PART 3: REACHING OUT -----> Chapter 3

“Any idiot can criticize, but no idiot can provide a good solution,” said Capt. Ironman Shahnawaz. I had told him about my plans on helping to eliminate the rural-urban divide. And he told me about his conversation with Raju. He was now responding to my apprehension that people would rather criticize than promote my ideas.

“Why is it so?” I asked him. “Why do people just criticize?”

“There are many reasons,” he explained. “For one, it’s the easiest thing to do. One just has to criticize and sit back and relax. Another reason is that people are afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” I asked.

“Afraid of failure as well as success. They want to go where no man has ever gone before. But at the same time, they are not prepared to lose what they are enjoying at the moment. It is a known fact that success will not come without sacrifice. Yet people behave in strange ways because they are lazy.”

“Human beings are imperfect beings,” I replied. “Isn’t it true?”

“True. They can achieve near perfection, but only if they have the courage to strive hard for it. Abhinav, it reminds me of that Spiritual Development Programme you had introduced at Lakshmi. I’ve decided to start a similar one here also.”

I was overjoyed. The veteran had just acknowledged that my ideas were worth trying. I expressed my delight to him. It reminded me about asking him a favour.

“Ikka, could you do me a little favour? Lok uncle needs a management consultant who is well-versed in the area of operations. Do you know anybody who is reliable?”

“Yes. I know a man who is good at improving operational efficiency,” he replied almost immediately. “And when I say he’s good, I mean he’s really good. His name is Vasanth Kumar and I’ll ask him to contact Lokanath, okay?”

I felt relieved. He wished me the best of luck in my endeavor and blessed me.

“Abhinav, remember the acronym PDC. That’s patience, determination and concentration. You’ll need these in order to set up a successful venture.”

“PDC,” I repeated and then nodded.

Before leaving the office, he introduced me to his subordinate manager and right-hand man. The Captain told him to see me off.

On my way out, I thought of the place from where I could buy a walking stick. I took the opportunity to ask the man where I could buy one. He gave me the details of the location, and I headed off towards it.

***

That evening, I presented the walking stick to the boy. The wonder in his eyes on seeing it moved my heart. Just after saying good-bye to everybody, a young girl came up to me and said, “Radha Chechi…” Another one immediately hushed her up from behind.

I didn’t know what they were up to.

On reaching Lok uncle’s place, I found that Vasanth Kumar had already contacted him. Uncle was quite impressed by the way he spoke. He seemed to have proficiency in the field. Currently, he was away on a tour, but would be back the next week.

Now that uncle’s problem was in the process of being figured out, I decided to leave for Cochin. I had a lot of spadework to do.

***

The results of the marketing research were encouraging. They reinforced my belief in the project. Things moved fast. After conducting the feasibility studies, Raju, Stephen and I pushed forward with our project. We were advised to get it registered as a private limited company. Stephen chose the name for the company: Primacy Food Products Pvt Ltd.

We formulated a specific mission for our business:

“TO CREATE JOY AND SATISFACTION FOR OUR CUSTOMERS BY WAY OF HEALTHY PRODUCTS MADE BY A TEAM OF PATRIOTS; AND CONTRIBUTE TO REDUCING THE RURAL-URBAN DIVIDE TO ULTIMATELY ATTAIN THE DREAM OF A DEVELOPED INDIA.”

We decided to adopt the same values which we followed at Lakshmi, namely that of active patriotism.

I contacted Radha to tell her that our flight had taken off the runway.

“You’ll do even better Abhinav. But you’ll have to work very hard in the beginning. The Gita says: ‘True happiness is like poison at first, but like nectar at the end. That happiness is declared to be Sattvik.’

“I think we can safely apply the idea here also. If you take pains early, then you will surely gain at the end.”

“Definitely. I’m on it full-time,” I replied.

“Abhinav, I received letters from the young ones at Alappuzha. I was so happy I don’t know how to convey it. From the questions you were asked and the answers you gave them…I’ll say that you are an excellent friend, philosopher and guide to them. I couldn’t have done half as good.”

“But you are the one who has got the emotional connection,” I contended. “You just need to smile at them and they’ll know what you mean that instant. I saw that the last time we had gone there together.”

“Speaking of emotional connection, I salute you for what you did for that little boy,” said Radha. “My heart goes out to you.”

“Radha, I could only manage to deliver the walking stick the next day. I know if it were you, you would have bought it that very day. So I don’t deserve your praise.”

I felt awkward at receiving so much praise from her. It was as if I was longing to hear something like that, but when I did hear it I suffocated. I then decided to ask her about her marriage. I really wanted to know the progress her parents had made in their search.

“Radha, how about your parents?”

“Oh! They are doing fine.”

“What about your suitor?”

“Yes. It seems they’ve almost found one,” she replied. I was frightened.

After a pause, she went on: “I spoke to him. He sounded very nice. I don’t think anybody can find any faults in him in the first instance.”

After ending our conversation, I looked down in disbelief. I just prayed that he would show some fault of his the second time they would speak. Everybody had positives, as well as negatives. I just hoped that he would show his negatives.

***

We hired a few workers initially and coached these team members on the principles of work, which we believed in. Everyday, we had to articulate our dreams of a developed India and the importance of their contribution to it. We had to build up their confidence.

Raju and Stephen too followed a simple lifestyle. They too believed that simplicity was to be respected and not deplored. This helped to reduce the divide amongst team members and entrepreneurs. I spent much of my own time in establishing a one-to-one relationship with each and every member. I also trained the supervisors to do the same. “Never should they feel the need for collective bargaining,” was what I instructed the supervisors. “We must address all their concerns.”

All of us got along well. Raju was quite lively and humorous. He was so lighthearted. But Stephen was a complainer. He was always discontented with something or the other.

One day we indulged in a conversation while standing on the pineapple field.

“Raju! I almost forgot to tell you. What an awful dialer-tone you’ve got,” Stephen sounded off. “I was frantically trying to call you yesterday. But you just wouldn’t pick up the phone. And all that I could hear was ‘Oh podu, Oh podu’.”

“I don’t sleep with it,” replied Raju. “Don’t you know that I put it on silent mode after 10 pm? I called you first thing in the morning, no?”

Stephen appeared to have been pacified by Raju’s explanation.

“Tut-tut. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing you,” said Raju again to Stephen. “You’ve become so thin and feeble.”

I didn’t think Stephen’s physique had changed for the worse. But he looked far more depressed than ever before.

“What do you think, Abhi?” Raju asked.

“Steve looks more depressed now,” I answered.

“What happened?” Raju asked Stephen, turning towards him.

“It’s my wife again,” replied Stephen. “You know that weddings of close relatives have been classified as a must for me to attend, no matter how busy I am. Sometime back, she had criticized me, that I was too flashy at social gatherings. Though I didn’t agree with her, I thought I’d keep a low profile in order to appease her. Now she openly criticizes me in front of others, that my presence is so subdued that others will not even notice me. ‘The fourth chamcha of a state minister’, that’s what she describes me. She never says anything good about me.”

Raju folded his hands and then began scratching his neck, as if he was sorry he had asked.

“Don’t worry Steve,” I tried to console him. “Devote some of your time to improve your relationship with her. Over a period of time, it will improve.”

“I’ve been doing that for a few years,” replied Stephen. “It’s no good.”

So much for my advice.

“Da, wait till we make our jam,” said Raju. “Then you just have to prepare a sandwich with it and let her have it for breakfast. It will change her mood. Then both of you can leave for your second honeymoon.”

“You people don’t know her,” Stephen explained ignoring Raju’s attempt to cheer him up. “Nothing will satisfy her. Even if we name the jam after her, she’ll still not become content.”

Saying this, Stephen walked around the two of us until he completed a full circle. There was no use trying to jolly him up. He was so pessimistic when it came to dealing with his jaan. Raju couldn’t advise Stephen in this case, because he wasn’t facing the same problem as Stephen.

Raju, in contrast, hade made it a point to always express his care and concern for his wife. He made good use of sweet words like honey, milk, and sugar to address her. He even coined words like miloney and suctar which were combinations of the words milk & honey, sugar & nectar, to keep her contented. Although such words sounded awful, his wife loved it. He even gave special names for the dishes she used to prepare. One particular dish was cleverly named ‘Chicken 100’—the number was carefully chosen to indicate its superiority to the popular dish ‘Chicken 65’ available at restaurants. And Raju’s success lay in the fact that he would never overdo things. One would do well to take a leaf out of this man’s book. However, Stephen had failed in this aspect too.

“Forget about that,” Stephen finally said. “I have something else to tell you fellows. I met a guy who had a similar business proposition—he wanted to carry out both agricultural and industrial operations. In fact, he even started the business. But he failed. Spiraling costs was the problem.”

I got a feeling of déjà vu when I heard “spiraling costs”.

He went on: “He decided to use raw materials of lower quality. Ultimately, the product failed and so did his business. The man had forgotten that he had been serving customers.”

“We’ll take care of spiraling costs and we’ll never compromise on our ethics,” I replied.

The thoughts which were passing through my mind were not new. In fact, they echoed what we had done at Lakshmi.

“We’ll get this done,” said Raju.

“You can bet on it,” I responded. “And through this venture, we’re going to bring freedom to India—freedom from underdevelopment.”

We gave high-fives to each other. The sun shone brightly on us and it seemed to be conveying a message I couldn’t decipher. But I was optimistic. We were working for a cause greater than ourselves.

***

Our business grew and we acquired more land and increased production capacity. We employed more workers and influenced them by our organization culture. Raju and Stephen showed amazing levels of enthusiasm. We were literally competing with one another to chip in. Their managerial skills at getting things done ensured that every problem was solved whether it was regarding permission from the authorities or administrative troubles.

We identified a firm to be the distributor for our product. It was owned by a truly unique person called Majeed, who shared our dreams of a developed India. He was a known patriot in his neighborhood. In fact, he loved his country more than his family. He became the sole distributor for our product.

Later on, we inked an agreement to acquire his firm and he was made a shareholder in our concern. Apart from achieving better coordination in the business, it also enabled us to gain control over almost the entire value chain.

A value chain consisted of various activities performed by a firm to produce, support and deliver its products. As far as we were concerned, all the main activities right from procurement of raw materials, manufacturing into finished goods and wholesaling were under our direct control. Only retailing was outside our scope. We had to distribute the product to supermarkets across the state and let them do the retailing.

We saved costs by not going for any expensive branding exercise. The quality and price of our product would speak for itself.

***

The blessings of our gurus and our commitment to excellence ensured that nothing could go wrong for us. Raju and Stephen had become so confident about the venture that they decided to sell off their individual enterprises to focus on this undertaking. And the result was that we became successful. This gave us even more confidence for diversifying our product portfolio.

There was a growing class of affluent people in upcoming cities in Kerala such as Kottayam and Kollam besides cities like Cochin and Thiruvananthapuram. We discovered a market for fresh juices which had a shelf-life of 2-3 days.

We initially started off with fresh pineapple juice, followed by fresh guava juice which also turned out to be successful. It was then that we found the need to have an umbrella brand name and use it to further expand the product portfolio.

In a short span of time, we began to see prosperity among the rural folks. We were counting on other entities within and outside the state to study our business model so that our prosperity could spread throughout the country.

We were well on our way towards reducing the rural-urban divide. It would play a vital role in taking India to developed country status.