Saturday, July 30, 2016

Story of a 100-year-old camera, Rajan uncle & else

People close to me know about my love and craze for antiques, especially Indian fountain pens, watches and spectacles. Few months back my elder cousin brother who lives in my father's ancestral home offered me his late father's spectacles which he had preserved safely. I refused to take it because my brother had kept it very fondly and safely in memory of his father. Few weeks after that incident my uncle in Bombay gave me his 40-year-old Seiko 5 automatic watch when he knew about my love for old watches and about my modest collection. It was the watch he had asked his friend who was then working in the Gulf to bring for him. My uncle had used it for long, and later kept it in his cupboard, almost as if forgotten, when he got newer watches. After years when he took it out to give me, he and I were pleasantly surprised. A couple of shakes and the automatic watch started working! Similarly, my friend's mother, too, gave me her HMT Asha which she had used while she was doing her graduation. I had refused to take it, too, because it would have very good memories attached to it. But she insisted that I take it. 

Yesterday, I was very blessed and deeply fortunate to get another antique item which had scores of memories attached to it. I was at my another elder cousin brother's home (Mine is a very big family with both my father and maternal grandmother having 9 siblings each!). He called me into his room saying he had something for me. I went in with no clue what he was talking about. He placed at my hand a small, dusty, black, iron box. Before I could ask him what it was he said that it was a very old camera which he had got as a gift from his father-in-law. I was shockingly surprised! Shocking because I wondered how that crude a box could be a camera. It was a plane black iron box, with two small dust laden glass pieces and three holes covered with glasses which I, after my brother telling me, knew were lenses. There was a small circular screw with which the back side could be opened. It had a tiny leather strap that served as a carrier, and had 'Kotak London' printed on it. My brother, who is a photographer by profession, could get a hang of the antique camera easily and explained to me quite a bit about its working. But, I was not satisfied. I wanted to hear it from his father-in-law who had gifted it to him. I somehow guessed that there would be stories attached to it, for I knew that my brother's father-in-law, Mr Rajan, was neither a professional photographer nor had gone abroad.




(The camera need not be raised to the level of the eye; it was to be kept at the level of the photographer's stomach and the glass piece on the camera's side facing the photographer would show the image that was about to be captured.)

Late evening my brother and I reached the house where Rajan uncle was staying. He wasn't there then but when I showed my brother's wife the camera and told her that I wanted to speak to her father to know the story behind it she was happy, and, as if like a gentle warning, told me that her father, who is otherwise very silent and reserved by nature, is known to talk a lot about stories of his youthful days, so much so that they had to often start a countdown for him to stop reciting his stories! My excitement peaked, for I love to hear stories of good old days. 

When Rajan uncle returned home I showed him the camera and told him that his son-in-law had showed it to me and explained a bit of its working but I wanted to know more. "It looks so old," I told him. "Very," he said. "At least 100 years old!" For a second I could not believe my ears. "What!" I exclaimed. "Yes. I am sure it is at least 100 years old," and immediately added, "I had had got it from my friend in 1973." My excitement found a higher peak. I knew for sure that if uncle could recollect the year he is sure to remember the story, too. I volleyed him with questions like who was the person who gifted this to you, why did he gift this, were you a photographer, et cetera. For the next half an hour he spoke of stories that were worth listening multiple times. 

He began... "It was 1973 and I was working in a hotel as a cleaner. I was 18 years old and I had gone to Bangalore (from his hometown Keralassery in Palakkad district of Kerala) in search of a job. I had to take up a cleaner's job in a hotel because I could not get a job elsewhere as I had failed my tenth standard examination. When I was working there I met this gentleman who later gifted me this camera. His name was Michael. Michael Rosemonde. His father was from Gujarat and mother from London. He was working in Rallis." "Do you know that company," he asked me. "Yes, the cycles; I have heard of them," I replied. "No. Not that. Cycle company was Raleigh and this is Rallis," he explained to me with the spellings. 

He continued... "He used to come to the hotel where I worked daily. Back then a Wills cigarette costed 20 paisa (Re 0.20). He used to smoke there daily and he used to engage me to get him the cigarette. He used to give me 25 paisa, 5 paisa as tips. This happened for few days and one day he asked me, "What is your name?" I did not know a word in English. I did not know what he had asked and looked at him blankly. Another person who heard this explained to me what he was asking. When I told him my name he asked me if I would be willing to work elsewhere if he found one for me. I replied in the positive. Very soon he found me a job in the bar of the prestigious Bangalore Club. It was a club where the elite used to come. I was very happy working there. The beer there costed Re 1 back then. But that was a big amount those days. We used to get a week's vegetables for Rs 10, a litre of petrol for Rs 2.75. Money has lost value now. Michael and I soon became very good friends. He told me that I should learn English. He started giving me English books to read." Taking a break from the story which I was listening with rapt attention, he said, "even though we are not interested or we do not understand what is written in a book by just looking through the pages we get a hang of few things like a sentences or two and few words and spellings. That is enough." "I started watching English movies," he said resuming the narration. "And soon, I started watching one English movie everyday. Many days he and I used to watch together. All of the English language that I learnt is because of him and him alone." 

Rajan uncle is sad that he does not know where his dear friend currently is. He even has doubts whether he is alive now because Mr Michael was, uncle told me, quite senior to him. "He had a home in Coonoor by the name Cortney. I have not gone there but he had told me." I was surprised that uncle even remembered the name of his friend's house which he had not visited even once but just heard of.

Rajan uncle heaps praise on Mr Michael. "He was a very good gentleman. He helped me a lot. Not only me, he helped many other people. One Mr Das was in love with a Brahmin lady but their families did not allow them to get married. They got married without the families' support and it was my friend Michael who gave them space to live in his house for few days." 

Rajan uncle recollects.. "Michael used to ride a Bullet bike. He used to really like his bike. But when he was getting old he was scared to ride his Bullet and got a car, a Fiat Standard. He used to tell that he was getting old and he needed a roof over his head and hence he bought a car." 

Rajan uncle also told me about a lady, whom he referred to as 'chechi' (elder sister in Malayalam) from Lingarajapuram, Bangalore who had helped him a lot during his stay in Bangalore till 1992. 

When Rajan uncle finished his stories and we were called for dinner, I asked my brother to click a picture of the three of us - Rajan uncle, the camera and me.


When Rajan uncle and his wife came back to their hometown in Kerala they carried with them two bags. One of very fond and harsh memories and the other of books that Rajan uncle had read and learnt during the course of his nineteen-year-long stay in Bangalore. The bag of books remained unopened for a long time, and recently when it was opened, his daughter said, more than half of it had been eaten away by the termites. 

Most things we use have scores of memories attached to them. Instead of simply throwing them let us all preserve them and tell to our younger generations stories and memories attached to them just like how Rajan uncle does.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Meet the Butterfly Man from Belvai, Karnataka

We all love butterflies. Many have noticed the drop in their number; few have bothered to find out why. Even fewer have taken the efforts to bring these beauties back to our lives. Mr Sammilan Shetty, 31, is one among these very few. ‘Sammilan Shetty’s Butterfly Park’ in Belvai, Karnataka spread over 7.35 acres of forested land is a result of his long years of relentless work and effort.

As a young boy, Shetty was no different from other children in terms of his love for butterflies. He ran behind them; he was fascinated by their colours and patterns. However, his fascination did not dwindle. Rather his curiosity and hunger to acquire more knowledge about these ‘winged jewels’ kept increasing. This led him to take up Zoology after schooling, and for his graduation project he did a study on local butterfly species in his native, Belvai.

The turning point, however, he says, was when he read ‘The Book of Indian Butterflies’ written by Mr Isaac Kehimkar. The book changed his life and made Shetty realize his calling. He converted the land he owned into an open conservation park for the butterflies. In 2013 the park was inaugurated by none other than the man whose book inspired him, Mr Isaac Kehimkar. Today his park hosts around 135 species of butterflies which also include ones that are endemic to the Western Ghats. This organization focuses on conserving butterflies as well as educating people, especially the younger generation, about the need for the conservation of these flying jewels. 



“For butterfly population to sustain we must have nectar plants as well as host plants, i.e., such plant species on which butterflies prefer to lay eggs,” says Shetty. Lemon trees, false ashoka, cinnamon, Ficus sp, mango, curry leaf, Hopea ponga trees are the most commonly found host tree species in his park which springs to beauty during the months of August to September when the butterfly population is most diverse.

As Shetty was explaining about these plant species and the egg laying pattern of butterflies, he suddenly shouted, “Look there! The Southern Birdwing,” pointing his finger towards a tree where this black and yellow beauty endemic to South India was seen flying magnificently. “The female of this species is India’s largest butterfly. It has a wingspan of 19cm!” Shetty explained.



However, his favourite butterfly isn’t the Southern Birdwing. “I want people to spot the Malabar Banded Peacock when they come here. That is my favourite and the park’s logo is this butterfly. I chose this not only because it is my personal favourite but because it is an exquisite butterfly endemic to Western Ghats.”

To two families from Mangaluru who had come to visit the park Shetty explained in detail, among much else, why different butterflies fly at different speeds. “There are butterflies that fly fast. It is because they have to escape from their predators. But there are butterfly species that fly very slowly and leisurely. These species are the ones that taste unpleasant and are distasteful to their predators. If at all any predator attacks these butterfly species and try to eat them the flavour of these butterflies make the predator spit them out.” He explained that in the caterpillar stage itself the toxins from the host plant get into them. It is retained inside the butterfly and it is the presence of these toxins that impart the unpleasant taste. Since every butterfly has their own host plant the characteristics vary.



Butterflies that are distasteful generally have prominent patterns on their wings. This helps the predators to distinguish them from other butterflies that are palatable. In the park, Shetty showed a female Great Eggfly butterfly which is palatable but, is known to uncannily mimic the pattern of toxic butterflies called Crow. This makes the female escape the predators.

       
        
During the walk through the park a Malabar Banded Peacock was spotted. Shetty’s excitement then was such that it is simply unexplainable in words. He talked of another special feature about that butterfly species. “The peacock blue colour of its wing is such that it displays two different shades when viewed from different angles.” Shetty's voice showed how amazed he was. He admits that the amazement has never died despite he having already seen the butterfly a lot number of times.



To every visitor in his park which is open to the public on Sunday mornings there is a power point presentation that Shetty gives showing beautiful photographs that he has captured and also videos of life stages of a butterfly, how they are attacked by predators, etc. One such video showed a special case where ants and butterflies shared a symbiotic relation, which is in stark contrast to the normal case. In this video, the ants were seen guarding the caterpillar and pupa of one of the Oakblue butterflies. Shetty explained that this was because the ants got honey dew from the caterpillars in return for the guarding work they do to the initial stages of the butterfly, thus preventing them from being attacked by other insect predators or parasitic wasps. He also said that this symbiotic relationship between ants and butterflies was seen only in lycaenidae family of butterflies.

Shetty chose his park to be an open conservation park where the butterflies have the freedom to fly out and enter the park at their wish. “By planting a lot of host and nectar plants we have given them a very good environment. Why will they not come here or want to go out?” he asks.


Butterfly Man Shetty, who holds an MBA degree in Tourism, is also a lecturer is a college in Mangaluru. But, Shetty is working on something big now and has taken a break from teaching. He is working on a documentary on the life of butterflies which will probably be a first of its kind on Indian butterflies. He ended his presentation by reiterating the causes for the reduction in the population of butterflies, viz., increased use of pesticides, deforestation, forest fires, and overgrazing resulting in habitat loss, and asking the visitors to try and plant at least few nectar and host plants in their home gardens.

(An edited version of this article appeared on The News Minute

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Story of India's first crowd funded e-bike, SPERO

Ampere, BSA, Hero, Mahindra, TVS are all big names in the electric two-wheeler segment in India. 2016 has so far witnessed two startup launches in this segment. In February was launched Ather, a Bengaluru based company that germinated in the incubation cell of IIT Madras in 2013, and had later received jaw dropping funding from the founders of Flipkart and venture capital investment firm, Tiger Global, to the tune of Rs 6.3 crore and Rs 75.3 crore respectively. In contrast, the other launch, Spero, albeit sharing a few similarities with Ather in terms of technology, took to crowd funding to raise a sum of Rs 30 lakh. Partnering with Fuel a Dream, an online crowd funding platform, the Coimbatore based company has raised more money than what it aimed in just three months (At the time of writing the funding stood at 129%), and has earned the distinction of being India’s first crowd funded electric bike.

A management graduate by education but an engineer by practice, Spero’s founder thirty-nine-year-old Mr Shanmugasundaram Manikandan is also the Managing Director of Milltex Engineers Pvt Ltd, a company that has been dealing with textile machinery spares and innovation kits for almost four decades.   

“We are not from that league to convince someone to give us few million Dollars with just thoughts and ideas. We come from a brick and mortar family. I am a second generation businessman and I put my savings into this idea and made a prototype,” says Manikandan explaining why he resorted to crowd funding.

Spero’s crowd funding has become a success. It has already raised Rs 38,64,800 from 146 funders with few pre-ordering the vehicle and few others contributing as less as Rs 100 for the idea. Manikandan is completely overwhelmed by this. 

“The fact that we had people contributing money not to own a Spero but for the idea was visual when you had people contributing Rs 100, Rs 500, and Rs 1000. Hats off to those people! As per our charter we cannot give them a Spero but in return I can give them a good product, a good business opportunity for people. That is what we can show them in return for the trust they had in us. Our heart actually bleeds - a person who spent Rs 100 would have aspired to own a Spero but he couldn’t; this is all he could set aside. Wonderful! There is nothing overwhelming than this. It is as good as meeting a strong financier and taking money from him. We are taking this small token with humility.”

He further says that out of the 99 ‘backers’ for Speros, i.e., such people who have given money to own one for themselves, only 30 have done a test ride. Others, who form a majority, he says, have just seen the photographs and videos of the Spero online. “They have not even seen Spero in real. This is amazing! We are not Amazon to sell One Plus. We are Spero and Milltex,” explains Manikandan completely moved by the trust people have reposed in his new venture.



Makers of Spero are insistent that every feature of the vehicle must be used by its owner. They have thus tried to keep things as simple as possible. 

“There is a general theory that we use only 30% of our smartphone’s features. Even Steve Jobs might not have used all applications that were available in an Apple product. We do not want that to happen in the case of Spero. We would like people to use all the features. Therefore, we have ensured that everything is kept as simple as possible.”

Manikandan is quite confident that Spero is going to act as a benchmark in the electric two-wheeler segment. “For a simple electric bike, which is a pedaler, this is the platform. People will not accept anything inferior to this anymore,” says Manikandan exuding confidence in his product that will officially be launched in September.

Behind his confidence is not book or theoretical knowledge of how an electric bike can be manufactured but know-how gathered by trial and error.

“I wanted to make a product that will be a part of the solution to global warming. We had 7-8 young minds in our core team and we all came up with a list of products out of which Spero was chosen. But the problem was that we were neither cycle manufacturers nor electrical experts. We were mechanical people. Ludhiana is the hub of cycles for the world. It meant that what could be done there could be done in Coimbatore also. It is just geometry and putting together! We studied the history of cycles and tried a lot of combinations. We made few, pedaled them. We bought few from the market, broke them down. We understood minute things – raw material, thickness, tubes, etc. We learnt it this way. But cycle was just one aspect. Other was electrical. We split our team into two. Heart, the battery, was separated from the soul, the finesse. After about 9 to 12 months we had both ready.”  

Coimbatore based Manikandan does not want to limit the Spero within the boundaries of India; his thinking is global. A peek into his global thought was when this author heard him deliberate with one of his team members over phone about the number of digits required for the chasis number. “Let us increase the digits and make it 17; that happens to be the global standard,” he told his colleague. 
  
When asked about this he explains a bit further of another plan that is similar. “Electric bikes come under the unregistered system. But we don’t want it to be like that. Every vehicle we sell will have a unique serial number. Later, we also want to add a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag with the approval of the owner to tag the vehicle forever. It is pertinent that we give the government a way to track any vehicle that we sell.”  

But in his global thinking Manikandan affirms that it ‘shall not be done at the cost of the aspiring Indian.’ The first priority shall be India, he says, adding that by March 2020 they will have a presence in every Indian city. “There must be support and comfort for the buyer. Whatever happens they should have somebody to go to.”

Apart from being the first crowd funded bike in India, Spero also has the distinction of being the first Indian electric bike that uses regenerative braking technology. “A considerable amount of energy is wasted while braking. We did not want that to go wasted and to that effect we have incorporated regenerative braking by which that energy which would otherwise have been wasted goes to the battery and recharges it.” Recharging of the Li-ion battery which Spero uses also happens when the rider is using his energy and pedaling.   

Spero also boasts of a digital interface by which, Manikandan says, the rider can “talk to the Spero.” The interface will let the rider set speed limits, disable power connection from the battery, and also display information like the battery capacity, motor temperature, etc. There is also a cruise control activated when the Spero is driven at a constant speed for six seconds, thereby letting the interface take over and move the Spero at the same speed without having the rider to throttle. “When cruise control takes over you can leave your wrist to relax,” Manikandan says with a smile.

Manikandan is in love with Coimbatore, the city which has been his home. He wonders how Coimbatore missed being an automobile hub and wishes that Spero will bring a name to Coimbatore.

“The spirit of Coimbatore does not just mean entrepreneurship; it also means automobiles. People from Coimbatore like Karivardan (Indian formula racing driver and designer) and Narain Karthikeyan, Karivardhan’s father GKS Sir (referring to Lakshmi Mills founder G.K. Sundaram Naidu), ELGI Sir (referring to ELGI founder LRG Naidu), have all been auto enthusiasts. Somehow I fail to understand how Coimbatore missed becoming an auto cluster. It is an auto ancillary cluster but it never became an automobile cluster. The city is an education hub, machinery hub, medical tourism hub but somehow automobile is elusive. It is a golden opportunity. I thought why not give it a try. We chose electric because that is the future.”

Being a South Indian it is hard for anyone to miss the traditional three-course meal. Manikandan makes a comparison to the way a three-course meal is had to e-mobility and hybrid technology.
“In a three-course meal after having rice with sambar there will be a little bit of sambar left. You don’t wipe it off. The same happens after having rasam and then curd. There will be a bit of all these left on the plate. What we do is we take bit of rice and have it with all that remains on the plate. Why can’t we replicate this into mobility? Why can’t we have a mix of petrol, diesel and electric?”

Manikandan believes that with the risk of global warming looming large an immediate intervention is called for. In electronic vehicles he sees hope. “Hybrid has already been positioned but has not taken off. Electric has lost momentum. Now is the time to come back with a bang and say electric is the future.”

“For e-mobility to grow there has to be a people’s movement. We can’t wait till the end to make a change,” he adds.

He also shares his thoughts on using as many Indian made things in Spero as possible. In case of the motor and the battery, he says, there is no choice but to import. “I will say that we have a judicial mix of imported and Indian products. We want to have more of Indian than imported,” exuding hope that in the near future there will be some good motor and battery manufacturing units being set up in India.


(An abridged version of this article was published in The News Minute)

If you like to fund Spero or buy one, click here.

Friday, May 20, 2016

LDF's decision to sideline Mr Achuthanandan lacks morality and ethics

Mr Pinarayi Vijayan, and not Mr VS Achuthanandan, the Communist party has decided, shall be the new Chief Minister of Kerala. Congratulations to Mr Vijayan who also holds the record for the longest serving (17 years) Secretary of the CPI(M)'s Kerala committee. 
But, many in the state will consider the decision to make Mr Vijayan the Chief Minister as a dis-service that is being done by the party's decision makers. Also, as an act of dishonesty and betrayal by the party. This kind of a feeling will specifically be running in the minds of a considerable number of Kerala voters, not necessarily Communist party members, who voted for the candidates of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in anticipation of seeing Mr VS as the next Chief Minister should the LDF win.  
It has been a long history in Kerala that the political mandate reverses every five years. This year it was all the more expected because of numerous allegations against the incumbent United Democratic Front (UDF) government led by the Congress party for having extended unwanted and illegal favours to those considered close to people in positions of power, and also that of corruption and misrule. Hence, many believed that the LDF needs to be returned to power this time, as it was the sole option which could be seen as one capable of getting sufficient seats to form a government. 
Since corruption was a crucial factor that was going against the UDF in the election campaign, the LDF needed a credible and non-corrupt face, which it found, like it has for years together in the past, in Mr VS Achuthanandan. Though he was cleared of the taint by the Courts, because of his alleged involvement and being named as an accused in the Lavalin Case that rocked Kerala politics for long, Mr Pinarayi Vijayan's face alone could not be used by the party to fight elections on the anti-corruption plank. What weighed in favour of Mr Achuthanandan was not only that he is free from any form of allegations of corruption but also that he is liked by the people of Kerala not because he is a Communist man but because he is always outspoken and candid, and never shies to talk against corruption even if it is committed within his own party. But this quality, to an extent, worked against him. 
Though the party had to rely on the ninety-two-year-old as its co-face to fight the election it could not come to a decision as to who will be the party's Chief Ministerial face. The party which has deep roots in almost every part of the state and with a very strong cadre strength could not completely overlook the majority demand from among its own members which was heavily in favour of Mr Pinarayi Vijayan. Nor could it afford to not use the general support for Mr VS among the ordinary voter (non-party members). Thus, the party declared that the Chief Minister would be decided once the election results came in its favour. Most party posters for the election campaign had the photos of the two leaders along with the party's candidate contesting the election from a particular constituency. 
When the results were declared on Thursday, history repeated itself by reversing the political mandate. The LDF was voted to power with 91 seats out of 140. As celebrations were underway, the question every person had in mind was that of leadership. Mr Prakash Karat, former General Secretary of the CPI(M), said that the decision will be taken on Friday when the Polit Bureau members and the state committee members meet. And when they met in the state capital on Friday noon, it took them less than forty minutes to declare that the leader will be Mr Pinarayi Vijayan. Mr VS was informed of the party's decision. Hearing this the doyen left to Cantonment House, his official residence, with a sad face and without even addressing the media. It is said that he was spending time at his home with his personal secretary and press secretary. 
There were whispers from within the party sources even before the election result declaration that if the LDF was voted to power the five years of Chief Ministerial office would be shared by both leaders. Mr VS himself, when asked by the media before the election result declaration of the chances of his becoming the Chief Minister given his age and the ongoing confusion, had replied that he would not mind taking up the top post. 
The quick decision of the party seems to be lacking in moral and ethical counts. It seems as if it needed the nonagenarian for his past works and his clean image for seeking votes from the people but once it did get what it wanted Mr VS was quickly sidelined. The ordinary voter, not belonging to the Communist party, will definitely feel cheated. What has happened with Mr VS is, however, not something new that has been happening with old people in politics. But Mr VS is quite unlike the other old politicians who have been treated alike. Mr Achuthanandan is still a powerful politician, his power being people's affection notwithstanding their political affiliations making it even more deadly. What he says has the ears of the ordinary voter and the media. By sidelining such a man it is the LDF itself that has the most to fear. His accusations against the misdeeds or misrule of the LDF government under Chief Minister Mr Pinarayi Vijayan if such may come up will be the strongest tool at the hands of the opposition parties. 
However, the ordinary voters can take solace in the fact that they can rely in Mr Achuthanandan's role as an insider watchdog, bringing out the wrongs which may be committed by his own party's government, one which he has been denied the opportunity to lead.
Post Script: Sharing a Facebook status update of my friend. 


Saturday, February 20, 2016

Business lessons from an experienced roadside vendor of Coimbatore

Situated few metres away from Coimbatore railway station, on the way to Ukkadam, is the city’s famous seventy-year-old Royal Cinema. And then, a bit further, a fuel station of Bharat Petroleum. Yesterday afternoon, having strolled the roads near town hall and railway station for long, I was quite hungry. And as I was walking I found lot of people surrounding a cart right in front of this fuel station. All of them were either drinking or eating. Seeing the crowd I guessed that the food there would be tasty. I stopped there to have a closer look.
Sweating profusely, a short and dark man was selling, in his wooden four-wheeled cart, sharbat, lemon soda, butter milk, kambu kool(bajra porridge), and cut fruits. I asked for a tumbler of kambu kool. It was tasting good. And, as usual as in all other roadside carts sellingkambu kool, there was a variety of deep fried delicacies like colouredpappadams and chillies, and pickles. For those who do not know, all these are kept in plates in the front side, and come for free along with the drink. So that I could have more of these I asked for another cup of kambu kool.

With more people asking for refills like me, and more customers coming, the man’s hands were working throughout – chopping onions to be put in the kool, squeezing lime for the sharbats, cutting watermelon and pineapple, and washing the used tumblers.
As I was drinking kool and eating spicy fried chillies, I noticed a customer having pineapple and speaking very casually to the man, addressing him as bhai. He might perhaps be his regular customer, I thought. As soon as he was done with his plate of pineapple, the man gave him a small cut of watermelon and said, “have this.” The customer refused politely. “No, no. Have this no problem,” the man insisted. The customer ate the watermelon, paid ten Rupees and left. I thought that my guess was right; it was indeed a regular customer! Why else would he get that watermelon piece for free.
Soon, I finished my second round of kool and placed the empty glass tumbler on one side of the cart where all used tumblers were being placed, and washed my hands. The man, within no time, filled butter milk up to the half of my tumbler and said, “drink little butter milk too.” It was really sunny and I thought that a butter milk topping would really be good. I drank that and asked him for the total amount that I had to pay. Twenty Rupees, he said. The butter milk was for free! I was quite amazed. I was eating from there for the first time. As I took out the money from my wallet I was thinking that my earlier guess could well be wrong; free toppings was not for regular customers alone!
I decided that I should stand near the cart and observe if this was happening with all customers. For over thirty minutes that I stood there, I could see that all customers who took refills or had more than one dish (Every single thing served there was for ten Rupees each) was getting something for free. I found that to be a superb business tactic. A small, low investment roadside cart selling such things could hardly come out with something better. But that was not all.

The man, albeit being extremely busy serving his customers, would keep a close watch on the people walking past his cart. If he could find any person taking a look at his cart, he would establish an eye contact with him, gently smile, and, nod his head to welcome him.
When his customers had all gone he noticed me standing there. He asked me what time it was. Two, I said. He hurriedly started pushing his cart forward. I rushed along with him and asked, “where are you going?” “Carnatic Theatre would be issuing tickets for the afternoon show. I will get good business there,” came his quick reply. The theatre was some 70 metres from where his cart originally stood. “I had more customers this afternoon. Else I should have been there by 1.45 PM. That is when the ticket sales start.” I was WOW-ed and wanted to know more about him. There were few more shops in front of the theatre and if he was not walking that 70 metres the business would go to the other shops only, not him.
“Since when have you been running this business here,” I queried. “Many years,” he said. How many years, I persisted. “My father had started this here. May be 100 years now. In my childhood I used to come here to help him. When he passed away I took over,” he said. What is your name, anna (elder brother), I asked him. Muthu Muhammmed, he replied.
As soon as we reached Carnatic Theatre the ticket sales had already begun. Few who had got their tickets were standing outside for the entry to be opened. As soon as he set his cart, three came asking forsharbat.
What an enterprising man, I wondered, and walked away bidding him goodbye.
(This article first appeared on The Yatra Diaries)

Monday, February 15, 2016

Story of 84-year-old Jayantibhai, a pen seller in Bombay

After spending hours walking through the very crowded streets of Bombay’s Chor Bazar, I walked to the Abdul Rehman Street. Abdul Rehman Street is famous for all sorts of office and house stationery, both wholesale and retail. I was there in search of Indian fountain pens. I enquired in many stationery shops but I wasn’t getting what I wanted. As soon as I said that I wanted fountain pens other that the usual Parker and Hero, and few Indian ones, most shopkeepers gave a cold NO in response. I asked, to those few who were a bit gentle in their NOs, if they had fountain pen nibs, the replies to which, again, were disappointing. At last, one gentleman shopkeeper told me that if I walked bit further I would find an old man’s roadside shop where I could get all these. I was delighted!
Hardly would I have walked a 100 steps and I found a small shop on the footpath. It was a slightly raised wooden platform, over which on three sides were old, four-feet-high wooden stands. On these I could see plenty of boxes and pouches containing various brands of ball-point and fountain pens. Spread towards a corner of the raised platform was a small cushion on which the man was sitting. Grey haired with a long, sharp nose, he was, looking through his white rimmed spectacles, selecting a pen from a box to show his customer who was sitting opposite to him on a stool.

Seeing me he pulled out a small stool and asked me to sit. When the customer was checking out the pen he was given, the man asked me what I wanted. I showed him my Doctor brand fountain pen (a yesteryear Bombay based pen company whose pens are hard to find now) and said that it was releasing more ink than it should and, therefore,  I wanted the nib changed. “Shall I show you German nibs?” he asked me in Marathi with a great deal of enthusiasm. I was surprised; I would have said no but for the energy in his voice. I wanted to know what this small shop had to offer and said okay. He took a small cylindrical plastic bottle and took out one nib from it. I extended my hand to have it examined but he said that I would not know its worth by merely seeing. He soon removed the nib from my pen and inserted the German nib. His fingers moved fast and were strong despite his age. He dipped the pen in an ink bottle, made vertical curves on a small sheet of paper and then gave it to me for trying. It wrote really smooth.
By then the other customer decided that he was purchasing the pen that he was shown. But he wasn’t satisfied with the price as he felt that it was on the higher side. The shopkeeper soon asked me how much I had paid for my Doctor pen. I said I had paid Rs 150. He soon turned to the other customer, and, in an attempt to justify the price that he had quoted, said in Gujarati, ‘Look, for this he has paid Rs 150. What is there in this pen!’ The customer, who was a Gujarati, agreed. We three then started talking about pens and nibs in Hindi. The customer who had come there was a doctor – an anesthetist. He soon gave his business card to the shopkeeper, and in return the old man said that he was Jayantibhai. And then, from his pocket, he took out a business card and gave the doctor. I asked for one too. For a roadside shopkeeper to have a business card was something! The card had New Stationery & Fountain Pen Mart printed on it. And below it was written Jayantibhai Penwala. The doctor paid the money and rose to leave. “Don’t give your pen to anyone else for writing,” Jayantibhai told him. He looked at me and repeated the same advice.
After the doctor left I told Jayantibhai that I wanted to see other nibs that he had. He showed me few Indian nibs and I chose one from them and said that I would take that. There were many small boxes that were full of nibs. All were old stock but in good condition. Rarely will one get to see this variety of nibs in any shop. Then out of curiosity I asked him if he had old Indian fountain pens too. He said that he had a few and started showing me old variants which I had never seen. I could see that most of them were not taken out for many years; it was all dusty. But Jayantibhai cleaned each of them in water, wiped them dry, checked if each of them were writing properly, and only then gave it to me.
This Clipper fountain pen had a different ink filling mechanism which I had only seen in the internet in an expensive Waterman model. One just needs to move the clip on its body up and down few times and the nib would suck ink.

Then Jayantibhai showed me a Cruiser fountain pen. Filling mechanism was by rotation of the bottom part. By rotating the bottom part clock-wise all air & remaining ink in the tank will be released and then by dipping the nib in the ink pot and rotating it anti-clockwise ink will be sucked in.


He then showed me another box. A treasure box. It had all antique and vintage pens – Parker Vacumatics, Parker 45s, 51s, et cetera.
By now we had become friends. I asked about him. He was from Gujarat and was 84 years old, he said. I learnt from him that he was into pen business since his early days and had this shop for the last 20 years. He told me that his brother had a fountain pen company by the name Jyoti Pens where he used to work. When the demand for fountain pens came down the company started incurring losses and eventually had to be shut. It was then that Jayantibhai started this shop. He says that he comes here because he loves pens. He has 2 sons Bipin and Nilesh. One is working in a company and the other runs this shop. “I have told him that I will be here till afternoon. I want to be here. After having lunch he comes here and then I go home and take rest,” Jayanthibhai told me.

He told me a lot more about pens that he had seen and used. He showed me Lamy company’s famous model Safari. “This is a duplicate China-made Lamy for Rs 500. The original is for Rs 2000. Why do people need so costly pens! In my time pens were so cheap and they of great quality. A pen would last for ages. Times have changed; quality has dropped. But now people have money and they keep buying.”
We spoke for almost an hour and hardly any customers came. One came asking for a ball-point pen’s refill which he did not have. Another came asking for some fancy looking ball-point pens but he did not like what Jayantibhai had.
(This post first appeared in The Yatra Diaries)

Sunday, February 14, 2016

The Greatness Guide by Mr Robin Sharma (Handwritten Notes)

The Greatness Guide is a small yet highly effective book of Mr Robin Sharma, author of many bestsellers. Here are the notes that I took from it as I read through. He has shared simple yet strong tips for a good and healthy life, to become a genius, for good business, on leadership. Hope you enjoy.

You may buy the book here.














    

Monday, February 1, 2016

The Magic of Thinking Big by Dr David Schwartz (Handwritten notes)

Read Dr David Schwartz's splendid book The Magic of Thinking Big (Pocket Books, 1995). The cover page says that over 4 million copies of this book has been sold in print. The 337-page book is replete with real life experiences and is definite to change a sincere reader's life. For the sake of those who have not read the book and those interested in having a glimpse of it I am posting the notes that I had taken while reading.




Thursday, January 14, 2016

Don't roam in Bombay in dhoti, wear English dress - an old man advised me

On January 12, the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, I was going to the Bombay University to watch a play (for the first time in my life) based on the life of the great saint. Sitting besides me, in the local bus, was an old man, perhaps in his late 60s. I was in my usual khadi dhoti-kurta attire, and I was confirming with him whether the bus would go to Kalina, where the University campus is, and also asking him as to how long the journey would take. He said that the bus would take me there. I was relieved to hear that even he was to get down at the same stop as mine. I was definite to not miss the stop. But what he said next was not something that was heartening. There will be traffic in this route and it would take half an hour, he told me. The play was to begin at 3 PM and the time was already 2:40 PM and the bus driver had not yet come. I was getting restless, for I did not want to miss even a single scene of the play or the introductory talks. 

The bus ticket from Kurla station to Kalina was Rs 10 and because I did not have change I gave a hundred Rupee note to the conductor. He returned the balance amount in notes of tens. I was counting the notes, and as I did I was slowly arranging the notes so that all notes had the 'Gandhis' on one side. As soon as I was done and kept them safely in my wallet, the man sitting next to me asked, "Are you new to Bombay?" I was, by now, quite used to getting this question from people primarily because of being clad in a dhoti in a city where even old men have switched to trousers, and also because of my Hindi which had a strong non-Hindi slang. As usual I smiled and said yes; I told him that I was from Kerala. 

We then started talking casually and I was asking him where he was from, what he was doing, et cetera. When he told me that he was working in an automobile finance firm I wanted to know from him if he knew places from where I could get a used Ambassador car in a good condition. Our talks then shifted to old Ambassadors and Premier Padminis, and how they have almost disappeared from the Indian roads. He was eager to know whether these were still common in Kerala. We kept talking.

I did not realize that almost half an hour had passed until he grabbed his bag and signaled to me that our stop had come. He walked towards the front door and I followed him. As soon as we both alighted he told me, "Dekho aap Bombay mein aise lungi mein na ghoomna. Angrezi kapde pehen lo. Warna logon ko jaldi pata chalega ki aap bahar se aaye ho aur vo aapko ullu banaenge." (Don't roam in Bombay in lungi - dhoti is what he meant. Wear English dress. Or else people can easily understand that you are from outside and they might fool you.) He also told me not to ask auto-rickshaw people for routes and directions, and also to prefer asking old people to school or college going students as the former would guide better. He extended his hand for a handshake and then after the handshake I joined both my palms and told him namaste and dhanyavaad

As soon as we walked apart I started rewinding the advice he had given me. The point about asking directions to old men than to students was in a way, and largely, correct, and not asking rickshaw drivers was even more true. What struck me, however, was his suggesting me to wear "English clothes." Our minds are still colonialist, it seems. 

This is not the first time that I have heard or experienced such things. Once when I was taking leave from my neighbour's house saying it was time to leave for the railway station to catch my train to Madras, he had shockingly asked me if I was going in a dhoti. He had then almost ordered me to wear a trouser to which I smiled and said a no. On a previous occasion when I was in Bombay and was to attend a family wedding clad in a dhoti my relatives had close-to forced me to wear a trouser, or at least a pyjama, which again I had desisted. My father had unsuccessfully opposed my going to Delhi in a dhoti. I had attended my engineering degree convocation in my khadi dhoti-kurta attire. When my batchmates, seniors, and juniors saw me in that they laughed. Few asked me what was I doing and I said that since I wear this always and since there was no special dress code prescribed I did not find anything wrong in what I was doing. I had put the convocation robe that was mandatory over my kurta. And when the Governor of Tamil Nadu Mr K. Rosaiah, as the University's Chancellor, walked into the auditorium to give away the degree certificates, he was in the same attire as mine - dhoti, kurta, and a robe on top. I smiled and told my friends sitting next to me, "See the Chief Guest of the function is himself in this attire, and in this large gathering of over 1000 people only we two are in the same costume. It is rather a proud moment for me." 

Wearing a dhoti is seen by few as something that is "inferior." We have to become more "English," they feel, just like the gentleman whom I met in the bus. Dhoti clad men (save politicians and saints) are "lower" or "illiterate" some others feel. Few feel that dhoti is fine but only for specific occasions or when going to a temple, and not for regular use. Few others feel that in cities one should do away with the dhoti, it is fine in rural areas. I refuse to be impressed by any of these arguments. To set the record straight, I must say that I have earned both ridicule and respect for being a habitual wearer of dhoti. Except when a dress code to the contrary is prescribed I feel no reason to do away with the humble dhoti and adopt a "gentleman" or "English" trouser. Thus when I go to Law college to attend classes I am in a white shirt and black trouser, the uniform prescribed for male students.

I wear a dhoti because it is our traditional dress. I feel pride in wearing it. And I wear only khadi ones to promote khadi and the rural artisans who are dependent on this. Not once have I felt ashamed for wearing a dhoti. In fact, I do feel ashamed when people tell me all sort of reasons in an attempt to convince me to give up wearing our own traditional dress and adopting an "English" trouser. 

My mind is open to those who argue that a dhoti is not as comfortable as a trouser or a jean. Personally, I had initially found it very difficult as my waist line was thin and a regular length of dhoti had to be folded way too much before being tucked. I used to, and still do, cut a part of it to fit me. With practise I have managed to get the dhoti stay on without getting loose for almost a whole day. I now find it as comfortable as a trouser. But I do wear a jean, for instance, I did when I was travelling from Bombay to Ahmedabad on a winter night. But that is for protection from the bitter cold which a khadi single-length dhoti would not have given.

To all those who tell me to give up wearing dhoti, I say, I have no ill-will. Come up with a logical proposition that will satisfy me and I shall change. Not reasons like I have to be "English," or modern. I am traditional but not orthodox.    

Jai Hind!