Malu TV is equally fascinating and contradictory; the most involved discussions are on human rights – reviling the US’s presence in Iraq or the role of the French in the Ivory Coast – yet, in Kerala, the human has few rights: on the narrow roads that weave in and out of the towns of Kerala, private buses drive with maniacal disregard for safety, their speed only matched by the tongue lashing served by unsmiling conductors on their customers, a conversation that adds richly to your vocabulary.
And, the last contradiction comes to mind. The Communist Party first came to power as a protector of agriculture labour, its main constituency. Well, today, there is no agriculture labour. Indeed, there is hardly any agriculture, when compared to other states. Kerala imports a huge part of its food, even rice (Palakkad was once the rice bowl for the state). Seasonal labour is imported from Tamil Nadu, since much of the local labour does not exist anymore. If the average Malu is not in the Gulf or outside Kerala, he is, of course, in Kerala. Where he does nothing (refer paragragh three).
Perhaps there are some that I have missed, but you get the gist: this then is the contradiction that is Kerala. I sometimes wonder if the Malu figures these contradictions out in his quick thinking mind. A travelogue I once read on Kerala describes the Malus as a ‘simple people’. If that is true, then I clearly am Pink Floyd.
The Malayalee I refer to here is the one who has had his upbringing in Malu-land (hence, his ‘native’ is Kerala) and, while you could accuse me of a male bias when writing, particularly since Kerala has more women than men, it is the men who are the subject of my note. The reason I find the average Malayalee a tricky fellow to cipher is because he a bundle of contradictions. But let me start at the beginning…..
The average Malayalee is, well, average. You will find the odd flash of brilliance here and there, yet, unlike his counterparts in the other southern states, you do not find masses of people who invent wheels, silicon chips and stuff, the way, for instance, TamBrahms do. His (the Malayalee’s) primary skill is in being street smart, which is quite different from being brilliant. Put a Malu into a difficult situation and he will emerge, generally, unscathed, his white Mundu spotless and quartered at half mast, while others around him are on all fours, picking up the pieces. Take him out of Kerala into a hostile desert, charmingly and inappropriately called the ‘Gulf’, and he will work his teeth out to survive first and then prosper, showering that prosperity on his relations back home and building a mansion dressed in the colours of the rainbow. Transplant him now on the moon and, since he has once read of Richard Branson’s space flight plans in the Mathrubhumi, he will set up a tea stall that can brew a local arrack as well. Bangalore’s kirana stores business is dominated by friendly Malu souls who will not hesitate to smile and have a brief social word, while they do their jobs with astonishing zest. Yet, in Kerala, the Malu will do nothing.
This is contradiction number one.
On second thoughts, I am wrong. The Malu does one thing, when in Kerala – he talks. And talks. In the power of speech, he is second to none. He will hold forth, with considerable expertise, his tone expressing disdain, always animated, rarely laudatory, on a vast range of topics, and offer opinions and advice on subjects on which he hasn’t the faintest idea. I have sat silent (no mean achievement, for there is a small part of the Malu in me), while worthies around me have exchanged cogent, contrasting views on genetic mutations in agriculture. Yet, this never translates into action as long as he stays in Kerala. Contradiction number two.
Malu-land is itself a contradiction – the countryside is breathtaking, yet the towns are an urban planner’s concrete nightmare. Everyone recognises this, yet there is an overwhelming rush to convert the country into the town, so much so that the length of Kerala is today one large town, and, as you drive, a breather of the countryside is visible, before the next nightmare appears on the horizon. On the same plane of contradictions, the birth of India’s environment movement was in Kerala (Silent Valley, remember?), yet the State houses some of the most polluting factories in India (including the public sector, Hindustan Insectidies Limited, that makes the dangerous pesticide endosulfan), and is itching to convert most of its forests into hydro dams for the energy needed to light up its gold malls.
The State has an excellent palliative care program that is second to none and a developed network of healthcare. A significant part of this program caters to (and here comes the contradiction) alcoholics. Why I see this as another contradiction is because no one has the will to reduce consumption of liquor (as it adds loads of cash to the State’s coffers), but the State offers the best treatment in this country to one who has drunk enough and more to help the State balance its budget. One Malu army man once proudly told me that you could take a Malu out of Kerala, but cannot take Kerala out of the Malu. I am convinced that the itinerant Malu-on-song uses this argument while nursing his whisky. Contradiction four.
The Kathakali is the epitome of Kerala’s fine culture, an intricate and evolved dance form aesthetic and subtle requiring the viewer’s undivided attention. This is in sharp contrast, of course, to the Kodangallur temple’s annual festival, where large groups of men and women sing the most obscene songs and recite salacious poetry, composed in moments of heightened creative endeavour, with devotional fervour. Contradiction five. I am told that the common link is that practitioners of both forms of art imbibe the local brew for inspiration.
The women of Kerala are apparently amongst the most emancipated (if you go by statistics) and, yet, on the footpaths of its towns and on village trails, there cannot be more hazards for them, as men, drunken or otherwise, showcase their humour in peer company. This definition of emancipation is an oxymoron.
Malu TV is equally fascinating and contradictory; the most involved discussions are on human rights – reviling the US’s presence in Iraq or the role of the French in the Ivory Coast – yet, in Kerala, the human has few rights: on the narrow roads that weave in and out of the towns of Kerala, private buses drive with maniacal disregard for safety, their speed only matched by the tongue lashing served by unsmiling conductors on their customers, a conversation that adds richly to your vocabulary.
And, the last contradiction comes to mind. The Communist Party first came to power as a protector of agriculture labour, its main constituency. Well, today, there is no agriculture labour. Indeed, there is hardly any agriculture, when compared to other states. Kerala imports a huge part of its food, even rice (Palakkad was once the rice bowl for the state). Seasonal labour is imported from Tamil Nadu, since much of the local labour does not exist anymore. If the average Malu is not in the Gulf or outside Kerala, he is, of course, in Kerala. Where he does nothing (refer paragragh three).
Perhaps there are some that I have missed, but you get the gist: this then is the contradiction that is Kerala. I sometimes wonder if the Malu figures these contradictions out in his quick thinking mind. A travelogue I once read on Kerala describes the Malus as a ‘simple people’. If that is true, then I clearly am Pink Floyd.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Adrak Ke Panje
In early March, I was at a corner of Assam, at a small eco-camp alongside the Dibru river. In the three mornings that I spent there, there was a regular boat that would come up the river to the roadhead, which was just across from where I stayed. Sack after sack would then be offloaded onto a waiting truck. The work was back-breaking.
On the third day, I summoned up courage to have a chat with the boat’s pilot, who looked to be an easy going sort of fellow. “Ginger,” he pointed at the sacks being loaded onto the truck, “we grow it across the river in Arunachal and bring it here.”
“How far away is the village where this is grown?”
“About five hours by boat…”
“…and you do this journey everyday?”
“Of course. How else will I make money?”
The truck driver, a Sardarji, was reticent, even forbidding. He sat on his high horse, in a manner of speaking, as I stood below, reading the morning Hindi paper.
“Where do you take this ginger?” I asked
“To Delhi.” was the terse reply.
“… and how long does it take to reach Delhi from here?”
“About five days.”
“After which, do you get rest before you return?”
He replied with a sound that was the mixture of a snort and a laugh, short and sarcastic. But, not giving up, I repeated the question.
“I get a day’s rest, without pay.” he muttered. Sensing that I had overstayed my welcome (if that is an appropriate word in the context), I wandered off to look at the Hollock Gibbons in the nearby forest.
So, if you live in New Delhi, remember the farmer in Arunachal who grows your ginger. It truly has become an incredibly connected world.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Earth (H)our
At 8.30 pm on March 26th, as we turn off all electrical points in our homes for an hour, we could consider this an atonement, albiet a token one, for the economic runway that we have laid out for ourselves, riding on a blasphemous belief that energy – as much energy as we need - is a birthright.
Most people I know will switch off a light when they leave the room, yet this is hardly conservation; this is decency, protocol, the done thing, just as most people I know would say ‘Thank you’ when they were gifted a present. Conservation begins by questioning what could be done to change a lifestyle that is energy intensive and getting worse by the day.
A few months ago, a young journalist, Namrata Nandakumar, did a short study on electricity consumption in two urban spaces in Bangalore city. She first chose a slum which had ‘authorised’ access to electricity, a slum of three and a half thousand homes called Ullalu Upanagara, that houses about five times that number of people, during a post-monsoon month when there was no significant power cut. The monthly electricity bill for the entire colony was Rs. 2.38 lakhs. In contrast, Bangalore’s most popular mall, The Forum Mall, with a sanctioned load of 4 megawatts of electricity, had a monthly bill of about Rs. 85-90 lakhs (which included its expenditure on diesel for generators) for the energy it used with abandon, including the cooling of an enormous common areas around the day.
Recognise the sobering reality that energy is a finite resource currently in acute short supply in India. As the country’s GDP trots along, much more of it will be needed to supply basic energy needs to millions of our people as well as to meet the consumptive lifestyle of urban India. Energy comes at a cost, a cost well hidden from most of us who live in protected urban India and take planes when we travel : the costs, ecological, psychological, financial and otherwise, of displacement of people, damming of rivers, submergence of land and forests, pollution from thermal plants and carbon dioxide emissions and huge consumption of natural resources. Recognise that this is not a historical cost but a running one - for instance, the origins of the Maoist problem and the slums of urban India can be traced to our energy projects - and the true impact of the Mall’s consumption begins to emerge. Recognise, in addition, that the production of every litre of diesel needs 9,200 litres of water and 2-3% of the diesel that is imported into India is consumed in its own transportation to the consumer.
Yet, none of us would seem particularly perturbed with these numbers, ascribing them to a convenient rung on the ladder of development, for we empathise, not with the slum, but with the mall. It is a lifestyle that, though recent and foreign, is not negotiable. The biggest issue, of course, is that we – literate, well-read, well-meaning, intelligent as we are - do not connect the dots. We cannot, often do not, wish to see the impact of our actions on others. Let us then not blame the Americans for the climate mess we are in. Given an option, we have grabbed the ‘pollute’ lever ourselves for the short term gains that accrue from glamorous living.
I have in front of me, two recent articles that are very recent, yet hardly new in content. The first speaks of the protests last month against the East Coast Energy coal-fired power plant in Srikakulam district in Andhra, during which two people lost their lives, lives that were worth much more than any power plant could possibly match. This plant coming up next to a ecologically fragile wetland has, over the last couple of years, damaged the area and put many fishermen and farmers’ livelihoods in peril as the wetland is excavated and filled up in haste. The police were there, of course, to help push this private project through. This incident was merely a repeat: on July 14, 2010, in Sompeta, where the Nagarjuna Construction Company is building a thermal plant on a wetland, three persons were killed in clashes with the police.
The second article concerns a different source of energy that threatens a different species. If you make your way into the Athirapilly-Vazhachal forests of Kerala, as I have done – dense, wet deciduous forests of breathtaking beauty and surprise – you occasionally hear a loud, pitched call, a distinctive ‘tock-tock-tock’ , or sometimes a heavy whooshing sound. Look up or around (if you are by a ridge) and you might see the Great Indian Hornbill take to the air, the most beautiful, graceful, charismatic, even-tempered bird that has ever been. It is a bird that might see its habitat destroyed with a hydroelectric project proposed by the Kerala State Electricity Board that will generate a measly 160 megawatts, for the forty Forum-Mall-look-alikes that will dot the state to sell the resident Malayalee’s sole fetish: gold. The Hornbill, stunning as it is, is merely a representative species of the priceless biodiversity we stand to lose at Athirapilly, a portion of which is not even known to science as more discoveries enhance our sense of wonder at the mechanics of creation.
To set the record straight, the KSEB is hardly the first State Electricity Board to consider habitat of little use except for submergence, yet it was a pioneer in the destruction effort, with a plan made forty years ago to submerge the Silent Valley. It required the determined effort of Dr. Salim Ali and Mrs. Indira Gandhi to scuttle the project.
The destruction of forests, and the biodiversity within it, is a horrendous cost to pay for our lifestyle, yet it is a cost that few of us understand, even as the decision makers do the hypocritical act of planting the odd sapling to mark an Earth Day or a Wildlife Week. Much before additional power plants of any kind – thermal, nuclear or hydro – are planned, there is need, indeed a pressing, vital need, to use a system of incentives and disincentives to get the energy addicts (that’s us) to reduce our need for the fix. Yet, I have little faith in the Government’s ability to promote a culture of reduction and thrift and a lot more conviction in your ability to reason and conclude.
In my few years in conservation, never have I felt this alarmed at the speed of the consumption gravy-train. On March 26th, therefore, I have a request to make : please switch your lights, air coolers, water heaters and all else off, for just an hour. This, by itself, will make little difference, yet it will hopefully provide the darkness needed for a few moments of solitude.
In those moments, do think of just how you could become part of the solution, just how you could change the way you live your life to reduce, dramatically lessen, the need for energy. I repeat, target, not a 5% drop in consumption but, a 50% reduction in your energy demand. …for unless we press the brake now, the energy gravy train will run over the person on the railway track.
That person is you. And the time to heal the Earth is Now.
Most people I know will switch off a light when they leave the room, yet this is hardly conservation; this is decency, protocol, the done thing, just as most people I know would say ‘Thank you’ when they were gifted a present. Conservation begins by questioning what could be done to change a lifestyle that is energy intensive and getting worse by the day.
A few months ago, a young journalist, Namrata Nandakumar, did a short study on electricity consumption in two urban spaces in Bangalore city. She first chose a slum which had ‘authorised’ access to electricity, a slum of three and a half thousand homes called Ullalu Upanagara, that houses about five times that number of people, during a post-monsoon month when there was no significant power cut. The monthly electricity bill for the entire colony was Rs. 2.38 lakhs. In contrast, Bangalore’s most popular mall, The Forum Mall, with a sanctioned load of 4 megawatts of electricity, had a monthly bill of about Rs. 85-90 lakhs (which included its expenditure on diesel for generators) for the energy it used with abandon, including the cooling of an enormous common areas around the day.
Recognise the sobering reality that energy is a finite resource currently in acute short supply in India. As the country’s GDP trots along, much more of it will be needed to supply basic energy needs to millions of our people as well as to meet the consumptive lifestyle of urban India. Energy comes at a cost, a cost well hidden from most of us who live in protected urban India and take planes when we travel : the costs, ecological, psychological, financial and otherwise, of displacement of people, damming of rivers, submergence of land and forests, pollution from thermal plants and carbon dioxide emissions and huge consumption of natural resources. Recognise that this is not a historical cost but a running one - for instance, the origins of the Maoist problem and the slums of urban India can be traced to our energy projects - and the true impact of the Mall’s consumption begins to emerge. Recognise, in addition, that the production of every litre of diesel needs 9,200 litres of water and 2-3% of the diesel that is imported into India is consumed in its own transportation to the consumer.
Yet, none of us would seem particularly perturbed with these numbers, ascribing them to a convenient rung on the ladder of development, for we empathise, not with the slum, but with the mall. It is a lifestyle that, though recent and foreign, is not negotiable. The biggest issue, of course, is that we – literate, well-read, well-meaning, intelligent as we are - do not connect the dots. We cannot, often do not, wish to see the impact of our actions on others. Let us then not blame the Americans for the climate mess we are in. Given an option, we have grabbed the ‘pollute’ lever ourselves for the short term gains that accrue from glamorous living.
I have in front of me, two recent articles that are very recent, yet hardly new in content. The first speaks of the protests last month against the East Coast Energy coal-fired power plant in Srikakulam district in Andhra, during which two people lost their lives, lives that were worth much more than any power plant could possibly match. This plant coming up next to a ecologically fragile wetland has, over the last couple of years, damaged the area and put many fishermen and farmers’ livelihoods in peril as the wetland is excavated and filled up in haste. The police were there, of course, to help push this private project through. This incident was merely a repeat: on July 14, 2010, in Sompeta, where the Nagarjuna Construction Company is building a thermal plant on a wetland, three persons were killed in clashes with the police.
The second article concerns a different source of energy that threatens a different species. If you make your way into the Athirapilly-Vazhachal forests of Kerala, as I have done – dense, wet deciduous forests of breathtaking beauty and surprise – you occasionally hear a loud, pitched call, a distinctive ‘tock-tock-tock’ , or sometimes a heavy whooshing sound. Look up or around (if you are by a ridge) and you might see the Great Indian Hornbill take to the air, the most beautiful, graceful, charismatic, even-tempered bird that has ever been. It is a bird that might see its habitat destroyed with a hydroelectric project proposed by the Kerala State Electricity Board that will generate a measly 160 megawatts, for the forty Forum-Mall-look-alikes that will dot the state to sell the resident Malayalee’s sole fetish: gold. The Hornbill, stunning as it is, is merely a representative species of the priceless biodiversity we stand to lose at Athirapilly, a portion of which is not even known to science as more discoveries enhance our sense of wonder at the mechanics of creation.
To set the record straight, the KSEB is hardly the first State Electricity Board to consider habitat of little use except for submergence, yet it was a pioneer in the destruction effort, with a plan made forty years ago to submerge the Silent Valley. It required the determined effort of Dr. Salim Ali and Mrs. Indira Gandhi to scuttle the project.
The destruction of forests, and the biodiversity within it, is a horrendous cost to pay for our lifestyle, yet it is a cost that few of us understand, even as the decision makers do the hypocritical act of planting the odd sapling to mark an Earth Day or a Wildlife Week. Much before additional power plants of any kind – thermal, nuclear or hydro – are planned, there is need, indeed a pressing, vital need, to use a system of incentives and disincentives to get the energy addicts (that’s us) to reduce our need for the fix. Yet, I have little faith in the Government’s ability to promote a culture of reduction and thrift and a lot more conviction in your ability to reason and conclude.
In my few years in conservation, never have I felt this alarmed at the speed of the consumption gravy-train. On March 26th, therefore, I have a request to make : please switch your lights, air coolers, water heaters and all else off, for just an hour. This, by itself, will make little difference, yet it will hopefully provide the darkness needed for a few moments of solitude.
In those moments, do think of just how you could become part of the solution, just how you could change the way you live your life to reduce, dramatically lessen, the need for energy. I repeat, target, not a 5% drop in consumption but, a 50% reduction in your energy demand. …for unless we press the brake now, the energy gravy train will run over the person on the railway track.
That person is you. And the time to heal the Earth is Now.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Stuck on You
Narayanan was, without doubt, the most interesting businessman I met in my decade-long career in venture capital. In fact, he was the only one who was as interesting as he was unsuccessful.
His background was the perfect formula for entrepreneurial failure: impeccable, pucca pedigree, an MBA from IIM Calcutta in the early ‘70s and many years selling Coke and other muck from the comfort of a big budget office, before he decided that the one thing India sorely lacked was, well, a bubble gum with attitude (ordinary bubble gum wouldn’t do, of course). He persuaded a couple of friends, who looked to me as though they once possessed some common sense, to join him and Gum India was born. A couple of years later, he pulled off his first impossible trick: he persuaded a venture fund that existed to fund high-technology projects to invest in Gum India – this was a couple of years before I joined the fund.
Narayanan had an unsatiable appetite for risk, particularly when there was no reason to take it and carefully cultivated an air of business expertise and creative thinking about him – he liked people to see him as a man of whacko out-of-the-box ideas. But what set him apart (and possibly still does, for he is very much alive and kicking) was his personality.
A tall, thin man, with a reed-like structure and a rapidly balding pate, he combined charm with wit in astonishing measure. The more his companies – all of which we at TDICI more or less owned – sunk, the greater we seemed to want to fund him, each time for a particularly different, yet outrageous, project. He had access to the very top of the TDICI/ICICI pyramid (I was at the bottom) and everytime we met, he would wear a smile that seemed to be pasted on for my benefit: it combined a certain arrogance with thinly disguised condescension, disdain and pity. This attitude was not without reason. I was fresh out of MBA, green behind the ears and part of an organisation that was accustomed to eating out his hand.
In the five years or so that I struggled to understand just what to do with this company, I was allowed to visit the factory only once and for good measure, for no one who has seen how bubble gum is made will want to
1. buy it
2. eat it
3. sell it
4. fund it
5. or use it to plug a leaking pipe.
To Nari, these were irrelevant considerations. He saw India as bubble gum country, his vision being one of children from Mcleodgunj to Mamallapuram clamouring for their daily dose of gum, thus painting a picture of a true India multinational that would be the envy of Wrigley’s. The reality, though, was much more modest: sales were about a few crores a year and falling. Profits? Well, that was for the future, since for the moment the company had a venture capitalist who would fund the losses.
Every quarter, we’d have a Board Meeting, to which we would go - my boss, his briefcase stacked with papers that analysed the pathetic performance of the company upside down and his face beetroot red as he mulled over the extent of financial damage that we had suffered, and I, determined to not take any nonsense this time and to call a spade a spade. Nari would amble over, pull my boss’ leg and joke on just how beaten I looked working with him. He would ask us out to lunch, speak of cricket with some passion, mull over the next marathon he planned to run, advice us on marketing our services better and ridicule Hindustan Lever’s marketing strategy.
Everytime I raised any business issue with Nari, he would give me his famous look and then confidently predict that the next quarter would be sensational. “After all,” he always said, “ this company is yours. Where will you get a bunch of MBAs working for you at this pathetic salary.” …….and the funny part is, I would always come off from the meeting feeling terribly sympathetic for this talented team. “Perhaps,” I would reason to my colleagues at the next internal meeting, “the next quarter will see a turnaround.” Everyone, of course, thought it was hilarious, since no one had the slightest doubt that our multiple investments in the company were up in smoke. Yet, Nari’s eloquence could be blinding.
In 1991, he predicted that a chain of dosa outlets would be the next big thing. In every part of this country, other than the South, he said, there was a crying need for a clean, machine-made masala dosa, the dry batter-and-mix of which would be supplied from a national, centralised kitchen. And since sambhar and chutney were hard to franchise, he decided that ketchup would do the trick.
We fell over ourselves in excitement, writing out cheques and investment agreements in a trice, even before the new company, Dosa King, had an office or an employee. When the story ended five years later, we had a great deal of blood (actually, ketchup) to show for it, a machine that made everything – photocopies, music recordings, ballpoint pens – except dosas. Well, that’s not entirely true: the five prototypes on the field made all of about 400 dosas, of which I had two while visiting the first (and only) outlet in Nagpur on September 14th, 1996. I remember the date and the place, because of the prescription dated that evening for acute indigestion, that I have preserved.
I vividly remember my last meeting with Nari, when I had put in my papers at TDICI. “I have learnt a great deal from you,” I said with feeling. “Thanks.”
“What a shame, Gopa! You are leaving just when Gum India will post record results in the next quarter. In fact, you may even want to invest in it in a few months time.”
'..and when our conversation ended, I had very nearly written out a cheque for my life’s savings.
His background was the perfect formula for entrepreneurial failure: impeccable, pucca pedigree, an MBA from IIM Calcutta in the early ‘70s and many years selling Coke and other muck from the comfort of a big budget office, before he decided that the one thing India sorely lacked was, well, a bubble gum with attitude (ordinary bubble gum wouldn’t do, of course). He persuaded a couple of friends, who looked to me as though they once possessed some common sense, to join him and Gum India was born. A couple of years later, he pulled off his first impossible trick: he persuaded a venture fund that existed to fund high-technology projects to invest in Gum India – this was a couple of years before I joined the fund.
Narayanan had an unsatiable appetite for risk, particularly when there was no reason to take it and carefully cultivated an air of business expertise and creative thinking about him – he liked people to see him as a man of whacko out-of-the-box ideas. But what set him apart (and possibly still does, for he is very much alive and kicking) was his personality.
A tall, thin man, with a reed-like structure and a rapidly balding pate, he combined charm with wit in astonishing measure. The more his companies – all of which we at TDICI more or less owned – sunk, the greater we seemed to want to fund him, each time for a particularly different, yet outrageous, project. He had access to the very top of the TDICI/ICICI pyramid (I was at the bottom) and everytime we met, he would wear a smile that seemed to be pasted on for my benefit: it combined a certain arrogance with thinly disguised condescension, disdain and pity. This attitude was not without reason. I was fresh out of MBA, green behind the ears and part of an organisation that was accustomed to eating out his hand.
In the five years or so that I struggled to understand just what to do with this company, I was allowed to visit the factory only once and for good measure, for no one who has seen how bubble gum is made will want to
1. buy it
2. eat it
3. sell it
4. fund it
5. or use it to plug a leaking pipe.
To Nari, these were irrelevant considerations. He saw India as bubble gum country, his vision being one of children from Mcleodgunj to Mamallapuram clamouring for their daily dose of gum, thus painting a picture of a true India multinational that would be the envy of Wrigley’s. The reality, though, was much more modest: sales were about a few crores a year and falling. Profits? Well, that was for the future, since for the moment the company had a venture capitalist who would fund the losses.
Every quarter, we’d have a Board Meeting, to which we would go - my boss, his briefcase stacked with papers that analysed the pathetic performance of the company upside down and his face beetroot red as he mulled over the extent of financial damage that we had suffered, and I, determined to not take any nonsense this time and to call a spade a spade. Nari would amble over, pull my boss’ leg and joke on just how beaten I looked working with him. He would ask us out to lunch, speak of cricket with some passion, mull over the next marathon he planned to run, advice us on marketing our services better and ridicule Hindustan Lever’s marketing strategy.
Everytime I raised any business issue with Nari, he would give me his famous look and then confidently predict that the next quarter would be sensational. “After all,” he always said, “ this company is yours. Where will you get a bunch of MBAs working for you at this pathetic salary.” …….and the funny part is, I would always come off from the meeting feeling terribly sympathetic for this talented team. “Perhaps,” I would reason to my colleagues at the next internal meeting, “the next quarter will see a turnaround.” Everyone, of course, thought it was hilarious, since no one had the slightest doubt that our multiple investments in the company were up in smoke. Yet, Nari’s eloquence could be blinding.
In 1991, he predicted that a chain of dosa outlets would be the next big thing. In every part of this country, other than the South, he said, there was a crying need for a clean, machine-made masala dosa, the dry batter-and-mix of which would be supplied from a national, centralised kitchen. And since sambhar and chutney were hard to franchise, he decided that ketchup would do the trick.
We fell over ourselves in excitement, writing out cheques and investment agreements in a trice, even before the new company, Dosa King, had an office or an employee. When the story ended five years later, we had a great deal of blood (actually, ketchup) to show for it, a machine that made everything – photocopies, music recordings, ballpoint pens – except dosas. Well, that’s not entirely true: the five prototypes on the field made all of about 400 dosas, of which I had two while visiting the first (and only) outlet in Nagpur on September 14th, 1996. I remember the date and the place, because of the prescription dated that evening for acute indigestion, that I have preserved.
I vividly remember my last meeting with Nari, when I had put in my papers at TDICI. “I have learnt a great deal from you,” I said with feeling. “Thanks.”
“What a shame, Gopa! You are leaving just when Gum India will post record results in the next quarter. In fact, you may even want to invest in it in a few months time.”
'..and when our conversation ended, I had very nearly written out a cheque for my life’s savings.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Manna from Heaven
April 2010
Bangalore is an exasperating city to travel within and I have hitched a ride, run a fair distance, taken an auto and then run again to the gates of the Chowdiah Memorial Hall in breathless anticipation. I am in luck; there are tickets available. I buy one for five hundred rupees and rush up the steps. It is ten past seven in the evening when I flop into my seat, exhausted.
The musicians, a small handful of them, are assembled on stage, waiting for the Master. I have never seen him before in flesh and blood, yet have long been besotted with his voice, its elegance and versatility, its range, depth and pitch. My earliest memory of music at home, circa 1970, is listening to a record on a new record player, playing his lively, almost hyperactive, song from a now-forgotten film, Bhoot Bungla; it is a song that I grew up with, a part of my treasure trove of memories from childhood far far away.
My reverie is cut short; the Master shuffles onto the stage, as the audience rises to a standing ovation. It is a motley group of people here, largely middle aged and elderly and I (though officially middle aged) feel out of place. He makes his way to the middle, barely acknowledging the crowd, to where his harmonium has been kept and takes his seat deliberately, as the applause dies down and the crowd waits in anticipation.
In the silence that follows, the harmonium begins to play, guided by a practised, magical touch and, as the Voice begins to sing ‘Aey Malik tere bande hum’, I feel a lump in my throat, for the years have dropped away and it seems much like the original recording a half-century ago.
Manna Dey is now 91.
In the ensuing couple of hours, plagued by a bad throat and an indifferent back, the old man struggles to keep his composure and his famed temper. Yet, with every song that he begins, the trials of the World fade away as the eyes behind those large, benign spectacles focus on the distance, on a World that he once commanded as only he could. On a different World, when the best music directors requested him to sing songs that all others couldn’t. The magic continues on this day as well: when a song’s pitch reaches a crescendo, he holds his own, and the fans gasp in bewilderment. People who live to his age find it hard to speak; Manna Dey sings, and how!
The moments in between his singing are punctuated by good earthy humour, supplied in ample measure by the compere, Khurana Sahib, whose fluent Hindi, immersed in Urdu, is of Sixties vintage. Together, they make an odd couple, a legendary singer and his compere, in the evening of their life, holding their own in India’s most contemporary urban space. The audience demand an encore, but he is too tired to oblige. The Master stands up, does a Namaste and shuffles off the stage as every person in Chowdiah Memorial Hall applaudes with admiration, respect and awe.
At the end of a magical evening, I walk away knowing that this legend will always live. It’s a nice feeling.
Bangalore is an exasperating city to travel within and I have hitched a ride, run a fair distance, taken an auto and then run again to the gates of the Chowdiah Memorial Hall in breathless anticipation. I am in luck; there are tickets available. I buy one for five hundred rupees and rush up the steps. It is ten past seven in the evening when I flop into my seat, exhausted.
The musicians, a small handful of them, are assembled on stage, waiting for the Master. I have never seen him before in flesh and blood, yet have long been besotted with his voice, its elegance and versatility, its range, depth and pitch. My earliest memory of music at home, circa 1970, is listening to a record on a new record player, playing his lively, almost hyperactive, song from a now-forgotten film, Bhoot Bungla; it is a song that I grew up with, a part of my treasure trove of memories from childhood far far away.
My reverie is cut short; the Master shuffles onto the stage, as the audience rises to a standing ovation. It is a motley group of people here, largely middle aged and elderly and I (though officially middle aged) feel out of place. He makes his way to the middle, barely acknowledging the crowd, to where his harmonium has been kept and takes his seat deliberately, as the applause dies down and the crowd waits in anticipation.
In the silence that follows, the harmonium begins to play, guided by a practised, magical touch and, as the Voice begins to sing ‘Aey Malik tere bande hum’, I feel a lump in my throat, for the years have dropped away and it seems much like the original recording a half-century ago.
Manna Dey is now 91.
In the ensuing couple of hours, plagued by a bad throat and an indifferent back, the old man struggles to keep his composure and his famed temper. Yet, with every song that he begins, the trials of the World fade away as the eyes behind those large, benign spectacles focus on the distance, on a World that he once commanded as only he could. On a different World, when the best music directors requested him to sing songs that all others couldn’t. The magic continues on this day as well: when a song’s pitch reaches a crescendo, he holds his own, and the fans gasp in bewilderment. People who live to his age find it hard to speak; Manna Dey sings, and how!
The moments in between his singing are punctuated by good earthy humour, supplied in ample measure by the compere, Khurana Sahib, whose fluent Hindi, immersed in Urdu, is of Sixties vintage. Together, they make an odd couple, a legendary singer and his compere, in the evening of their life, holding their own in India’s most contemporary urban space. The audience demand an encore, but he is too tired to oblige. The Master stands up, does a Namaste and shuffles off the stage as every person in Chowdiah Memorial Hall applaudes with admiration, respect and awe.
At the end of a magical evening, I walk away knowing that this legend will always live. It’s a nice feeling.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Ad Wise
This is a story of advice and friendship.
We have been good friends with a couple, for many years. About four years ago, the husband called me and asked if he could talk over an issue that he was going through, to get a second opinion, another point of view. I agreed readily, since I liked him very much.
Vibhu, as I shall call him, is a suave chap, very prim and proper, educated in an olde world British school. After an MBA, he built a career in a large organisation in the sales function. I will mention here that the industry he was working in, is Mumbai-centric – most companies have their Head Offices there and branches in the large metros. Well, Vibhu’s performance at work was excellent and he rose to a level which was about the peak for the organisation’s office in Bangalore – if he needed to climb the ladder any more, he’d have to move to Mumbai, something that no self-respecting Bangalorean will consider, if he has his senses about him. Shortly after his promotion in this company, he quit and joined a competitor at a slightly higher level, reporting to the Branch Head. The salary and responsibilities were higher, though there would still be the inevitable Mumbai-move sometime in the future.
It was a bad decision. Vibhu’s gut (and a couple of colleagues) had warned him against the culture of the competitor, one that encouraged snake-oil salesmen and rewarded short term thinking. To top his discomfort, he had a particularly bad boss, who was as insecure as he was rude and who often alluded to Vibhu’s previous organisation with derision, something that got him particularly incensed.
As we sat down to talk, beer in hand, Vibhu told me that he wanted to quit this company immediately. He had no idea of what he wished to do, yet the stress of working here was taking his toll. His boss in the earlier organisation, on knowing of his discomfort, had sent feelers to him, asking him to come back to the same job he had held earlier, yet……..
“Why don’t you go back?” I asked.
The answer was long-winded. I sensed that he had set high standards of growth for himself and this would reek of failure. He was, in addition, concerned about how others in the old organisation would see him. This was where I had a point or two. “Vibhu, I have done just this. I left CDC in the late ‘90s to join a software product company as a domain specialist, realised that it wasn’t what I wanted and approached my boss in CDC within a month, before he had recruited a replacement. I felt the same way as you do now, but for a few days. My colleagues went out of their way to welcome me back. Don’t worry – our fears are in our heads.” I concluded.
“What about my growth?” he queried.
There was little to offer here, of course. He could choose to continue in the new organisation (“No, no, not a chance”), join his old organisation back (“Not sure of this, Gopa”) or just sit at home and hope for a job (which was most unlikely to come by).
“Here’s what I suggest, Vibhu,” I added, “There are often times when you have to go back to move forward. Go back to your old organisation, bide your time and look to change the industry you work in, moving to one where senior management positions exist in Bangalore.” I went back to my story. “Vibhu, quitting a job at this stage of your career without a Plan B, is not advised. I can tell you with confidence that, if you left a company with mutual goodwill, they’d be happy to have you back. Besides, your old Boss has sent the feeler first, hasn’t he? But don’t stay at home, its very depressing to be doing nothing.” Perhaps, in retrospect, I was being forceful, when I should have been gentle.
As the conversation progressed, he became quieter. We left after a couple of hours, some beer time included, and shook hands, while I wished him the best for the future.
It can’t be hard for you to guess the decision he took. He quit the new organisation, did not join the old one and, instead, spent a couple of exacting years at home, till a new, average job came his way. The impact on our friendship was rather hard as well; Vibhu stayed away, though his wife kept in touch with us. I have only once met him since that meeting and that was on a sidewalk. He has aged a decade, with his hair now vastly peppered, a cigarette in hand and some excess weight and when I reflect on the person I knew earlier it is cause for some despondency. It has made me wonder on the human tendency to self-destruct and, as you can see, how people see themselves has a big role to play in this process of emaciation.
I trust I learnt some lessons here, the prime among them being to not get passionate about solving other people’s problems.
We have been good friends with a couple, for many years. About four years ago, the husband called me and asked if he could talk over an issue that he was going through, to get a second opinion, another point of view. I agreed readily, since I liked him very much.
Vibhu, as I shall call him, is a suave chap, very prim and proper, educated in an olde world British school. After an MBA, he built a career in a large organisation in the sales function. I will mention here that the industry he was working in, is Mumbai-centric – most companies have their Head Offices there and branches in the large metros. Well, Vibhu’s performance at work was excellent and he rose to a level which was about the peak for the organisation’s office in Bangalore – if he needed to climb the ladder any more, he’d have to move to Mumbai, something that no self-respecting Bangalorean will consider, if he has his senses about him. Shortly after his promotion in this company, he quit and joined a competitor at a slightly higher level, reporting to the Branch Head. The salary and responsibilities were higher, though there would still be the inevitable Mumbai-move sometime in the future.
It was a bad decision. Vibhu’s gut (and a couple of colleagues) had warned him against the culture of the competitor, one that encouraged snake-oil salesmen and rewarded short term thinking. To top his discomfort, he had a particularly bad boss, who was as insecure as he was rude and who often alluded to Vibhu’s previous organisation with derision, something that got him particularly incensed.
As we sat down to talk, beer in hand, Vibhu told me that he wanted to quit this company immediately. He had no idea of what he wished to do, yet the stress of working here was taking his toll. His boss in the earlier organisation, on knowing of his discomfort, had sent feelers to him, asking him to come back to the same job he had held earlier, yet……..
“Why don’t you go back?” I asked.
The answer was long-winded. I sensed that he had set high standards of growth for himself and this would reek of failure. He was, in addition, concerned about how others in the old organisation would see him. This was where I had a point or two. “Vibhu, I have done just this. I left CDC in the late ‘90s to join a software product company as a domain specialist, realised that it wasn’t what I wanted and approached my boss in CDC within a month, before he had recruited a replacement. I felt the same way as you do now, but for a few days. My colleagues went out of their way to welcome me back. Don’t worry – our fears are in our heads.” I concluded.
“What about my growth?” he queried.
There was little to offer here, of course. He could choose to continue in the new organisation (“No, no, not a chance”), join his old organisation back (“Not sure of this, Gopa”) or just sit at home and hope for a job (which was most unlikely to come by).
“Here’s what I suggest, Vibhu,” I added, “There are often times when you have to go back to move forward. Go back to your old organisation, bide your time and look to change the industry you work in, moving to one where senior management positions exist in Bangalore.” I went back to my story. “Vibhu, quitting a job at this stage of your career without a Plan B, is not advised. I can tell you with confidence that, if you left a company with mutual goodwill, they’d be happy to have you back. Besides, your old Boss has sent the feeler first, hasn’t he? But don’t stay at home, its very depressing to be doing nothing.” Perhaps, in retrospect, I was being forceful, when I should have been gentle.
As the conversation progressed, he became quieter. We left after a couple of hours, some beer time included, and shook hands, while I wished him the best for the future.
It can’t be hard for you to guess the decision he took. He quit the new organisation, did not join the old one and, instead, spent a couple of exacting years at home, till a new, average job came his way. The impact on our friendship was rather hard as well; Vibhu stayed away, though his wife kept in touch with us. I have only once met him since that meeting and that was on a sidewalk. He has aged a decade, with his hair now vastly peppered, a cigarette in hand and some excess weight and when I reflect on the person I knew earlier it is cause for some despondency. It has made me wonder on the human tendency to self-destruct and, as you can see, how people see themselves has a big role to play in this process of emaciation.
I trust I learnt some lessons here, the prime among them being to not get passionate about solving other people’s problems.
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