“Beena”

“Yes Raju”

“You have to earn 20,000 Rs per month to break even in the farm...”

“Hunh”

I have used a technical phrase. Let me explain to her in English...

“If you don’t make that much money I will be subsidising the farm”

I touched the right nerve....

She gave me a look that said many things including ‘look! Buster; I will show you’.

She never questioned me on the figures

I think by this time she has learnt to have total faith in my excel sheet propensities.

I know the impact I make on the clients when I speak. It opens up new avenues of thought and action for them....but I never thought that my words would have the same type of impact on Beena... Somewhere I have read that 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’... this became very relevant in her case....I would use later this principle in writing my thesis on.. "how anger against husband is a very major motivating force in women entrepreneurship”... I also applied this principle in the entrepreneurship development programme for women. The anger generated was so much that they did not pay my fees ...very entrepreneurial ...it is all the result of my programmes.....Goes to show that the proof of a pudding is in its eating...

Also the “Association of happily married couples” objected to my strategy of anger induction towards husbands (they lost a couple of their members who attended the programme......)... So I don’t deploy that strategy any more as it may have many side effects... (As I found out in my own case later...)

“Idhu ennango??”(What is this??)Asked Nagarj our new caretaker of the farm...

“This is Gherkin...” he should understand the difference clearly

“Illai ithu velleri...” (No! no... this is cucumber)

“No no this is Gherkin....” again let me drive home the difference...

I explained that Gherkin is like cucumber but farmers harvest it when the vegetable is two inches to three inches long. And they make pickles by putting it into vinegar. I also told them that we have taken a contract for producing Gherkins for an exporter who wants to buy from us the output on a daily basis. He would subsequently put it into big HMDP drums with vinegar and export it. There they would pack them in small bottles and sell it as pickles.

My managemt teaching has taught me very clearly that don’t just ask your subordinates to do the task. Give them the overall picture; give them the context so that they feel involved... That way (I have to shed my modesty here) I am very good at teaching and training people.

They were listening with rapt attention...

The lady was looking at me as if I am the god himself...Nagraj was all ears... I have managed to capture their imagination....being good at body language I could see the interest and enthusiasm I have generated in them....

I do not think that in their life anybody would have taken the trouble to explain to them about gherkins as I did. Of course I had to use my Tamil and my limited Kannada .They spoke Telugu at home but knew little bit of Tamil and some Kannada .if any one who is a student of communication was there (of course he should know the vernaculars well) he would have witnessed a lesson of his life time on effective communication.

So I told them that every day they should pluck only  one inch long Gherkins. The customer is not interested in very small or larger than one inch length Gherkins... After I finished with my briefing I had no doubt that they would become very successful Gherkin farmers....

I was congratulating myself on my ability to speak simple language, vernacular communication specialisation and my superb communication skills. Of course my ability to teach students and corporate mangers was established beyond any pale of doubt in my professional and social circles. . But this would show her how superior my communication skills were compared to her... she will have to learn from me all this... But it will take quite some time....Requires dedication and hard work.

A week had passed by and Beena had gone to the farm...

Krishna’s (my friend who is the Gherkin exporter) call came as a shock to me. He said that our farm has been a disappointment for him. The productivity of acceptable sized Gherkins was very less...he wanted to know whether my people, knew what they were doing...

Beena had gone to the farm...I heard her jeep outside...

“Raju what did you tell them about Gherkins?”

“I just told them that Gherkin.....”

“Nagraj tells me that you showed them cucumber and told them to pluck it when it is unripe...his wife said That you told her that she has to make pickle out of this ... Whereas she knows(she tells me everybody in the world knows) that vellri is to be used for pachadi only...”

“What I showed them is Gherk.......”

“Nagraj says Aiyya (my self) does not know anything about agriculture, or land, or cucumber or vegetables ... (of course they don’t expect you to know also) Nagraj and his wife did not want to disappoint you and where just allowing you to talk...”

“What.... i.... Gher...cuc.......” all that interest and the concentration they showed were for my sake...!!

I did not know what to say.....I decided that from now on I would not give any direction or instruction to them...let Beena handle it...

“Why did you talk about Gherkins? You should have talked about “China Vellri” as small variety of cucumber...why confuse them with Gehrkin and pickles....and clearly given them instructions....you should have asked me....”

She never heard my side of the story...I realised that I should concentrate on working with elites... that is my direction .It is not my role to work with people who do not come up to my standard. Let Beena work with them...

Nagraj had waited for the Gherkins to attain big cucumber size which were unsalable...so Krishna’s company never got what they wanted....No wonder Krishna was upset

So Beena realised that with the existing manpower and infrastructure she should not be concentrating on hi-tech products.

“Raju you know the rate of tomato..?”

“No ma”

“In the market they are selling at 12 Rs a kg....”

“Is it so?”

“Why don’t we grow tomato?”

“Good idea been...( I never say no to her ideas....... better to say yes and accept rather than say no and then accept...) ...You need sticks to support the plants no...”

“No problem we can manage....”

Nagraj was excited..... Thakkali (tomato) ....he said his uncle once made a killing out of growing Thakkali... (Later I came to know that his uncle killed himself as he became a pauper because of Thahkkali)

There were big sticks supporting the Tomato plants. Beena said they bought theses ticks for a bargain. They got 1000 sticks for 2000 Rs. When I asked whether she can recover this amount...by selling Thakkali? ....She laughed and said...that ‘these can be reused no of times and therefore the cost would be negligible....so you can recover the cost of sticks if you stick to tomato growing...’

Tomatoes were red and shiny... I asked Beena how she is going to sell; she said we can take it to the lalbagh market.....On the way to our farm we found many farmers growing tomato. In one place I found that they had thrown Tomatoes outside and they were rotting. I thought maybe they were having a disease... We loaded the Tomatoes and went to the market...Ten Tomato Lorries were already there...there was a flood of Tomatoes in the market and the rate at which lalbagh market authorities were purchasing from the farmers was 2. Rs a kg... our cost of production (seed, labour, fertiliser, insecticide and transport came to 3 rs this does not include the stick costs....)we never realised that all farmers think alike... when everybody saw the high prices , they just produced and produced Tomatoes and now the crash of prices was the result...... Now I knew the secret of rotting tomatoes and why farmers had abandoned their produce and did not even bring it to the market; they would be making more losses by bringing it to the market after paying for the transport. This was my first brush with the demand and supply economics...

I believe.... in Italy... (Or somewhere out there) they have a tomato day where they throw tomato at each other and big cart loads of tomatoes were used. I have seen somewhere the photos of streets which looked like river of tomatoes... Now I knew the logic of such festivals. If we had the tomato festival in Bangalore then definitely we could have got a better rate.... my article on “farmer today” titled “vegetable hubba ....logic for celebrating Tomato, Grape, Lemon and Banana festivals” has created a mini stir...I believe the minister of agriculture is sending a delegation to Italy to take part in the Tomato festival to see how we can model the hubba (festival) here. It is also whispered with knowing looks in the political circles that Madame Sonia is also quite thrilled about the idea of bringing the Italian culture to the Indian soil and is in touch with Quattorochi for doing the needful. I (I believe she is contemplating on a grapes day).. See..... Without any intention I end up making excellent contribution to the welfare of the Indian (and probably Italian) public....

I have also an idea of onion “festival of tears” ;it would be called.... where we can use cut onions...(psst...I am now thinking of the marketing strategy for the three dimensional onion cutter of the pulav blog .. which is under prototype....)

The wise thing perhaps was to continue with Tomato because the reverse was likely to happen... that is when farmers see prices coming down they will not plant Tomato again and the prices will go up.....my suggestion to Beena was stick to tomatoes and even out the cost of tomato sticks...

But Beena never walks the same path where she has seen failure. So that was the last time we had Tomato growing in the farm...Those Tomato sticks were counted and stacked and over a period of time Nagraj and co found the sticks ideal for their fuel.. And Beena decided not to notice the slowly dwindling stock... I also never talked about it again....the bundle is still there... But in Tamil there is a saying “it is the story of how a donkey slowly was worn down to become an ant”

Beena is a protein promoter and also a person who believed in recharging the land...So we decided on groundnut, which with its nodular roots rich in nitrogen regenerates the soil.... initially the challenge, was rats. They ate up the pods...We had to mobilise the snakes to go after the rats... I never understood before, why beena never ever killed a snake in the farm... (Even when one of them crept into the bed and was lying cosily...by this time the farm house was ready) Next time it was the challenge of labourers... We had to part with 15 percent of the produce... for them to come as a team and pluck the nuts from the ground...So we made them partners, i.e. they took care of and pocketed the profits an we of course had the privilege of bearing the costs.. Another time the market crashed.....but we did get stock of raw fresh groundnuts and made some yummy dhal and ate them, we had the stock of groundnuts for a year...we all love ground nuts so we had a ball.

She grew everything (almost) Banana, Papaya, Eggplant, Corn, Paprika, Chillies, Horse garm, Chickpea, Ragi, Paddy ,Watermelon.....name it we had a dash at it.....

“Raju I am thinking....”

I braced myself for the next phase of the adventure...

“We should concentrate on Ragi and some Paddy (in a small low lying area)... Nagraj and family can buy their yearly requirement from us.....”(Ultimately I know that we will land up giving it to them as perks...)

“Good idea been...”

“Whatever we do we cannot make more than 5000 Rs a month”

We did make money.... she is now establishing that she had made 5000 Rs a month.....but her accounting principles are different .. And I did not want to go into the details...

“Then Nagraj can concentrate on Mangoes, Coconuts, Teak and Silver Oakes... we just have to wait for two years then we will get our 20000 per month" ...She was an eternal optimist...

“Yes ma...”

This is the time for listening....

“But I have a brilliant idea.....”

I was taking guard to face the next googly...

“We will start a Milk Dairy and sell Milk.....”

After her stock market entry I was aware of bulls only in the symbolic sense...Now I am going to get in touch with real ones or their relatives.... The story of how we bought cows and inseminated them with imported bull’s semen and how we milked them using our milking machine is a story by itself...

Though the agriculturist experience itself did not give us the expected return... it had its side benefits...My consultancy with Manjuanth, the exporter of roses resulted in a unique case study, which people still keep disusing in the corridors of IIM Bangalore... is a case called “Hortibzaar dot com” Which is a business plan for a portal to help the farmer to sell his produce effectively eliminating the middleman..... Manjunth was not able to convince the ignorant Venture Capitalists is another story... If any of you are interested in a start up and can influence the venture capitalist to put in just a million dollars ,a wonderful “on line” business concept is ready....