Rajoooo...

When she calls me in the ordinary way there is no problem. Even if the tone is combative or accusing no issues; when her voice takes a little melodious tone there is a problem -))

Aajoo...

Ominous! Be, prepared. Whatever is going to happen now; you are not going to like it- I thought...?

 With a slightly uninterested tone I managed to squeeze in a” yeah......”

“I was thinking”

I keep telling her not to think. Even when she does not think her hybrid Mallu Christian blood makes her come out with some very innovative schemes which scare the hell out of me. My Tambram thinking does not allow me go beyond a certain safe boundaries of life. 

Might as well face reality. I now face her with an artificial nonchalance...

“What were you saying?”

“I want to earn some money”.

 Watch out!   I said to myself. This is a Red Herring. Something else is behind it. Let me probe

“Come on!!  Who doesn’t?”

“I was just thinking”

More thought process ....more problems.... Better not allow her to think too much. Let me force the issue

“You want to tell me something”

“I was thinking of running a farm”

Still it did not dawn on me...”what you want to take up a job”

“Don’t be silly! I am talking about buying land and developing a farm...’’

“But where is the money?”

“I am planning to sell my shares.”

My shares....Many times I told her it was our shares and she would quietly end up saying when she said mine it meant ours. But how come you say “our” sometime and “mine” other times?

This was only the saving we had (other than our house). Of course Beena was very good at investing in the stock market (I was good at giving lectures and conducting sessions for would be investors on how to invest in stocks). We had decided that she would look after the investments. Typically in Tanjore (where I come from) we find that the farmer who works for you on “Kuthagai” (farmer who takes it on lease), assumes owner ship after some years and claims the land as his own, especially when there is an absentee owner. Similarly her involvement with the share had made her the de-facto owner. I thought it happened only in the Tanjore district where I come from. Now I realised that it happens in Kerala also where she comes from. I was not an absentee owner of the shares. For the sake of operational convenience the shares were bought in her name.

She did make a good amount of money but we never had the concept of our and your money.

In my PC (I had not graduated to laptop at that time) in an excel sheet I( it was a great job) had worked out a very thought out plan  ( future cash flows, incorporating inflation, varying scenarios, future revenues and costs) for my retirement in about 15 years. I was congratulating myself on my foresight and the strategic thinking (actually I was planning to write an article on it in a business magazine on the need and essence of future planning for personal finances) when her idea landed like a bolt in the blue.  What will happen to my planning? The whole picture might change! The Money in the stock market which played a very important part in my future planning is about to be thrown behind a farm. Once it goes it will never come back

I am like my father. I want to plan well in advance. I always think of the worst and always prepare myself for the battles. So I fight out the battles well in advance to the actual occurrence. Most of them never occurred really and that has made me a great fighter like Don Quixote fighting wind mills as nonexistent dragons. Whereas she lives life as it comes...a spiritual attitude all right but it keeps raising new ghosts in my life. The only way I have learnt to deal with my uncertainties is plan our future with certainty...Now she puts a bombshell.

Relax.... I said to myself ...deal with this strategically; sabotage. Do not oppose it from the front. Show some resistance; then give in--- get to her side, work with her and sabotage it...

Being an excellent consultant don’t I know how to deal with this?

I knew the problems of running a farm. In Karnataka, you cannot buy a land if you are not an agriculturist. Even you if you are an agriculturist your income should not exceed a limit. I also knew that it is not easy to make money running a farm. Even if by hook or crook we are able to deal with the first issue I will hammer her down on the next issue. All said and done she is very rational....

I said” yeah why not let us see!!”

I thought that was the end of it.

Next Friday as I was leaving for the office (I was in a hurry to meet a customer). She said “keep tomorrow and day after tomorrow free”. As I was stepping into the car she said “we are going for looking at land”.

“Land!! What Land??? Which Land?????? How land?????........”

 My questions burst forth in a typical consultant style in an un grammatical form...

“Don’t be silly (she might have said stupid also: but those days she never used that word)... for the farm only...”

 “WHAAT!! How come: we have not yet decided on the farm, leave alone buying land...”

She looked pained and said “You only agreed that I can put my money in a farm...Any way ”she said “it is getting late for you bye, bye...     when you are in office think  about whether we should go buy land towards  Sarjapur road or Kanakapura Road..”

She was a better strategist...

 I should have known. Now I know the difference between”your “money and” my” money talk she has been having for some time...poof!  Went my dreams of early retirement plan...evaporated and laid waste hours of toil. I was thinking of the meaningless creative hours spent in the excel workbook and anchor less future I am going to face. I should have known this when I married a Mallu girl that too from Sophia college Bombay. All is not lost. What about other points...I was now feeling a little better.

Yeah we will meet my friend Raghu, the real estate guy and also Gangappa the VAO (village administrative officer who looks after the village agricultural lands records) I had met earlier. He was the VAO of Munireddipalli near Sarjapur. I also thought we could meet my friend Bopanna who runs a farm near Kaganur.

I prepared these guys and managed to communicate to them their role .i.e. dissuade Beena from putting up a farm.

Raghu told us clearly that in the normal way I can never buy agricultural land. He said many people do it differently by manipulating certain records etc...

 “You are an excellent consultant know. Why don’t you manage it. You have so many companies in getting money?”

 I mobilised and called into my help all my nationalist feelings.    It was on that day for the first time, Beena experienced my moralistic attitude and the deep passion I had for being bound by rules and regulation of the country and the respect I had for following the law. (I also realised about my morality only then! I was actually shocked and almost started believing in it).

“Then we will buy land in Tamil Nadu”.

“WA!!!WHAT!!”  I almost jumped out of my seat...

“We will buy near Hosur. It is just 60 kms from our house....”

“How will you commute to and fro...?

“We will buy a Jeep”

Oh! My god!  The informal conversation we had a month back came to my mind. She was talking about how she loved to drive a four wheel drive (She drives the car so well).  I was just teasing her why she should not buy a vehicle for herself... She was also joking that she would ; if she has some regular need for it. Or was she planning for this all along...?

.

I looked at her face. Her innocent face did not show any sinister advance planning. Or did I see a semblance of a smile lurking in the background.......

Mentally I took my old chappal, hit my head and said I should have been careful...

An old Tamil saying came to head “Nunalum than Vayal kedum”

A frog hidden from the eye of the snake with its own croaking announces its position and becomes a prey to the snake. The saying says even a frog gets into trouble only by opening its mouth.

I was desperate......

What about profitability angle.....

I was almost shouting. “But what about other regular expenses? Who is going to fund for it? What about my calculations where are we going... when can I retire?”

“Don’t worry I will not take any money from you . . . I will repay this loan with interest: you have taken for your computer calculations an average rate of 12% .....Right...

How come she has become so smart...? Interest rate; loan; repayment. When and where did she learn all this?

She is the person who handles all money matters and bank transactions. Since I was monitoring money inflows and outflows, I had an ongoing battle with her on her maintaining financial discipline. I was asking her to make a budget and at the end of the month to log in all the expenses, and help me in understanding the money position. She would feign knowledge of anything that has to do with calculations. Her claim was she was not an MBA and I remember her mentioning that since I was an MBA I should do all that. (She should have known that we MBA’s do only strategic thinking .Others have to act and get results...)

Now she is talking a different language!!

I had to struggle at the end of the year, decoding the transactions made from various accounts .I had to just bite the bullet and struggle with myself because of the ignorance she claimed of her knowledge of finance. Now she is not only formalising “your” and “my” money but talking about giving me the money at the time of my retirement with interest added. From “loan” it will becomes her contribution to the post retirement.....

Be calm, be calm I said to myself...

“Without working out anything on paper how can you say you will not need any more money and you will be managing with “your” money?”

 Don’t I know the fundas of starting a business?

Oh my god!! I have also accepted the concept that the money she has in stock market is “hers”

Before I could search around for the virtual Chappal for a repeat performance, her voice shook me from the stupor.

“What is your problem?  So far have I not been managing? Why are you unnecessarily worried? Just leave it to me. I come from Kerala. In Kerala all of us know how to manage farms.”

The very words I dread to hear....

 I did not tell her all together in her life she would have spent totally nine months in Kerala.  If I go further in this line of argument she would take up the issue of my mother(poor soul is from Tamil Nadu) struggling with her measly looking garden looking like a TB asylum for afflicted plants. Better not allow her to continue developing her thought process in this direction. I did not want to drag my mother in this controversy...She knows that I always get defensive when mother is drawn in a conversation...

There is now no getting away from it...... Postpone my retirement date.  .....Go back and work again on the excel sheet (disable the macros... write new VB scripts). Cancel meeting with my friend (Bopanna) who is running a farm (The friend    who   was supposed to dissuade her) .He is no match for my Sahadharmini .All of us mortals are no match against a lady determined to do something on her own (if she happens to be a Mallu than better give up).....

But I knew one thing...her individual journey towards something that makes meaning to her has begun....It starts late for them after the children are taken care off. Should I not sacrifice for my wife (since there is no other option, this at least makes you feel good)

Negotiating with Gangappa for land (his first wife, second, their children, claimed children, nephews......), buying a land, digging a well, appointing a caretaker, growing Gherkins and Banana. (And almost all the vegetables under the sun) Putting up a farm house, buying cows, bulls, frozen semen for implantation, running a dairy farm, buying sheep, shearing the sheep, running a poultry farm and running a convention centre, are different stories ... equally filled with excitement and thrill(for her) and anxiety and tension (for me.) if you are interested I will talk about them later.

One thing happened. I had to become an entrepreneur myself to make up for the loss of missing share money  from my calculations....She did get the money with a return of more than 12 percent..Did she then return the money?

 Naw!!...The next cycle started...   She decided put it back in another farm land near a lake where she is growing Coconuts, Chickoo, Alphonso.  That is another story.

I was at least very intuitive in understanding that”her “money would always be “hers.....”

It will be unfair if I don’t tell you that with her taking over “her” money and earning out of it, we can dream of retiring much earlier than we thought. That is how Beena became a farmer...yes she did make a lot of money by not running it...... but by selling it!!

 Tambram....Short form for Tamilian Brahmin (usually they do not know Tamil)

Mallu......Owing their origin to Kerala (may or may not know Malayalam)

Excell.....Computer application for working with figures (numbers)

Sahadarmini.. Short form for wife