Balas's Literary Experiments

Climbing Kilimanjaro – Lessons in high-altitude trekking

2011-10-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

This travelogue is based on the author's own experience and perceptions. Distances and measures are approximate and are estimations by the author, and not scientifically measured numbers.

"Kili, Here I come"

I first heard about Mt. Kilimanjaro during my first trip to Tanzania a few years back, to visit family. My wife had then expressed that we should climb it. Not having done any major mountain trekking, I did not think there was much difficulty in it and only time was needed.

Having done a lot more trekking in the past few years – some of which were in Himalayan and other mountains, I realized that climbing a very high mountain is not just as simple as finding time for it. So, when my wife said that a family friend, Ramesh, had sent email asking if anyone would be interested in Mt. Kilimanjaro and that I should go for it, I was hesitant initially. On the one hand, I was very tempted as my wife (who was preparing for a 700 km biking trip from Manali to Khardhungla in the Himalayas) was encouraging me to do it, and I too badly wanted it. On the other, I was apprehensive whether I had the strength and stamina to do it.

I agonized a lot over the decision with several sleepless nights. When all analysis of pros and cons, risks and rewards did not help with the decision and the time to respond was upon me, I just went with my intuition and self-belief and joined in. I decided to use the next couple of months to prepare myself as best as I could, even though I had no idea what high altitude trekking had in store.

When an opportunity has no precedence, reason and analysis are not much help. Self-belief and confidence, with good preparation, are the ingredients for success.

A daily routine of walking, jogging, weight training and cycling, coupled with sensible diet made me a different person on the strength and stamina front. I was also bolstered in confidence by the successful biking experience at high altitudes by my wife. By the time I was ready to board my flight, I was brimming with excitement and confidence.

In Mumbai, I met with the rest of the team of 16 people who were to separate into two groups using different routes. In my group, I had five other friends – Ramesh, Mohan, Senthil, Sam and Nagar; we had planned to ascend through the Rongai route and descend through the Marangu route, while the other group from one of the top IT companies was going through the Marangu route for both ascent and descent.

There are a total of 7 routes to Kilimanjaro from different points along the base of the mountain; a few of them start more westward towards the town of Arusha, from the Serengeti side, while the Marangu route starts more towards the center closer to the town of Moshi. The Rongai route, on the other hand, starts from the Kenyan side of the mountain and is away from the Tanzanian cities. The Marangu route has prefabricated huts at various camps with running water and other facilities, and is also called the Coco Cola Route (as you could even get a bottle of Coke at the high camps). The other routes have only campsites where tents can be pitched for accommodation. Our tour operator was not able to get us (the group of 6) accommodation in the Marangu huts as we had joined later, and hence had suggested the Rongai route. That is how the two groups got formed with two different routes.

A few words are in order about my team. Ramesh was the most experienced trekker and a fitness fanatic in our group. Mohan, Senthil and Sam also had trekking experience in the mountains of Western Ghats and Himalayas. They knew a lot on what to expect and how to prepare. Nagar had done one high altitude trek and had an experience of what to expect. I was the only novice in the group, but benefited a lot through the information exchange from the experienced four. They also drew up a list of things to take for the trek, which was very valuable – especially the various medicines and snacks that we carried and which was to be a trek-saver on a later date.

The flight to Kilimanjaro, via Mumbai and Addis Ababa, was uneventful and we landed in the late afternoon. After everyone collected their luggage, we moved in a mini-bus that our tour operator, Akaro Tours, had brought to the airport. The bus deposited us to our hotel in Moshi – The Shah Tours and Travels Mountain Inn. After settling down, the trekkers assembled for a briefing from Mr. Kawa of Akaro Tours and to arrange for renting missing trekking gear.

Through the Rain Forest to Moorland

We started our trek in Rongai route from the Nalemuru Gate, which was a 2-hour drive around the mountain from Moshi, to the North. After all the luggage was partitioned into 20 kg bags and assigned to the various porters and registered with the Tanzania Park authorities, our first-day trek started off with a lot of excitement and energy through a dusty and muddy track, in a lush-green mountain with rain forests and evergreen trees. Kenya was to our back and the mountain was in front of us. Our trek started from a height of about 2000 meters (6400 ft) and our first day's stop was at the First Cave campsite or Rongai Cave, at a height of about 2850 m (9300 ft). While we got a first glimpse of what our tented accommodation would be for the entire trip, I was surprised that we even had a dining tent with a table and chairs for our dining needs. The tents were a bit cramped though, and we had to crawl in and out of it every time.

The second trek got us beyond the reach of the rainforests, and we started seeing a change of vegetation with short bushes and the characteristic Senecio trees. We moved from 2850 m (9300 ft) at Rongai Cave to Kikelewa Camp the second night, which is at an altitude of 3600 m (11811 ft). All through the first and second day, our guides kept repeating the mantra for acclimatizing and successfully managing high altitudes – drinking plenty of water, and trekking "pole´ pole´" or "slow slow". Not having insight into how my own body will react to high altitude, I decided to religiously follow the guide's advice and ended up being the slowest of the group during most of the trek. I was not bothered, as my focus was not to reach faster in the intermediate camps but increase my chances of successful summit by giving maximum time for my body to adjust to higher altitudes.

When embarking on something totally new, expert-speak is the only prop on which one can rely. Giving more time for learning also reduces the risk of failure at a later stage.

The Camp

Our camps were pitched near a water source. As mentioned, our first camp was near what was called the Rongai Cave or the First Cave. There are three caves along the way to Kilimanjaro from Nalemuru. The first camp was close to the first of these caves. The second cave is further along the route we took on the second day, where we take a deviation. Trekkers charting a direct route to Kilimanjaro would camp at the second cave on the second night, and then move on to the third cave which is on the direct route. This is a steeper trek of fewer days and we had chosen a longer route to give greater chance for successful acclimatization.

The water source in the Rongai Cave camping ground was a pool of stagnant water in a dry river course (which presumably is full during the rains, and where the pool probably is filled by an underground spring). The tents were laid on the grounds and the camp had a couple of basic toilets for all the campers. The toilets were basically a hole in the ground, covered by wooden platform and leading to a deep pit. They were functional and by design or usage, ensured that people stayed for the minimum time possible and got out. This also ensured that just the two toilets were sufficient for a large batch of trekkers – in our case, there were a total of about 50 or more trekkers camped out in a wide area that night.

As mentioned earlier, our tents were quite cramped and were meant primarily to sleep in. We spent most of our free time outside and went in only to rest and sleep. I had wondered why we had a dining tent with tables and chairs, until I realized that these would be needed in case of rains and snowfall during the trek. There were additional tents for the cook, and for the porters. The tents were just utilitarian and each accommodated two persons (or more precisely, two sleeping bags). There was an outer area where we took off our trekking shoes and kept our trekking poles. We then got into the inner entrance where we spread our sleeping bags on top of mats. Our luggage could be kept inside the inner tent behind the sleeping bags, where there was some additional space for the purpose. Larger tents and even private toilet tents were seen among other groups, and upon enquiry, we found that these meant even more porters accompanying the group and hence higher cost for the trek.

Each morning, we got a bowl of hot water at 6.30 AM for washing our faces and brushing, following which we had breakfast in the dining tent at 7.30 AM. Breakfast consisted of hot porridge made of millet, followed by bread toast with jam and butter, omlette for those who ordered the same, a variety of fruits and sometimes a salad of carrots, cucumber and tomatoes. After breakfast, we packed our belongings in the tents, including the sleeping bags and any clothes we had taken out. We also had a day pack which we carried on our backs.

The day pack was to have essentials for the trekking and included water bottles, medicines, additional warm clothes, raincoat, snacks such as dry fruits and chocolates, camera, sun glasses and other personal items. Each day, after packing our bags, we filled our water bottles and left for the day's trek at around 8.30 AM. On days where the trek took up more than 5 hours, we also were given a pack lunch, while on days where we reached our destination sooner, we had hot lunch on arrival.

As our guides kept advising us to drink a lot of water, I carried 4 liters of water in my day pack both to build stamina (by carrying about 5 kgs on my person during the initial days of the trek) and to drink plenty of water to get better acclimatized. We also took a daily dose of Diamox tablet after our dinner each night.

Lunches and Dinners were quite elaborate affairs, which I was both surprised pleasantly and pleased. We had salads, plenty of fruits, rice, chapati or pasta for carbs, vegetable curry, bread and soup, and after lunch/dinner, a drink of hot chocolate, tea, coffee and Milo. We also ate chocolates for dessert. As we went to higher altitudes, our appetites became smaller and we could not eat a lot of what was on offer.

Guide's Wisdom

From Kikelewa camp, we trekked further on to Mawenzi Tarn, the campsite at the foot of Mount Mawenzi that is to the east of Kilimanjaro. This got us to an elevation of 4315 m (14,160 ft). There was a pond adjacent to the campsite, which our guide told, was being replenished by a spring. The water on the top looked stagnant with moss over it, but we knew that any water in these heights was a boon. Raffiki, our cook, boiled all water which included our drinking water. Hot water was not a problem, since the nights were cold and the boiling hot water became chilled within an hour (if left outside).

The altitude finally caught up on us and by the time we reached Mawenzi Tarn, all of us were having some sort of altitude- or weather-related problem. As the weather had become colder along the way, we had minor headaches caused due to sinus problems, or due to altitude – we never know which. We also had upset stomachs, acidity, diarrhea, and one of our group also developed a fever. The fever started as severe exhaustion in the Kikelewa camp, which was attributed to a speedy climb he had done that day. By the time we reached Mawenzi Tarn, it had developed into a fever.

Luckily, the wisdom of the experienced four in our group was valuable in dealing with these problems. Everyone took different tablets for the different ailments in addition to our Diamox. Our food intake also became customized to our ailments – for example, I had developed severe acidity and avoided citric fruits. Another friend had mild diarrhea and ate only bread. All of us stopped having tea and coffee as these are diuretics and dehydrated the body. The altitude was already doing enough of that and we were expelling a lot of water each day. Our guides never failed to check on our water intake and kept encouraging us to drink whatever amount we could.

With all these problems, it helped that Mawenzi Tarn was to be our acclimatization halt. This meant that we had an additional day at the camp before reaching the final camp on ascent. As it proved out, this additional day was a boon to all of us. Our ailments on the first night at Mawenzi Tarn were fully overcome by the second night.

The trek from Kikelewa camp to Mawenzi Tarn was a steady climb over several hills. The weather became increasingly cold and we were now wearing warm jackets. The terrain was Moorland with short vegetation and Senecio trees. While on these long treks, I was accompanied by Ezekiel, our guide. Even though I was slower than the rest of the group, Ezekiel never hurried me and we had long talks during the treks.

Each day, our porters and guides waited for us to start our trek, then wound up the camp and packed everything into neat bags (the way it was apportioned on the first day), and each porter took his assigned bag. They then carried the bundles over their shoulders and walked briskly (never did I see them run), overtake the trekkers along the way, reach our destination well in time to set up camp, boil water and keep everything ready to welcome us at the end of our trek. This was the case with porters of other camps as well. In spite of this, I saw that the porters were full of cheer and spirited both during the trek and on arrival at the new camp site. They woke up earlier than us each day and slept later than us, and still managed to be fresh and cheerful. This was true of our guides too. I feel truly indebted to them for my successfully completing the trek.

In contrast, we trekkers were working our hearts and lungs real hard during the trek even with the light load on our back, and arrived at the camps exhausted. We also had altitude ailments while the porters (including a few women) seemed to be in full health. I had found that all of them lived in and around Moshi which is a plain and not a high altitude terrain. This got me wondering how they overcame altitude issues and whether they ever had any such ailments during their assignments.

Ezekiel smiled his enigmatic smile, which he did whenever a tricky situation occurred or when he needed to coax us on our way, to my question. I learnt from him that most porters have done this trek several times, starting the first time in their teens, and hence over time, have built a constitution that easily adjusts to altitudes. The other key piece of information I got was that they are able to recognize altitude related symptoms and without panicking, they take remedial measures (such as returning quickly to a lower altitude, drinking plenty of water, taking some rest and then re-attempting the climb). This was a valuable piece of wisdom for me – I vowed not to panic even under severe altitude sickness, but deal with it calmly as advised by my guides. Ezekiel also mentioned that water is the most important medicine to deal with a lot of ailments at high altitudes, and dehydration and depletion of salts in the body will severely fatigue the muscles.

When an unexpected set-back occurs in the journey, it is wise not to panic but take remedies to overcome the set-back in a calm fashion, marshal the strength and re-attempt the climb.

The Majestic Mawenzi

The day after we arrived at Mawenzi Tarn, I woke up early to see a beautiful sunrise, and the wash of the early morning Sun over the Mawenzi, a formidable looking, sharp-edged mountain (or is it a hill?) in front of us. Ezekiel told us that we had a short trek that day, for 2 to 3 hours, climbing up to the lower stretches of Mawenzi at an altitude similar to that of Kibo, and the rest of the day could be spent resting. We started a bit late at 9.30AM, after other trekking groups wound up and moved out, and climbed a steep gradient on a rock-strewn path to the west of Mawenzi. Mawenzi itself is made of brittle, sharp rocks and fine rock dust, making it impossible for one to climb or scale. We were told that a few climbers had attempted Mawenzi some years back and all had fallen to their deaths when their rock holds broke off at higher levels. After that incident, the park authorities have banned all attempts at scaling Mawenzi.

When we started climbing the side mountain, we could see Mawenzi up close and understood why this will be an impossible-to-climb mountain. Upon reaching the top, in front of us to the West, in the distance, was Kilimanjaro, standing majestically and tantalizingly. Between Mawenzi and Kilimanjaro was the saddle – so named as the large plain was saddle shaped, dipping a bit close to Mawenzi, and going on a gradual slope for the most part before rising steeply closer to Kilimanjaro. This was going to be our route for the next day.

With the numerous ailments caused by altitude that many of us faced, we welcomed the day's break and slept most of the afternoon to give our bodies a chance to fight the ailments and adjust to the altitude. This proved to be a wise move, as all our ailments were more or less cured by the next morning when we packed up and got ready to trek to Kibo hut, at the base of Kilimanjaro. Our trek would take us from 4315 m (14160 ft) at Mawenzi Tarn to 4703 m (15430 ft) at Kibo hut.

Onward to Kibo

I have already mentioned a bit about the terrain and vegetation earlier. The terrain once again changed as we started our trek from Mawenzi Tarn. We skirted the Mawenzi, climbed over the shallower edge and crossed over to the saddle. As we started our way down the edge, the terrain became more of a desert with the last of the vegetation left behind on the eastern slopes. As we continued our trek downward, the vegetation became fewer and the ground was filled with rock dust, ash and short and dry grass here and there.

All along the Rongai route, there were not many animals, and the few that we saw were confined to the rain forest area. At this height, there were a few birds, the most prominent and biggest of which was the Raven – a black crow with a white neck band. Other smaller birds of the sparrow family came near our camp but even these were very few. Most birds and all animals confined themselves to lower reaches of our trek where the weather was warmer and vegetation was plentiful.

As we continued our long and desultory trek across the saddle plain, I noticed from a distance, a group of trekkers had gathered around a large object at the center. At that distance, it looked like the drinks vehicle in the cricket matches on TV, and I thought it to be some sort of a snack and drink vehicle arranged by the richer of the trekkers who were having other amenities in their campsites. As the group moved away after some time and I approached closer, the object now appeared to be an empty shell of some vehicle. This piqued my curiosity (as it did of every other trekker who passed that way). As I closed in on the object, I noticed this and other debris spread across the middle of the saddle as remnants of a crashed airplane. Enquiring with Evarist who was accompanying me that day, I learnt that there had been an air crash a few years back and these were the left-over debris – the shell of the cockpit, which I had mistaken as the drinks vehicle; two broken wings; a piece of the middle section of the aircraft, and several loose and broken parts strewn over a wide stretch of the plains. Later internet search revealed that this was a Kenyan-registered Cessna-206 plane that had crashed in November 2008; the four tourists in the plane had died while the pilot was rescued with severe injuries. The cause of the crash was speculated to the plane clipping Mawenzi on its way to Kilimanjaro on a very cloudy day.

Each day, we had noticed thick clouds appearing about 10 AM and skirting the mountains – Mawenzi and Kilimanjaro as they were pushed to higher altitudes by the face of the mountains. The clouds had visited us too at the campsite. But during our trek along the saddle, we had a clear blue sky above, but the chilled atmosphere prevented the sun from bearing down on us during our long trek. Finally, after about 5 hours, we ended up at our campsite which was set up in the midst of rocks in Kibo. We had our lunch, and Ezekiel told us to take rest in the afternoon. We were to start our climb up the face of Kilimanjaro that night.

The Summit Attempt

After resting in the tents and sleeping briefly in the afternoon, we all had early dinner as planned. I decided to take a very light dinner of bread and soup, as I had just recovered from strong acidity and did not want to aggravate it. We had fitful sleep due to the excitement and the constant activity around our campsite, and woke up at 11 PM to dress for our summit ascent.

As the climb was to be during the night, we were told to dress in layers to withstand the sub-zero (-10 to -15 C) temperatures and windchill during the night. Each of us had planned our clothes accordingly and it was now time to dress up. I wore three caps – a monkey cap, a rain cap and a hat to protect the head and most of the face; several layers of clothing including two sturdy jackets, thermal undergarments and two pairs of woollen socks to protect the rest of the body. I took three liters of water laced with Getorade powder to supplement electrolytes, dry fruits and nuts, a few bars of chocolate and my camera in the day pack. We all had our head lamps at the ready. Thus attired, we started off on our climb an hour later.

All the climbers that night had started around the same time, and there were several headlamps bobbing up in front and above us. When I looked down, I found several that followed us as well. There was light wind and a near-full moon above us, and the stars above were twinkling as though they were watching to see which of us will make it to the top and who would not.

Within a short distance from our camp, our breathing became laborious and our team of six split into three groups (this happened on all the trek days as well) according to our pace and abilities. Nagar and I were in the middle group along with Ezekiel and two porters – Hammadi and Hammidi, who carried our day pack for us. Within the first hour, the climb was quite tiring and the breathing difficult, but Ezekiel constantly encouraged us. He kept a slow and steady pace and he and the porters kept goading us with "pole´ pole´". I started counting the zigzags which we were doing to climb the steep incline with gravel and loose rocks enveloping the ground, to keep my mind occupied. Occasionally during water breaks, I looked up at the expanse of the dark but beautiful sky with the stars, milky way and the darkness enveloping us everywhere except for the bobbing head lights. After every few minutes of trekking, we took short breaks of a minute or so. Our guides made sure that we did not take big breaks as the weather was cold and they did not want us to cool down too much. The constant activity ensured that we did not feel the cold that enveloped us all around.

The trek started off at a 30 degree incline, which very quickly inclined further. With loose pebbles, small rocks and gravel (called "scree"), the climb was difficult as we slipped a few inches in each step. The zigzag helped scale the severe incline (I was told that it inclined to 60 degrees as we climbed through the night), and the darkness helped by keeping the future horrors a secret from the trekkers. Had we been able to see what lay ahead of us and how much more the climb was to be, many would have abandoned the trek at or near the start, concluding that there was no way to climb the steep mountain. Maybe this was the reason why all guides preferred to start the trek at midnight, to give the trekkers a chance to scale the mountain in ignorance.

When attempting a formidable task, ignorance of what is to come is sometimes a bliss and will help complete the task successfully.

The entire climb was on a surface full of gravel and loose stones abound. After a few hours of painful and slow climbing, we heard a group of trekkers way above us shout loudly. I looked up and saw a dance of head lights quite some distance above, and thought that they had reached the top and were celebrating. In the exhausting trek, the only pre-occupation and thought was on when it will end, and so it was natural to optimistically think that the first group had reached the top. However, our lead guide, Hammidi, quickly jumped away from the track he was following in the zigzag and rushed back towards the edge. We were luckily at the edge of the zigzag. We later came to know that a loose boulder had gotten dislodged high above and was rolling down the middle of our zigzagging paths. Luckily for everyone, the boulder did not hit anyone on its way down the steep slopes. Internet revealed later that some years back, a group of 3 American trekkers were killed by a similar boulder rolling down from the top.

After this incident, this was an added horror that we were aware of while trekking "slowly slowly". Periodic nourishment of dry fruits and nuts, nutrition bars and electrolyte-laced water helped us with energy to keep plodding on, along with nudges from our guide and porters.

After about 5.5 hours of climbing, we saw the sky lighten up on the east. The silhouette of Mawenzi was remarkable to view, but in the state that I was in (and other trekkers too), our admiration of nature's masterpiece at that moment was limited. After another half an hour, the Sun rose from behind some clouds and suddenly, the mountain face we were climbing was visible in its finest detail. A few of the trekkers who had started early and who had a faster pace had already scaled the mountain by then. I looked up and saw that we were in the rock section of the path, where we were carefully climbing between, on top of and along sizable rock boulders, most of which were affixed to the ground but a few loose ones were sitting precariously. With the lip of the mountain visible above and the warmth from the Sun, I scaled the last half hour quickly and reached the first point on Kilimanjaro – the Gilman Point at a height of 5681 m ( 18640 ft). We had climbed a vertical height of close to 1 KM during the night!! We all felt greatly elated at this accomplishment, as our guides and porters congratulated us. Reaching Gilman Point entitled one to a certificate from Tanzania Park Authority that we have scaled Mt. Kilimanjaro. However, the highest point in Mt. Kilimanjaro was still another couple of hours climb away.

After celebrating the ascent, taking photos and resting, Nagar and I started off for Uhuru peak after 30 minutes. The other trekkers ahead of us, Mohan, Senthil and Sam, had started off just when we had arrived at Gilman point, and Ramesh was close to the top when we left. On the way, we passed Stella point, the other place on the lip of the mountain where trekkers from the westerly routes that pass through Barafu Hut scale the mountain. Stella point is 5730 m (18800 ft) above mean sea level. Trekking along the rim of the mountain was not a cake walk, as the path went up and down through narrow openings between rocks and rock surfaces. After a night of climbing, I had very little strength left. When one of the others talked of abandoning further climb and returning back, I realized that this was true of others as well. However, I was determined to reach Uhuru peak and not give up. Slowly, one step at a time, I made it to Uhuru point along with the others, drinking whatever electrolyte was left, and eating a few dry fruits and nuts to give energy to the sore muscles along the way.

It was a great feeling once we reached the top – the highest point in the African continent. On the one side was the glacier, with rock solid ice; on the other, the lip of the mountain fell away in a steep decline onto a large plain of red soil, which then rose steeply to the mouth of the extinct volcano. We could now clearly see the volcano mouth from a higher elevation we were in. The large plain was devoid of any footprint or any other deformity, but for a faint path to a campsite on the top of the mountain. It reminded me of what was shown on TV as the surface of Mars. An icy wind was blowing continuously with no obstruction at this height. After taking photos and resting on the floor of the peak, we started the equally painful but essential descent first back to Gilman point and then further down to Kibo Hut.

Having a weak knee, I realized that my challenge was not yet over, and the descent was more stressful for the knee than the ascent, since the ground was quite slippery due to the scree. With Hammidi and Evarist helping out, the descent was completed in time, and I reached our tent to find the others who had descended faster on stronger knees.

Descent and the Return

Once we returned back to Kibo, our job for the day was not yet completed. A two-hour rest lying down in the tent was to be followed by a late lunch. While resting in the tent, there was a sudden downpour outside, and when I peeked out of the inner tent, I saw hail, which then turned to snow fall. After waiting for the snow fall to subside, we finally had our lunch later than planned and started the trek for our night halt – Horombo at the height of 3720 m (12205 ft). While starting down, we looked back at Kilimanjaro which was beautiful with snow covering most of its sides. We thanked our fortune that the snow fell after our ascent, as it would have been even more of a nightmare scaling the mountain with frozen ice covering its sides.

After trekking down a rock-filled twisting path in the night for 4 hours, we finally reached our hut in Horombo for a well deserved sleep. For the first time in our trek, we did not have to crawl into the cramped tent, as Ezekiel was able to obtain bunk bed accommodation for us in the pre-fabricated wooden cottage.

The next morning, we decided to start late after waking up unhurriedly for the first time. After breakfast and more photos, we started down on a 19 km descent to the Marangu Gate through the Mandara campsite (which was 12 kms from Horombo and at an altitude of 2700 m or 8860 ft). The terrain from Horombo to Mandara was once again mostly Moorland with similar vegetation, but as we reached closer to Mandara, the vegetation changed to thick rain forests. I was exhilerated by our achievement of reaching Uhuru, and a good night's sleep had done immense repair on the sore muscles. So, all of us were in a very good mood that morning and I decided to run down from Horombo to Mandara to cover the distance in 2 hours. Our guides had said it would take 4 hours or more, and I decided to see if I could reach the Marangu gate in 4 hours. With speedy descent, I reached Marangu gate through the rain forests by early afternoon in 4 hours time.

Epilogue

"This is your captain speaking. We have reached the cruising altitude of 35000 feet. I have switched off the seat-belt sign..." As our plane taking me back to India relaxed in the skies, I too inclined my seat and relaxed after the hectic week in Kilimanjaro. Rewinding my memories, I mentally relived our journey to Kilimanjaro, and the key lessons I had learned about high altitude trekking. It suddenly occurred to me that those were not just lessons for high-altitude trekking but a lot more. They were lessons for life, when one is attempting to do something new which all of us do several times in our lives.

Embarking on a new venture, self-belief and confidence are the key ingredients that enable success. Preparation and expert-knowledge are essential but not sufficient for charting our course to success; own efforts, learning along the way and constant mental focus on the goal are essential for us to make progress. While pushing ourselves to new heights, it is essential to ascend slowly so that we can internalize the lessons, transform ourselves to meet new expectations and consolidate our gains; trying to jump several notches without consolidating lessons may set us up for future failures especially when it matters most. Finally, the initial crest that we reach and which gives us our first indication of success is more often not the real apex; prematurely celebrating success and stopping at the initial peak may be a missed opportunity of uncovering the real peak which could have been scaled with a little more perseverance and effort.

With this revelation in my mind, I slowly drifted off to sleep only to wake up when the landing formalities started when the plane reached Mumbai. Looking back, the first time experience in scaling Kilimanjaro has paid back not only in new friends, new experiences and the singular achievement of scaling the formidable peak, but also in valuable lessons which are sure to hand-hold me several times when I am lost in the rest of my life.

Rendezvous in Bali

2009-05-03T02:48:00.000-07:00

(A thriller travelogue of Sri Lanka and Bali)

- Balas

The Arrival

The night was quiet and dark, except for the sky, which overflowed with millions of diamonds, sparkling brilliantly in various shapes and colour. A warm, moist breeze swept gently on the landscape. Most of the guests had left the beaches long ago, and were either ensconced in the cozy comforts of their rooms, or suffused with the fumes of their liquor in the numerous bars that dotted the place. The sea was busy as ever, sloshing the waves towards the beaches and then taking the frothy water back into its vastness.

A solitary cigarette boat could be seen in the distance, as a lone flotsam in the capacious ocean. At this hour past midnight, the boatman peered furtively into the darkness, avoiding the hotel lights, that lazily illuminated some of the beaches. Abruptly, his intense face broke into a gentle smile as he recognized his signal in the distance. A single lamp was flickering like the light from a lighthouse, as the hand holding the lamp was moving it slowly from side to side.

The boatman unleashed his powerful motors, slicing through the sea like a knife cutting through butter, and hit the shore close to where he had seen the light. He relaxed after the tense past few hours. He had the difficult task of landing his boat precisely in the small stretch of abandoned beach, while avoiding the Indonesian coast guard and other evidence of his ingress into Bali. In the pitch dark of a New Moon, searching a small uninhabited stretch surrounded by a black sea and populated beaches was like searching the proverbial needle in a haystack.

“You are late”, the man with the lamp, now doused, said when the boatman docked on the beach.

“There were too many police patrol boats at sea, more than the usual. I had to wait out in the open sea longer than I had planned” grumbled the boatman in reply. The lamp man grunted acknowledgement and turned his attention to the cargo of the boat.

The cargo stepped out of the boat. He was over 6 feet tall. His skin was as dark as the night, and was shiny. He had dark, long hair flowing to the base of his neck. His muscles rippled under the restraint of his skin and accentuated the physical hardships that went into forming them. The numerous scars that embellished the skin were witnesses to battles the body had fought. His gait was firm and his presence exuded a sense of calm and control. He was a natural leader and that fact was noted by the man with the lamp without a single word having been uttered.

“Welcome to Bali, Colonel”, the man greeted the visitor with a broad smile.

“Thank you for your help, Ahmed Tuklung”, answered the Colonel.

“Come, let us quickly get out of this place. I have a safer place for you.” Thus saying, Tuklung spoke briefly to the boatman in Javanese, who got back into the boat, turned it towards the distant hotels, and then vanished into the night, probably to one of the numerous boat rental places dotting the beaches.

They scurried along to the road where Tuklung had parked his scooter. The Colonel had a huge rucksack that he lugged along, and hauling it over his shoulder, he sat on the two wheeler. Tuklung drove them through the back streets of Bali and finally reached a mosque in the city of Denpasar. He parked his scooter outside, and then knocked three times on the door, which opened into a courtyard.

The mosque itself was tucked at the back of the compound and was a modest one in size. “Here we are, Colonel. I believe you have something for me”, grinned Tuklung while The Colonel fished out a sizeable sum of money and handed them without a word to Tuklung.

“I believe the amount is right, as we agreed”, the Colonel asked brusquely.

“It is a pleasure to do business with you, Colonel. Is there anything else that I can be of service to you?”, uttered Tuklung with a false servility.

“Just a place to stay for the night. I will leave before dawn.”

“Feel free to make yourself comfortable in my home, Colonel”, Tuklung indicated with a broad sweep of his hands to the courtyard in front. Without replying, the Colonel sauntered over to a corner of the courtyard, where he unbundled his rucksack, fished out a sleeping bag from within, and was asleep within a few minutes. Tuklung watched for a few minutes, then shrugged and walked into the innards of the mosque.

Vijeyan, or Colonel as he was famously known, woke up early in the dawn when the rest of the world was still asleep. He was a light sleeper and was refreshed with the 4 hours of sleep he had in the mosque. Now it was time to move. He did not want Tuklung or his group to know his whereabouts. He quickly put away the sleeping bag in his backpack, and washed his face in the tap he found near the mosque. He worked quickly and efficiently, and like a cat, made no sound in his movements. He quickly left the mosque and walked the streets towards a jungle he had seen in the maps of Bali, looking for a place to hide in the open. His thoughts wandered back to how it started six months ago.

The Plan

Colonel Vijeyan was second in command, next only to the Supreme Commander Kathiravan, leading the Tamil Liberation Front (or TLF, as it was popularly known) against the oppressive Government of Sri Lanka. They were at war for the past two decades, and had sworn never to give in to the Government until their goal was achieved.

However, they were also practical, and had noted the slight but sure shift in balance of power away from their forces, due to Sri Lankan Government's diplomatic initiatives. The Government forces were now equipped with better equipment and their air force had advanced radar, aerial surveillance cameras and more aircraft.

Six months ago, Kathiravan had called for a meeting of the Supreme Council, which had Vijeyan and all the other top commanders attending. After reports from various commanders and discussions lasting several hours, Kathiravan had commanded that Vijeyan, as the second-in-command for the Front, should escape and go underground. He was to hide abroad and take over the struggle only after receiving a prearranged signal from one of their contacts in Europe.

Vijeyan's eyes misted thinking about that meeting, and the circumstances that forced him to part with his friends in the Supreme Council, especially his mentor, friend and leader Kathiravan. He missed the swaying coconut trees, the Elephant grass along the shores, the Mangroves all along the North-Eastern shores, the short, pristine beaches that had not yet seen tourism, and the occasional jagged rocks that stubbed out of the sea. The rice paddies, the village life which was adequate but simple, the sugarcane fields – all of these frequently disturbed by the civil war that plagued his people for the past two decades.

Once the decision was made for Vijeyan to escape and hide, executing it was an equally agonizing and onerous task. The Tamil Liberation Front was in control of the north-eastern part of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Army was pushing from the South and West, squeezing from both directions. The Sri Lankan Air force and Navy squeezed from the seaside around the North and East of the Island. That ruled out a sea escape.

Once again, Kathiravan came to the rescue. He proposed a plan that was bold and risky. The essence of the plan was to do what was most unanticipated – Hide in the open. “Yes, that is the way for you to escape, Colonel”, remarked the Commander when Vijeyan expressed doubt. Slowly, like a landscape that gradually uncovers as the morning mist lifts under the Sun, the plan got its shape.

The Chase

Vijeyan started his escape on a new Moon night, dressing as a local Tamil Fisherman. The first casualty of his disguise was his signature mustache, along with the hair on his head. The world had known the Colonel with his mustache and the thick crop of dark hair. Now they would see a dark, bald head and smooth face instead. He then applied a makeup of charcoal mixed in petroleum jelly to create lots of creases on his face. He then packed his essentials – make-up kit, pistol and bullets, dry fruits, nuts and salted meat, a Global Positioning system, codes and numbers to call in emergencies, money in an assortment of world currencies, multiple passports with different names and nationalities with his photo in each of them, his sleeping bag and tent, clothes for different camouflages – deep into a rucksack, and then filled the rest of the rucksack with fresh and salted fish. This, he hauled into a fishing boat painted dark brown. He pushed off from Mullaitivu, which was under TLF control.

For the next few days, he hugged the coast, often moving to the shore when he sensed a lot of activity by Sri Lankan Navy. The dense mangroves, the marshes, the nearby Kokkilai sanctuary and the ever-present coconut trees each had a role in Vijeyan's escape; he used these as hideouts, sources of food, safe sleeping havens and resting places during the day; he traveled mostly at nights.

There were a couple of occasions when he was caught. A police patrol once took him by surprise, interrogated him for two days in the local police station and then released him. They did not notice the ruck sack he had discarded into a ditch in a hurry, as soon as he noticed the patrol. As soon as he was released, he rushed back in anxiety to the ditch and thanked his luck when he found it intact after two days lying in anonymity.

At another time, a navy patrol moved in on him, when he was rowing in the sea in an uninhabited area. They came on board and questioned him on what he was doing on the uninhabited stretch. He quickly turned into a dumb village nitwit, who had unwittingly drifted off his village. His acting was convincing enough that the patrol decided to have fun at his expense. They kicked him around, made fun of him, searched his rucksack cursorily and found pickled fish.

Once again, luck intervened when he was getting worried that his unwelcome visitors were starting to make themselves at home in his boat. Their radio crackled to life and they got instructions to investigate a speed boat in the ocean nearby. With one final contemptuous kick at him, the soldiers jumped off his boat after warning him to go back to his village.

After no further ordeal, Vijeyan made it to Nilaveli, a small village hamlet nearby the town of Trincomalee. There, he scuttled his boat in deep sea, swam to shore, discarded his fisherman garb and dressed as a local and mingled in the village crowd.

Inspector Anura Wickremasinghe was agitated. He was the head of the Anti-Terrorist Cell of Sri Lankan Police, and most of his resources were directed at tracking escaped TLF rebels and capturing them dead or alive. He had received intelligence recently that a top functionary of TLF had escaped the TLF territory, that was under siege. While the armed forces were very close to total annihilation, the biggest worry of the Government was that a few of the TLF leadership will escape and relaunch the resistance at a future time. The Prime Minister had personally called Anura, commanding him to ensure that no one escapes the stranglehold of the army.

Anura had started his investigations in the villages surrounding the TLF territory right away, and it quickly emerged that a very senior member of TLF might have already engineered an escape a few days back. He could not get the details as his information came in bits and pieces from a number of sources – a villager had seen a boat leaving a nearby area in the middle of the night, an odd time for a fishing boat to leave; another had come across food remains along a deserted stretch of beach; a discarded fisherman's clothing was recovered from Kokkilai sanctuary close to protected area of the Navy, which had a training institute nearby. Anura knew that he was onto something, and started methodically combing the villages along the coast. His efforts yielded him the two seemingly innocent and unrelated encounters that the police and navy patrols had in the recent past. He knew he was onto something, and was agitated that the police and navy patrols had not done a more thorough job of investigating the incidents. He intensified the search in the last known position southwards, while also increasing surveillance in Trincomalee town.

Vijeyan noticed increased police questionings and presence in Trincomalee town as soon as he entered the outskirts. Everyone going in was being stopped, vehicles were searched and there were lots of questionings. He hid behind an abandoned bus shelter along the road and observed the police check post for a few more minutes. He decided to overcome his fear and walk to meet the police. Hide in the open.

Vijeyan had dressed as a Sinhala student with the rucksack cleared of fish and filled with books which he had picked up in a bookstore on his way from Nilaveli. He had rubbed the rucksack on grass and dirt and washed it in a pond repeatedly to get rid of the fish smell. He discarded the dried food. He cut out a depression in one of the encyclopedias he had purchased and hid the passports in that book, which he placed deep down in the rucksack. He then placed the rest of the money around and then covered this with his clothes, toiletries and finally other books. He tied the money belt around his trousers, hauled the rucksack over his back, and walked jauntily towards the checkpoint.

He bluffed his way past the police checkpoint, remarking that he came here to Trincomalee to get some beach and quiet, after having had it with the tourist crowds in Anuradhapura and the people in Colombo and surrounding areas. His recently procured books came in handy to prove his occupation and the harassed police, looking for a Tamil terrorist, were not too interested in a Sri Lankan student to explore further.

Deciding that Trincomalee was not safe to stay, Vijeyan decided to move further inwards into Sri Lanka and took a bus to Kandy via Dumballa. All through the bus trip, Vijeyan alternately admired and seethed at the natural beauty of Sri Lanka, the luscious greenery and the curving roads across hills, the clean smell of herbs growing in the wild, the Mango, Jack fruit, Durian trees that provided a canopy along the roads, the flowers and fruits in the markets that they passed. He had to admit that this was a beautiful country with mountains, vegetation and friendly people. He seethed that the Sinhala Government was not willing to let the Tamils to live with dignity and enjoy the same privileges in their country as the rest. After having waited for long for equal rights, the Tamils no longer wanted to be part of the Sri Lanka and wanted their own independent Government. Vijeyan put these thoughts away, lest they force him to make a mistake and give himself away.

When Vijeyan's bus was driving out of Trincomalee, Inspector Anura Wickremasinghe's jeep crossed it into Trincomalee. His investigations revealed a few suspected cases of people whose stated reasons were not very strong, which he wanted to investigate further. One such was the Sri Lankan architecture student from Anuradhapura. What made this story suspicious was that while Anuradhapura was the ancient capital of Sri Lanka and had numerous places of interest including many Buddhist attractions, temples and other architectural artifacts, the University there was not well-known for Architectural studies. Following up on each of the suspicious cases took precious time. By the time, he got confirmation that the Sri Lankan student was the one who was not who he claimed to be, Vijeyan had already left Kandy for Nuwara Eliya, a tourist resort high up in the mountains of central Sri Lanka.

Continuing to hide in the open, Vijeyan had dressed himself as an Indian tourist, hired a car to take him to Nuwara Eliya through lush-green mountains including one called the Asoka vana where legend had it that Goddess Sita, wife of Lord Rama, was imprisoned by King Ravana, tea estates where he joined guided tours of how tea is made and bought tea, and numerous waterfalls. He booked himself in a hotel using his fake Indian name and passport in Nuwara Eliya. He stayed for three days in Nuwara Eliya while planning the next stage of escape.

After three days of cool, luxurious living as the Indian tourist, Vijeyan made his next move. Hitch-hiking with trucks transporting tea, taking public buses and other local transportation, Vijeyan proceeded to Yala wild-life reserve forest, after climbing down the mountains and then driving through dusty villages. At Yala, he trekked his way through the wild forest, avoiding forest guards and wild animals, and reached the south-east coast of Sri Lanka.

Dressed in army overalls, rubber boots and lugging the rucksack on his back, he reached Humbunthota at the southern coast of Sri Lanka. His dress showed him as a soldier returning back from duty and the locals kept their distance. The police also waved him through in most places, assuming that he is one of the numerous soldiers on leave after a hard war up north.

Meanwhile, after tracing the Sri Lankan student up to Kandy, Inspector Anura Wickremasinghe reached a dead-end. The Sri Lankan student seemed to have vanished once he left the bus station at Kandy, and no one knew what happened to the student. Kandy being a tourist place, there were plenty of people from all nationalities who came and went. After a frustrated period of several days, Anura's next break came from unexpected angle.

Ever since the civil war intensified, the Anti-Terrorist Cell tracked all international phone calls that went out of Sri Lanka, or came into Sri Lanka, especially from small towns and villages. Most foreigners in Sri Lanka stayed in and around Colombo and a very few stayed in other major towns. By eliminating these places, the list of international calls to the rest of Sri Lanka was not too big and hence the ATC with the help of local police could verify the bona fides of any international call made in the villages and towns easily.

Vijeyan had already contacted TLF sympathizers in Europe when in Kandy, and had outlined a plan. At Humbantota, he had to make contact to get the details for his escape. He kept his calls to a minimum and as short as possible, as he knew that the Police tracked these calls. Kandy being a major tourist destination, he had not worried about his international calls as there were numerous calls by tourists. However, Humbunthota was different. But he had no choice but to make a brief contact to get coordinates for the next step in his escape. This was what helped Inspector Anura to re-establish Vijeyan's location.

But as luck seemed to favour Vijeyan, by the time the ATC investigated the call, Vijeyan was out at sea and out of Sri Lankan police's reach.

The Escape

As soon as he had his coordinates for the next step, Vijeyan set out to make preparations. He once again became a fisherman and approached the local fishing village with a story of having recently migrated from Bentota, just south of Colombo. Everyone knew that during the 2005 Tsunami, most of the coastal Sri Lanka was devastated by the wave, and the western Sri Lanka south of Colombo as well as the south, especially places like Humbantota, bore the brunt of the Tsunami. Many people, thus orphaned of their livelihood and family, were rebuilding their life, sometimes migrating to a new place to erase the memory of the loved ones who perished. Thus, Vijeyan's story was accepted without a lot of questioning. He asked around to purchase a fishing boat to restart his life, and did not have too much difficulty procuring one against cash payment. He purchased an assortment of other things at the nearby hardware store.

Vijeyan then got the boat transported to a remote forest nearby, and then dragged it deeper into the forest. Once he was deep into the forest in an uninhabited clearing, he went about painting the boat black, erasing all evidence of the original registration. The boat had a motor, which he harnessed to the underside of the boat. He filled the tank with diesel in tin cans, both of which he had purchased in a petrol bunk in Humbunthota. Finally, he packed the sides of the motor with thermocol that he had asked for in the hardware store to muffle the sound, and covered the whole contraption with an acrylic soft jacket from his ruck sack (except for the air ingress and the rotor blades).

Vijeyan then walked back to the town, and after bargaining, bought a large draw cart. Later in the evening, he stripped himself of all clothes, then dressed in a black wet suit he had in the rucksack. He then wrapped the currency and his passports in multiple layers of polythene, then using a candle, he sealed the polythene cover shut. He then lined the rucksack with more plastic sheets, then spread his waterproof sleeping bag as a lining, and inside this cocoon, he placed the currency and documents, as well as his clothes. He then zipped the sleeping bag shut and after adding more polythene sheets for protection on the top, he tied the rucksack in a tight double knot at the top.

By the time Vijeyan finished his preparations, the Sun had gone down. He had a light dinner that he had purchased earlier in town, and waited for the most risky stage of his escape. Just after mid-night, he pushed the boat onto the handcart using some wooden logs in the forest as rollers, then hauled the handcart to the edge of the forest, away from the town. Across from the edge of the forest was the road, and on the other side of the road was the sea. The sea had encroached right up to the road at this place. After checking that there was no traffic along the road, Vijeyan quickly crossed the road and continued pushing the cart into the sea deep enough so that the boat became buoyant. He then removed the keel of the cart wheels, and the cart collapsed in pieces in the shallow bottom. After securing the boat to a nearby rock, he then repeatedly swam to a deeper part of the ocean, dragging the cart pieces under water and dropping them to be buried deep in the sea. That was the end of the hand cart, buried in pieces deep in the ocean. He then unfastened the boat, boarded it, then used the oars to push away from the town, deeper into the sea.

After going past where the town was no longer visible from the sea, he started the motor. The soundproof packing ensured that the sound of the motor was drowned in the sounds of the ocean. His waterproof digital watch told him that he still had 3 hours before his mid-sea rendezvous and his GPS device assisted him in steering the boat in the right direction towards his destination despite the pitch black ocean and the cloudy, starless sky.

Due to the war in the North, the over-stretched Sri Lankan Navy had most of its vessels patrolling the northern and eastern waters, and in providing security for Colombo and other key Government installations along the coast. This left them with very few boats with which to patrol the waters along the rest of the island. With no threat perception from south, which did not have any land from which an enemy can launch an attack, the Navy had practically no patrols in the southern coast, other than the Naval presence in the south-western town of Galle. This fact primarily decided how Vijeyan was going to leave the island, even though a sea escape was fraught with risks of nature. But this was a more acceptable risk than trying to escape in the heavily patrolled waters in the North towards India, or the greater risk of trying to fly out of Colombo under the highest security cordon in the island.

After another hour and a half of navigating in the dark using GPS as the only navigational aid, he reached his destination in mid-sea, and unfastened the engine from the boat. He weighed this by attaching a large stone as an added measure and used it to anchor the boat in mid-sea. He then settled down in the bottom of the boat for a brief shut-eye, while waiting the next 90 minutes for his ship to arrive. Surrounded by nothing but dark, black, swaying waters of the Indian Ocean and not a soul for miles on end, it was the loneliest wait in Vijeyan's life.

Douglas Christoffersen, the Norwegian captain of the Panamanian registered oil tanker, had accepted the assignment to pluck someone out of mid-sea in international waters off Sri Lanka and drop him in international waters close to the island of Bali, on his way to Darwin, Australia 3 weeks back. He was paid Ten Thousand Dollars in cash in Norway before he flew out to his ship, which was anchored in Saudi Arabia with a belly full of crude. The captain had accepted the money after making sure that he was not required to wait anywhere in the sea for the pickup, and the money was his if he did not find the passenger at the assigned spot on his way to Australia. He did not expect to find anyone as the sea was vast and unfriendly for a small boat to locate a big oil tanker at a precise point. So, he was full of surprise when he got a call from his first mate, that a dark boat was directly in line of their path half a nautical mile ahead. Being an oil tanker, the radar was monitored continuously to avoid mid-sea collisions with obstacles, as the tanker could not make sudden maneuvers to change direction.

Christoffersen's respect for his pick-up went up several notches. He ordered his first mate to reduce speed and draw up alongside the boat, to pick up a passenger. A powerful search light came on and focused on the boat. A rope ladder was lowered on the slippery sides of the tanker. Before hauling himself up on the ladder, Vijeyan cut the anchor, and then pulled the plug on the bottom of the boat. It quickly filled with water and was on its way to rest on the Ocean floor before Vijeyan was even half way up the ladder.

Once he was on board, per the Captain's instructions, the first mate took him to an isolated section of crew quarters and locked him up in a comfortable room. There was no dialogue or communication between Vijeyan and any of the crew. Vijeyan took a hot shower, and when he came back to the room, he found that there was hot lunch kept on the table in the room. He spent the next four days alone in the room, with his food being brought to the room at appropriate hours. The crew member who brought the food opened the door, with a second crew member standing guard, left the food on the table, cleared the used plates and glasses, and withdrew after re locking the room, all without a word being spoken.

Vijeyan marveled at this part of the plan and how it came about. Once it was decided for Vijeyan to hide in the open somewhere abroad, most destinations in Europe and India were ruled out, as there was too much security to infiltrate these lands. His planners then suggested looking east, and that was when Indonesia came to their thoughts. His associates made contact with various disgruntled groups in Indonesia, and one, the dreaded Tehrik Islamia group, made contact. For a princely sum of money, they stated that they can arrange for infiltrating Vijeyan into the island of Bali, a popular tourist resort where he can blend in with the tourist crowd and stay hidden for as long as he wants. This was the final part of his plan to hide in the open.

Vijeyan spent the four days within his room, exercising a lot. He did 500 push ups, used a metal bar in the room for doing pull-ups, and then established a regimen walking within the room for a couple of hours at least. He spent the rest of the time planning details on how he would hide in the open once he was in Bali. The rest of the time was spent reminiscing his life of rebellion in the past two decades, thinking about Kathiravan a lot, or simply lying on his bed and staring blankly.

On the fourth day, the first mate came to inform him (the first ever anyone spoke to him on the tanker) to be ready by evening to be dropped off. After following his usual daily regimen, Vijeyan showered, repacked his rucksack, and waited the hours in the room. Late in the evening, accompanying the first mate, he left the tanker in the same way he came on board – climbing down a rope ladder onto a boat that was waiting below.

Fugitive in Bali

Leaving the mosque before dawn, Vijeyan walked the streets of Denpasar to familiarize himself with the lay of the land, before the rest of humanity rose. Once the day started, he went to the town Mall and purchased touristy clothes. He then traveled to different parts of the island to stake out various hiding places and there were plenty – thick jungles offered a number of hiding places away from humanity; there were numerous bamboo shacks along the Ayung river, which were river-side shops selling tender coconuts, soft drinks and beer to White-water rafting tourists and were ideal sleeping places at nights; numerous beaches had beach-side lounges put up by five star restaurants, and there were public parks and beaches with cement benches which provided night time sleeping spots. Vijeyan also found cheap guest rooms to rent as Bed-and-breakfast places in the town of Ubud. He thus spent the weeks moving around in Bali, making sure that he did not stay more than two days at a place, lest the housekeeping and other staff remember him on a later date.

He kept himself physically fit with a grueling daily regimen. If he spent his nights at beaches or nearby, he got up early in the dawn and swam for 3 hours in the sea. At times, he walked into the five star hotels from the beaches in tourist costumes and used their swimming pools for lap swimming. He usually selected hotels that were not too crowded and spent hours in the pool. He did not repeat any hotel and hence never got caught. On occasions, he took a scuba diving trip to islands around Bali and dove deep into the ocean.

At other times, when he stayed near or in the jungles, he went on a grueling 8-hour trek deep into the jungles. At one time, he went on a grueling 6-hour white-water rafting along level 5 rapids. He had rented a row boat and had an exciting time navigating the treacherous rocks beneath the frothing waters. The surrounding thick, lush forest protected him from Sun, while the winding rivers gave ample exercise for his biceps as he navigated the curves and rocks.

After his daily regimen of physical activities, Vijeyan bathed in one of the numerous public baths along the beaches, or in the river and then roamed the streets of the various cities of the island of Bali. He walked the numerous malls, though he spent carefully and minimally. He phoned his European contacts every two weeks and got the depressing news from back home on the Sri Lankan siege, while it was also heartening that they had not succeeded in breaking the backbone of the movement. He waited for the signal from Kathiravan while contacting the various accomplices around the world, to regroup and strengthen the Front. He held planning sessions on fund raising, procuring armaments and targeted missions.

He blended these various calls with his tourist activities and exercise regimen, effectively hiding in the open as a tourist, while carrying out TLF activities. He frequently changed his costumes, using the Mall rest rooms to freshen up and change into the new clothes. He once visited Mt. Batur, a famous extinct volcano near Lake Batur in the north of the island. The sun had come up by the time he reached Kintamani, the town near the volcano. He then trekked off the road into the forests surrounding the volcano, climbed down the ash-covered mountain towards the lake, and camped by its side.

Rendezvous in Bali

When roaming the Malls in Denpasar and Kuta, or watching the sunrise in Nusa Dua beach or sunset in Kuta beach, Vijeyan never forgot his real mission even for a moment. His thoughts were always on strategy and planning on how to regain the strategic advantage TLF once had in their quest for freedom. Lost in such thoughts, Vijeyan did not notice a familiar figure which had noticed his presence in the Centro Mall in Kuta that day. He did a double take when a voice called behind him, “What new destruction are you planning, Colonel? Hope it is not anything like you did in Sri Lanka”.

Instantly on guard, Vijeyan turned around to see Inspector Wickremasinghe lightly holding him by his shoulder. “Don't even think of escaping, Colonel. We both know that your presence in Bali is not legal. If you come with me quietly, I will not alert Indonesian Police about your incursion”, warned the Inspector.

Vijeyan responded in surprise “How did you track me here, Inspector?”

Inspector Wickremasinghe smiled. “You thought you were smart, didn't you? I must acknowledge that it was a clever move for you to hide here. I admire the ingenious plan, but you relied on folks that were not committed to your cause as much as yourself. Your call from Humbantota was traced to your accomplices in Norway. A little cooperation through Interpol from Norway police did wonders in unlocking your friends' tongues and the rest was easy. Enough of how I traced you. Let us get to the present”, intoned the Inspector.

Vijeyan did some quickthink and responded, “Very well, Inspector. What do you want from me? You don't expect me to accompany you back to Sri Lanka, do you?”

“That is what I would have wanted, after all the effort it took for me to locate you. However, how about sharing some useful details of your colleagues who are still planning to wreck havoc back home instead?”

“Sorry Inspector. I cannot help you there. You must know that I have lost all touch with my comrades for the past six months.”

“In that case, you have nothing to offer me for my trouble. I will leave you to Indonesian Police then.”

“Wait Inspector. I might have something that is of interest to you. But I do not have it here. If you accompany me to my camp, I can give it. Our fight is in Sri Lanka. Why do you want to take it to foreign lands. You get what you want, and we go our separate ways. Is that a deal?”

“Sounds fair. But it depends on what you have for me. Let us go. What are we waiting for”, urged Inspector Anura. They took a taxi to Tegallalang, the famous rice paddy terraces along the hills, where Vijeyan had found a hideout. Hide in the open.

When they arrived at the paddy terraces, Vijeyan moved very fast in the semi-darkness of the evening and hid behind a shrub. Being fit and nimble, he outpaced the inspector along the narrow mud pathways. His hideout was a pit in the ground behind the shrub. He dived into the pit, and retrieved his pistol.

Meanwhile, even though Anura was initially nonplussed by Vijeyan's vanishing act, he recovered quickly and pulling out his service revolver, he carefully crawled towards the shrub and then rapidly rushed around the shrub with his revolver extended. A bullet whizzed past him from below the ground. Reacting by instinct, he blindly fired a few shots in the direction of the firing, and heard Vijeyan moan. He knew that he had found his target.

Inching his way in the increasing darkness, Anura noticed the dip in the ground where he had fired and saw a dark form. Covering the cowering figure with his revolver, Anura moved in quick strides and jumped into the pit. “Don't try to escape, Colonel. And don't try anymore tricks. You will force me to call Indonesian Police otherwise”, growled Anura.

“Inspector, you win. You have already shot me and I am now useless for my cause. I will save you further hardship having to deal with me. Unfortunately, you will not be getting what you came for”, Vijeyan intoned weakly with a mischievous smile on his face. The inspector noticed Vijeyan's jaws moving, and noticed Vijeyan's notebook opened with several pages roughly torn off as in a hurry.

Slowly, it dawned on Anura that Vijeyan had torn off all the contacts and stuffed it in his mouth. Seething with rage, Anura shouted, “Hey Colonel. You will not get away with this” and was about to strike Vijeyan with his revolver, when Vijeyan's hand came up to stop the blow.

“Don't bother, Inspector. The diary pages are not the only things I chewed”. Thus saying, Vijeyan collapsed. His mouth frothed and his breath came in short rasps. His chest heaved and Anura noticed a bare necklace of black cord around Vijeyan's neck with the pendant missing. After leading a momentous and adventurous life as a leader of the TLF movement, Colonel Vijeyan served his cause to the end by biting on the missing pendant, a cyanide capsule, rather than betray his accomplices.

Taj Mahal – A Story behind the story

2008-12-31T20:08:00.000-08:00

This piece is a work of fiction in memory of the unknown and unsung workers who created the wonder of all wonders – the Taj Mahal, and for all workers of similar architectural marvels "created" by Emperors and Kings worldwide. Though based on facts, none of the characters or incidents in the story are real, and any similarity to real events or characters is purely coincidental.

- Balas

Ashfaq Mian was restless. At 65 years of age, he should have retired long back. But his concern of not being a burden to his children, and his pride for his craft kept him going even in this old age. He lay on the charpoy gazing at the Taj Mahal in full Moon, lost in thoughts. He once worked for the Archeological Survey of India, as a master Marble craftsman, for the upkeep of the Taj. Now, he worked as a contractor with the same organization. He lived all his life in the shadow of the Taj, lovingly taking care of the various Marble inlays, replacing a stone here and there as the Marble slabs chipped or corroded over time due to pollution and damage.

Ashfaq Mian lived in one of the cubbyhole shelters along a narrow lane across from the Main entrance to the Taj. He had lived in that house his whole life. It offered him unobstructed view of the Taj Mahal, and no power on earth could make him move out of his ancestral home, even if life otherwise was hell in that place. Agra had frequent power cuts and during summer months, the cubbyhole got very hot during the day and had a battalion of mosquitoes invading it during nights. He dealt with the heat and mosquitoes by sleeping out most nights, gazing at the Taj Mahal in moonlight and ruing the fate of his beloved city of Agra in recent times.

Since the time of Mughals, Agra remains one of the most neglected, and yet, the most visited city due to the presence of the Taj Mahal. The city was not a prosperous one even when the industries were present. Now, with the industries relocated far away from Agra to reverse pollution damage to the Taj, the only employment in Agra related either to the tourism industry, or working in one of the sweetmeat shops making the famous Agra Petha. Unfortunately, the Tourism revenue, considerable as it were, did little for the city. The streets were dirty, the houses were old and crumbling, electricity was intermittent, drinking water was sparse and there was pollution everywhere – in the streets with garbage uncleared; in the river Yamuna due to industrial effluents and untreated city waste; and in the air due to smoke and dust. Agra was permanently smothered by a thick fog that varied from grey to brown in colour. The days of watching the Taj Mahal with a blue sky in the background, like the picture postcards depicted, were far and few.

It was not always this way. During the Mughal times, Agra basked in the glory for several centuries as a capital city. Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan and Aurangazeb had all stayed here for varying periods during their reins, and built palaces in and around the city. Trade and art flourished, and there were several artists and craftsmen plying their skills to the Royalty. Ashfaq Mian himself came from a family of Marble craftsmen for seven generations. Alas, he was the last in his line working in this trade. All his sons moved to Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur to be drivers, security guards and to other lucrative professions, just to escape from the miserable life here. Ashfaq Mian sighed deeply. Gradually, tiredness overtook him. Sleep embraced his thoughts and transported them to a different time.

What started as a celebration ended in a mourning. It was Gulbuddin Ahmed's twelfth birthday when the news came from the Imperial Palace that the Queen had delivered a Girl baby. Gulbuddin was overjoyed, as that meant a holiday for his father who worked in the royal garden, as well as gifts to all Palace employees.

Soon came word from the Palace that celebrations will be subdued as the Queen had still not recovered from the child birth. There were complications and she had lost a lot of blood. The Royal physicians were working overtime to heal the Queen. As days went by, the Queen became weaker until one day, the empire went into mourning with the passing of the Queen.

The mourning went on for two years. The Emperor was distraught at the Queen's loss and cancelled all public contact. There were rumours that he was thinking of withdrawing altogether from administration and handing over the reins of his empire to his sons. The Queen had died away from Agra when she had accompanied the Emperor on one of his conquests. However, upon her death, the Emperor returned to Agra and had the Queen buried in a garden on the banks of river Yamuna.

Soon, a royal decree was issued that the Emperor is commissioning the building of a grand memorial for the Queen, as per her last wish. The memorial was to be one of its kind for all times to come. Architects from around the world were invited to present their designs. In time, a grand design was selected by the Emperor. He was impatient to get the construction work started at the earliest, to fulfil his promise to the dying Queen.

Craftsmen of all kinds – masons and carpenters, wood cutters and stone cutters, architects and labourers, gold and silver smiths, carpet weavers and gardeners, tailors and lace embroiderers - were drafted from around the world. Taxes were imposed across the empire to fund the grand project.

A massive tent city was erected to house the workers. Little did they know then that it was to be their city for the next two decades and more. A total of 20,000 workers stayed in the tent city, working on building the monument. An entire industry got created along the tent city, with doctors, barbers, cooks, priests, washermen and all assortment of service providers offering their services to the workers and to each other. Palace workers were asked to send their children above the age of 12 to help out in the construction activities and that was how Gulbuddin got involved in the project.

Initially, Gulbuddin was assigned to labour intensive tasks – moving earth to lay foundations and ramps, moving Marble Stones and cutting large wooden logs. The Marble stones were brought from Makrana, near the present day Jodhpur in Rajasthan by elephants. At the construction site, stone cutters cut the marbles in various shapes per the design. It was then transported on wooden rollers on specially constructed ramps, mainly by 12 to 16 year old workers. It was painstaking as the marble stones needed to be transported slowly without damage.

Punishment was swift and severe. Many a labourer was subjected to severe whipping for even a minor chipping of the marble stones. Such boys got incapacitated due to the wounds for days and many died of infections on the festering wounds. Supervisors decapitated people or hanged them if the Marble got damaged and became useless.

Gulbuddin learnt to work carefully and methodically through these harsh conditions. This earned him a good name, due to the attention to detail which he paid, and the chief marble inlay artist took him on as his apprentice to carve the marbles and inlays with various designs and persian writings. That is how Gulbuddin, the son of a gardener, ended up becoming a Marble artisan.The work required a lot of patience and attention to details, as even a small error would make the entire marble slab useless.

Punishment for artisans was better than for the labourers, due to the fact that good artisans were hard to find. An artisan who made errors during marble carving was relegated to etching of sand stones and red stones for the entrance and pillars. Someone who was not fast and accurate got assigned to cutting various precious and semi-precious stones used for inlays as these were simpler than carving the marble.

There were also gold and silver smelters at work, creating exquisite overlays for doors, Minarets and other structures. Tailors and Embroiderers worked on fine silk and lace to adorn the interiors of the buildings, while carpenters worked on creating doors.

“Good Morning, Ashfaq Chacha. I see you are ready to get to work”, greeted Habib. Habib, short for Habibullah, was with the ASI and worked with Ashfaq Mian on the restoration of damaged marble stones. While Ashfaq Mian worked on the more complex patterns which required a great degree of skill, Habib worked under Ashfaq Mian's guidance on other patterns.

Marble inlay work required skill in knowing a wide variety of stones and their properties, as each had to be handled differently according to its texture, hardness, brittleness and shape of the cut. Ashfaq Mian had worked with his grandfather as a small boy and then with his father to painstakingly learn the intricate art of Marble inlay work. Due to the reduced demand for this skill, he feared that it will soon become extinct in Agra. None of his children were interested and a few like Habibullah were able to do the less complex patterns, but none that were comparable to the Marble inlays in the Taj Mahal.

Habibullah and Ashfaq trudged to the East side of the Taj, behind the Naqqar Khana or the Rest House. Tourists were not allowed inside this building and it was here that the restoration and upkeep work was carried out while the tourists roamed the rest of the Taj Mahal. This building was created as a symmetry with the Mosque on the West Side of the Taj Mahal, with the Grand Main Entrance to the South and the river Yamuna to its North. The entire Taj Mahal was a study in symmetry, except for the Emperor's own tomb, which was an after-thought that was not planned when the original structure was commissioned.

While working, Habibullah made small talk with Ashfaq Mian to break the monotony of chiselling the Marble stone with a micro-chisel.
“Ashfaq Chacha, how did your family get involved in the art of Marble carving?”
Ashfaq Mian smiled. It was a long story, one that he relished reliving in his thoughts.

When Gulbuddin was 14 years old, there was another twist in his short life. The team he was assigned to by the chief Marble architect had an elderly craftsman, with several other younger apprentices. One day, Gulbuddin was deep in concentration while drawing the outline of the inlay work on a piece of Marble, when he heard female laughter. He rose with a start, as no women were allowed in the work area. All elderly artisans with families stayed on the outfacing tents, and all unmarried boys and men stayed on the inside. Thus, Gulbuddin was surprised to hear female laughter and at the same time, was curious to find more. It came from behind a pile of stones and Gulbuddin went to investigate. He was transformed into a stone himself upon setting his eyes on the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Under the emperor's rule, the Islamic tradition of burqua (or covering women's face and hair under a cloth) was not enforced, and hence it was quite common for many young ladies to wear scarfs around their heads but not covering their face. Hence, it was not that Gulbuddin had never seen other women, but Mehrunnissa's (as he was to discover her name later) beauty took his breath away. It transpired that she was the eldest daughter of the elderly craftsman in his team.

In due course, after a wait of another two years, Gulbuddin's and Mehrunnissa's Nikkah was performed in the presence of elders. He graduated to a tent on the outside to live with his new family. He also graduated at work to lead a team himself. He was assigned to architect and create one of the Minarets. His team consisted young men from all nationalities and religions.

Gulbuddin earned a name among his team for his fairness, genuine interest on his fellow workers and most of all, for his crafsmanship and talent. While the work was gruelling and demanding and the pace was back-breaking, there was genuine camaraderie in his team. When the supervisors were not nearby, he even allowed his team to crack jokes and have fun. If supervisors heard excessive noise and came to investigate, he owned up and being a senior, was let off with reprimand. Thus, the monument to love was constructed with a lot of genuine love and affection among members in his team.

It was early evening and the Taj was covered in the crimson rays of Sun trying their best to break through the haze that was a permanent feature of Agra during winter. Tourists were admiring the picturisque spread of the visual treat before them. Young couple got pictures taken with romantic poses in front of the memorial of love. Others were enjoying the beauty of the Taj Mahal through the contrasting haze, dirt and crowds all around. Ashfaq Mian and Habib were pre-occupied with creating their own artistic beauties in marble inlay work that replicated intricate patterns created by the original artists.

Taking a break from painstaking work, Habib remarked “Isn't it wonderful for India to have a legacy of love like the Taj Mahal, Ashfaq Chacha? The haze is the only spoiler”.

“Habib Beta, how true. Though, you have no idea how much love has gone into the creation of the Taj Mahal, which is much more than what Shahjahan had for his begum Mumtaz”, replied Ashfaq Mian somberly. He then pre-occupied himself with the carving work in a pensive mood, and Habib decided not to disturb Ashfaq Mian's reverie.

Gulbuddin had risen to become one of the senior Marble architects with several sub-teams under his care. His family had also grown with 4 children and a 5th one on its way. The atmosphere on the site was now quite unhealthy due to poor sanitation, Marble dust and poor water supply. As no one had planned that the construction would take this long, the tent city was created without much of town planning that would have normally applied. Drainage facilities were non-existent and during heavy rains, the entire area was flooded with the workers moving out of their tents to high ground until the water receded into the Yamuna.

Once when Yamuna flooded, even the high grounds became unsafe, and workers were transported on elephants to the main city of Agra and housed in temples and mosques commandeered by the Emperor for the purpose. There had been many epidemics which took a toll on workers and their families. Life was harsh, but the Emperor's zeal in getting the memorial completed for his beloved wife never waned. As years passed, the Emperor was more anxious to complete the monument quickly, and this translated into more brutality and pressure for the workers to speed things up, by supervisors and guards.

It was the 15th year of construction and most of the buildings and minarets were completed. It only remained to move the central domes – one main and two secondary ones – in place. Due to the hard work and harsh conditions, people aged well beyond their years and average life expectancy was in the 40s. Gulbuddin himself was 27 years of age, but looked more like 45 years. His lungs were infected with Marble dust and he had breathing problems. His eyesight was also slowly losing out due to the constant peering and intense concentration when chiseling away channels in the Marble for inlay, and when cutting finely shaped pieces of precious stones. He was also mentally fatigued, having to deal with work and family pressures. The option of leaving the site for some other work elsewhere was never provided to anyone, as good craftsmen were hard to find. Deserters were hunted down and summarily executed, as it was difficult to find new workers due to the low morale and harsh working conditions at the construction site.

The day arrived when Gulbuddin and his team were moving the last of the domes in place. This task required high precision and coordination. The dome took five years to complete and weighed several tons. The Main dome had been moved in place and secured a few weeks back, and one of the smaller domes was moved and secured just the previous week.

All the domes were moved slowly on a 2 kilometer ramp, with equal number of men on the two halfs of the dome moving in perfect coordination. The team leader ensured that the teams moved in perfect unison, and it was Gulbuddin's task for the final dome. The dome had been mounted the previous day on a platform made of logs with rollers, and ropes secured to the structure were used to pull it up the incline.

The two teams on either side of the dome pulled the structure synchronizing with Gulbuddin's command. The structure was 3/4th of the way up the incline when there was a shriek from below. A few Children were playing nearby and one of the children had shrieked. Gulbuddin got distracted and mumbled to the nearby team to halt. He went to investigate what caused the shriek.

The team on the far side of the dome had not heard Gulbuddin's instruction to halt and continued to pull the rope. This created a lop-sided movement and the structure being heavy, the rollers below went askew. This resulted in stress on one of the logs in the platform which snapped. Each such small mistake thus got magnified and before anyone knew it, the dome got dislodged out of its housing and came tumbling down the incline. Many workers in its path got crushed or suffered serious injuries.

Gulbuddin, who had scampered down the incline, turned to see the giant dome tumbling out of control and heard the shouts and shrieks of the unfortunate men who got ravaged by the dome. He stood shell-shocked, watching helplessly as the dome completed its journey down the incline for a short while before slipping off and crashing down to earth. The force of the crash split the mighty dome into three pieces and each piece shattered separately, throwing vast piles of soil and marble in the air. The entire tragedy took place in a couple of minutes and when the broken pieces finally rested on the soil, the entire workplace was stunned into silence except for the weak moans of a few who survived with injuries.

Pandemonium reined after the initial paralysis. People wailed, while others shouted commands and rushed to the rescue of the injured. There was blood everywhere. After the initial panic, workers were also gripped with fear of what would happen as a result of the broken dome. Everyone had seen the Emperor's increasing impatience for completing the monument and none could predict what the Emperor would do when he heard of the accident.

Gulbuddin was most concerned about the workers and their families. This galvanized him into taking command to rush the injured to the medical tent, transporting the dead down the slope and laying them respectfully in a nearby tent and informing the families of the tragedy and providing them support. Only after he took care of the immediate tasks did he and his remaining team submit themselves to the guards.

In the meantime, the news of the calamity had reached the palace and the emperor was furious. In the days that followed, the emperor held court and, frustrated with the last-minute impediment to fulfilling his promise to his queen, he sentenced the entire team under Gulbuddin to be beheaded as punishment.

Then, a strange thing happened. One of the young apprentices under Gulbuddin, Ranvir Rana, a young Rajput who was drafted for the construction project, stepped forward and requested permission to speak to the Emperor. He would have been slayed by the guards instantly had not providence intervened in the form of the Emperor, who on his way out, noticed the commotion and asked for Ranvir to be brought to him.

Ranvir, only 12 years of age, knew of a large number of his fellow workers including Gulbuddin, who had families to take care of. He pleaded with the emperor that it was he who had caused the accident and that the rest of the workers were victims of his foolishness. Hence they should be spared further punishment and it was he who should pay for the anguish caused to the Emperor. Shahjahan, who ruled with a sense of justice until his bereavement for his Queen blinded his wisdom, then modified his sentence with an order to behead Ranvir for his stupidity and carelessness.

But not satisfied with this, he then ordered the rest of the team with a decree that they redo the dome and install it in two years time, failing which they and their entire families will be sentenced to death exactly two years from that date.Gulbuddin was moved with grief and guilt but did not have the courage to counter young Ranvir's confession in front of the emperor and lived the rest of his life in great sadness.

Gulbuddin and his team worked day and night for the next two years to recreate the dome from fresh marble slabs. As a tribute to Ranvir's bravery and love for his fellow workers, belieing all predictions, they put their heart and completed the dome on time. However, as a cruel irony to Ranvir's sacrifice, none of them lasted long after completing the Taj Mahal.

Beset by breathing problems due to constant exposure to marble dust and the long hours of backbreaking work, each worker was reduced to a wheezing skeleton in the two years that they worked on the dome. One by one, they all died within six months of completion. In all, it had taken 17 years for the main structure to be completed and another 5 years for the gardens and the surrounding structures to be completed. Finally, the Queen's tomb was shifted to its permanent resting place.

Ashfaq sighed on remembering the story of his great ancestor Gulbuddin Ahmed, as told by his grandfather. Taj today is remembered as a tribute to the love of Shah Jahan for his beloved wife, Mumtaj Mahal. It is, however, also a tribute to the love of numerous workers who teamed to create an unparalleled masterpiece. Looking at the Taj in the fog caused by pollution, Ashfaq could visualize the marble dust that would have covered the area when the Taj Mahal was being constructed. While things have changed a lot from the time of its construction, in many ways, they have remained the same.

The Serengeti Story

2008-05-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

All characterizations and events in this story is entirely the author’s imagination, based on real facts on the ground. All photos are the copyright of the author. Any coincidence to real living beings or events is entirely a coincidence.

-------------------------------------

The flat grasslands just stretched in every direction as far as the eyes could reach. They were bordered by the gray mountain outlines, with the few occasional rocky outcrops here and there. It is not for nothing that the Maasai people named the land Siringitu– the land that moves on forever, which later became Serengeti. Covering a landmass of 30,000 square kilometers, the Serengeti region consists of Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, and several other smaller reserves. In this landmass, life has thrived for millions of years, with predator and prey co-existing in a delicate balance, forming a sustainable ecosystem. In the past century, man has discovered Serengeti, first as a game hunting area and fortunately, later as an animal reserve. In this cauldron of life, daily life produces numerous stories, plots and sub-plots, which one can see in the eyes of animals, in the conversations with Maasai people, and in the scenes that Serengeti offers. I reproduce a few of those stories below.

=========================================

“It is midnight. I am silently inching towards my prey – a group of sleeping Wildebeests and Zebras. My pride-mates are spread out and cautiously approaching too. I am in the lead. We are moving into the wind so that our smell does not carry much in advance. The zebras, with their sharp eyes, and wildebeests with their sense of smell make a natural complement, protecting each other and hence stay together. I have watched this particular herd from a vantage point on a kopje (a rocky outcrop in the Serengeti plains) all day yesterday, to spot any weakness.

The jungle is unforgiving, where every living being is both a predator and prey. We Lions, while being top of the food chain, have our predators too. There are a wide variety of flies and insects that feed off ticks, the moisture in our eyes and feast off any open wounds on our body. If we are not careful in constantly grooming ourselves, before one knows it, we will fall prey and meet our death in a helpless manner. Lately, our species has been plagued by Rabies and other diseases, and this has taken a toll. Occasionally, there are skirmishes between us and one of the larger animals such as Rhinos, Elephants, etc, but these are mostly avoided by all. More often, Lions fight to get control of the pride of lionesses and the loser Lions not only get serious injuries, but also lose all their cubs which are killed by the victor. However, our biggest threat is the bi-ped.

Historically, the bi-ped herds that live in the Serengeti engage us to a kill with sharp pointed arms just to prove their bravery to their own clan. While we try to avoid bi-peds as much as we can, these engagements are deliberate and the bi-peds use techniques to annoy us and bring us out of our hideouts. The end result is more in favour of bi-peds, though in several skirmishes, we have taken the upper hand and killed the bi-ped. In such instances, if there are no other bi-peds nearby, we get a good meal of our kill.

In the past century, bi-peds have developed arms that reach us remotely and we never get a chance within our reach for a fair fight. These bi-peds, while looking the same as the bi-ped herds I spoke about, are a bit different and come in fast moving legs which are circular and run very fast. Lately, while many still come in fast moving legs, they do not hunt us with arms and seem harmless. Even then, we can never be sure of their intent and hence have to be on guard at all times. But all that story for another time. Let me get back to my hunt.

I had noticed a mild limp in one of the wildebeest during the day, and it is that animal that I am trying to get close to. To an untrained eye, there is no difference between one wildebeest and another, or for that matter, one zebra and another. However, we lions track each of the members in the herd to target the weak ones, as this selection makes the difference between a hungry stomach leading to slow death and a full stomach so that we live another day, or even three days. A full feed can carry us even up to five days without another hunt, but by then, we will be weak to attack any sizeable game, and will have to settle for smaller animals. Today is the third day since my last meal and I am determined to get that wildebeest.

I am now in the final approaches and need to move closer before the final charge. The herd has not gotten a hint of our approach. My siblings too are totally invisible, hidden under the tall grass even with the light from full moon. Making the final approach, I am just about to move closer when I notice a disturbance in the grass to my left. One of the smaller creatures – a rat, fox or some other animal in the path of one of the Lions got startled and made a sudden start, creating the disturbance. The herd noticed the movements and woke up with a start and started scattering. I realize that the stealth movement is no longer needed and leap towards the chosen prey, but to no avail. The zebras and wildebeests instinctively run into the wind and hence away from us and with each passing second, put more distance between us. This is a lost chase, and we need to start all over again. In Serengeti, nothing lasts forever, and so, soon the herds will forget this incident and we get a second chance.”

======================================

“My leg has been bothering me for the past two days. Being a wildebeest, that small leg sprain is almost like a death sentence to me and I am cautiously tending to the leg for a fast recovery. It happened a couple of days back when I was practicing a dodge-run with my fellow wildebeests. This is a type of dodging during a rapid escape wherein we change directions very quickly to make it difficult for our predator to predict the direction of our escape. It has saved many a wildebeest from near death situations numerous times. In one such practice, I did not notice a small pit in the flat plain ground and one of my legs landed into this pit when I changed direction of my sprint. Our legs are really strong to give us burst speeds and to support us in our long migrations across the vast plains. As a result, I did not break my leg in the mishap, but it did cause a sprain and a small limp. I have been recovering and will be fully recovered in another day or two. In the meantime, I am taking extra caution and keeping myself in the middle of the herd as our enemy can approach us from any direction.

The whole of yesterday, several of us notice a pride of lionesses watching us from atop a Kopje the whole day. We know that sooner or later, this pride will attack us and the suspense of not knowing when that will happen is creating the stress. I kept a wary eye all through the day while grazing and before we retired for the night, we moved further away from the pride in the flat, open plain. We teamed with a group of zebras to sleep the night, as the zebras have sharper eye sights, to complement our sense of smell. We had a night watch system to keep track of predators at night while most of us slept.

As predicted, the lion pride disappeared from the high ground as the evening wore on. Even though we could not see where the lions were, we knew that they were hidden in the grass along the plains and would be inching our way as the night came. Lions were only one of our problems for this night. We had also noticed a group of hyenas that were circling us, far away from the lions. A couple of cheetahs were also spotted during the day looking at our direction from another vantage position. It is this last predator that was more worrisome, as the cheetahs could charge at us at speeds of up to 60 km per hour and can approach from any direction. Given their big leaps, they could keep themselves far away from the herd even in the wind direction and not provide any hint of their approach. Then, at a time of their choosing, they would charge at full speed, making it difficult for us to disperse in time.

Given my handicap, I decided to be part of the night watch team, as sleep would have evaded me anyway due to the constant worry. The wind was blowing north to south and the lions were all in the south. So, we were aware that any attack tonight will occur from the south. During the day, we had scouted out the plains to the north of us to be aware of pitfalls, hideouts and other animals to the north of us, in case a rapid escape was needed. This, and our alertness, saved us that night.

Nothing happened for several hours into the night, and it was making the night watch team more and more worried as we could not see what was happening in the vast grasslands to the south of us. We could also not sense through smell or sound. In addition to masking any smell of lions by blowing in the wrong direction, the wind also helped in masking any slight sound we might have otherwise heard when the lions moved among grass. The constant swaying of the grass in the wind also helped in camouflaging the lion movement in the grass. All these conspired to very effectively hide the lions’ approach through the night much closer than we had surmised, without revealing anything to us.

Luckily for us, there was a sudden movement in the grass – somewhat like when some animal got a sudden surprise and dashed across without regard to camouflage. Immediately, the watch team made noise alerting the entire herd while taking the lead in dashing out northwards. Other animals in the herd who were suddenly woken up just blindly followed our lead and ran in the same direction.

Glancing back in my peripheral vision, I noticed six to eight lionesses charging towards me from about 100 meters or so. We had gained a head-start, thanks to the unknown benefactor animal which alerted us through its sudden movement, and I dashed for my life. My leg was hurting badly and I was not as nimble and fast as the rest of my herd, and it flashed in my brain that the lions targeted me precisely for the same reason. Ignoring the pain, I ran as fast as I could, frequently changing direction rapidly and was soon safely away from the lions. The lions too noticed the futility of the chase and after a few minutes, gave up the chase. It was thus that we escaped our immediate threat and went on to live another day.”

===============================

“The fat rodent was intently gnawing on the root. It moved its head in jerky fashion, watching furtively all around while chewing on the roots – as though it was watching out for some forest officer who might chastise it for eating up all the greenery. In reality, it was on a look-out for predators like me. It kept moving from place to place, biting on new roots, while letting go of the ones it was chewing. This was a natural defense for it, as being in a single place would make it easy for predators. I too crept along the grass some distance from it while gradually reducing the distance. Each time I made some progress getting us, closer, it moved away.

I am a Golden Jackal and rodents and other small animals form my dinner. While I was intent on tracking its movement and location in the dark, I did not notice the lion that was slowly creeping low in the grass towards a group of wildebeest to my left. I suddenly noticed it moving right in front of me, blocking my own advance. Lions generally hunt in groups. More precisely, it is the pride of lionesses which do the hunt, and the Lion will be right behind once the prey is downed. So, I panicked on the sight of the lioness and ran away from it, abandoning my own hunt.

The lioness, having been disturbed in its hunt, gave a nasty growl at me and charged towards its prey, abandoning its stealth. My own flight had alerted the wildebeest and zebras and several other animals nearby and there was pandemonium in the forest. All this was for a few minutes and the forest settled soon to a new equilibrium and peace and quiet returned. The various hunts in progress had to be abandoned, with the prey being spared for now, while the predators moved further along their own hunger pangs.”

===============================

“The grassland is not just about those big animals. If all those animals add up to a million or two, we small creatures are several billions and counting. I am a dung beetle. While my name may not conjure up a great image, my species is very essential to keep Serengeti habitable for all its inhabitants. Without us, the entire place would putrefy due to all the waste generated by millions of animals through the day.

We dung beetles process about 70% of all dung produced in this ecosystem. Billions of other small insects, rodents, flies, moths, and numerous other life forms all play an important role in various ways to keep Serengeti fit for all life on it. Some of us are food for larger insects, while we pray on other smaller life forms. Most of us are invisible to larger animals and life forms, and we deliberately intended it that way. Most of the insects have their own way of camouflage to blend into the canvas of the grasslands – primarily to protect from predators, but it also makes these invisible to all larger life forms. While the general belief is that the larger animals, especially the millions of wildebeest, eat up most of the vegetation in Serengeti, the billions of smaller life forms together consume a lot more of vegetation than all the larger animals put together. We in turn are food for the wide variety of reptiles, birds, snakes and rodents.

In Serengeti, no prey holds grudge with the predator, since this is how life has been for millions of years. Every one is a prey and a predator and hence everyone is resigned to their role in this cauldron of life. I will withdraw the word “resigned”, as that may convey an image that all life in this grassland is depressing, and each life is carrying on its activity while waiting for its predator to snuff out its life. On the contrary, I do not think that there is a more vibrant place in the world where life is celebrated every moment the way it is done in Serengeti.

Coming to my own life and why I collect dung, it is intricately tied to propagating life. Dung forms our food and is the only interest we have in this ecosystem. If we do not break up dung, transport it across the land, tunnel the earth and store smaller balls of dung and earth, the entire Serengeti would have been infested with bacteria and flies in epidemic proportions, and all the other life would have been wiped out. The tunneling of earth also loosens the soil, mixes it with nutrients from the dung that is processed and hence prepares it for vegetation. Without this, the soil would have become infertile a long time ago and all life would have ceased to exist. I can even boast that all life is indebted to us dung beetles for enabling the ecosystem here, in Africa. They say that all of mankind originated from here. If that is so, mankind too is indebted to my ancestors for their existence today.

Well, it was nice to share something about me, but I have got to go. I have a lot of work to do, breaking up the big dung from the antelope herd over there, and haul it over to the dung pad that my partner and I created for our future generations.”

============================

The Serengeti is not just home to animal, insect and plant life, but is also the cradle of all life. Over 2.5 Million years ago, when the Ngorongoro area had an active volcano, the place thrived with the early ancestors of humans called hominids, including Australopithecus bosei, Homo Habilis (Handy man) and Homo Erectus. These cover the earliest evolutionary periods leading up to the modern man. Here are some of the stories that the fossils and the museum at Olduvai Gorge unraveled.

About 1.8 million years ago, the seeds of modern man were planted in Olduvai Gorge with an early hominid named Astralopithacus bosei (human-like animal, which walked on two feet which is very similar to human feet) living here. Here is what happened to one of its kind that left us a record of its existence through fossils.

===============================

“I am worried. My herd mates and I are rapidly moving to cross the lake along its bank to go to higher ground on the far side. The fire mountain behind us has been rumbling for a while and throwing up a lot of ash. All the land and the lake is covered by white ash. The air too is filled with ash dust and visibility has been very low. Hence our trudging is progressing very slowly. The other herds started moving out a long time back, but I believed that there was no danger.

All the herds here have been born, lived through life and died under the watchful eyes of the fire mountain, which has periodically rumbled for as far as my memory goes. This time was different though and I failed to recognize the difference in time. The rumblings this time have been too frequent, and the mountain has thrown up ash too often. That is what made all the other herds to move farther away from the fire mountain.

Let me say something about my herd. We are a group of 4 bi-peds, with a 3 toed horse and a wild dog. The horse and the wild dog joined our herd as we moved from place to place, plucking fruits and berries from trees for food, and after a while, became part of our herd. I am the male bi-ped and I have two female bi-peds and one child bi-ped in my herd. Life is very tough as there are all types of animals in this land, some really huge, some very fast and ferocious and all posing danger to each other. We cannot be safe even with other herds of our own species, as food is scarce and everyone has to fight to get the scarce meal. The lake was our source of water, but for the past few days, it too has been covered with ash and the water is undrinkable.

Most animals and bi-ped herds started moving further west from this area sometime back, when the earth frequently shook violently and the fire mountain threw a lot of ash in the air. My herd and one other lonely bi-ped, who I now see shuffling ahead of us, were the few left in the last two days. While we were scared of what is happening, we were also scared to move away from the only place known to us and hence stayed put. I worried about getting food and water if we moved away from the lake and all the trees, but now I realize that it would not have been different from now. All the trees have long been covered and buried under ash and the lake too is covered with ash. So, we have gone without food for the past three days and do not even find small animals and rodents to catch and eat.

We are trying to move as fast as the ground allows. It is not easy to walk on ash as our feet sink into the soft ash with each step. Last night, there was a mild rain, which has made the ash wet, and hence even more difficult to extricate our feet with every step. It is like trying to walk on slush. With the earth trembling frequently, it adds to the difficulty in maintaining balance and moving fast.

This morning, for the first time, we saw fire being thrown by the fire mountain along with ash, and there is a continuous stream of molten fire that has been flowing from the fire mountain. This molten fire finally broke my spell and galvanized me into rushing away from the fire mountain with my herd. But it may already be too late.

There is a loud bang in the direction of the fire mountain, accompanied by a violent shaking of the earth. I turn to inspect the cause of the sound and… oh no, I see a huge spurt of fire coming directly on us. I try to turn and run and my herd mates too are trying to run. But our feet are stuck into the ash-slush at every step. A chunk of fire lands right in front of me and I freeze for a moment, and in panic, try to side step. I hear a scream and see my female mate being crushed under a big ball of fire. The dog and horse too have vanished, probably buried by the molten fire.

The child and I have walked together until now, and when the fire shower started, the child ran faster since he is lighter and unlike our feet, his are smaller and hence are not immersed as deep as ours at each step on the slushy ash. But I see the frequent molten fire all around me, and know that the end is near. In panic, I change directions when the fire ball lands in front of me. There is a big fire ball coming through the air and I try to avoid it. I move to the left, but aaaahhhhh…”

===================================

Much after the existence of Australopithecus, closer to about 250,000 years ago, humans evolved further, capable of using their hands in forming tools, and using tools to hunt food. These species were called Homo habilis, or “Handy Man”. Here is a story from one such Handy Man.

===============================

“The warthogs were oblivious in their movement across the plain. There are three of us trying to catch some game for feeding our tribe. The sun is setting in the west and the sky is painted with various hues of red. Each of us is carrying a large hand axe made of stone, which is sharpened to impart a fatal blow when we close in on our prey and attack it. But warthogs are difficult to kill as they have thick hides and lot of fat protecting them. So, the key is for us to simultaneously thrust our stone axe at it to sufficiently wound one of the pair, and then repeatedly assault it with our weapons, while keeping away from legs and short horns. We communicate through various sounds with each other, to share our thoughts and intent during the hunt. Keeping quiet is not very necessary for a warthog hunt, as warthogs are unsuspecting animals and do not mind our presence. However, as we approach closer, they become wary and quickly run away. So, we have to close in slowly and then rush them for the last few yards before they notice that we are too close.

As my tribe-mates and I approach within 5 yards of the warthog, I indicate that at my verbal signal, all of us rush and attack it together. The hunt is a culmination of a long, weary day for us all, as we first tried to hunt an antelope, then a zebra and then several other animals, before stumbling across this warthog. In all the prior hunts during the day, we were unsuccessful as those animals are much more cautious than a warthog and never allowed us to close in on them. When we tried to run them, these animals, being very agile to protect themselves from the likes of leopard, lion and cheetah, shot off in different directions like a gust of wind in the still plains.

As we were returning back to our tribe dejected and burdened with having to convey the bad news that we have no food today, we stumbled upon this pair of warthogs who were oblivious to our approach. The hunt proceeds as planned and we now have a prize catch of a warthog, which we haul onto my shoulders and proceed back to our tribe to fill our bellies.

With a wide assortment of tools made of stone, skinning the warthog and cutting the flesh among us all is not a problem. However, having eaten the flesh of different animals, I can certainly say that it is not a very relishing thought. With all that fat, it requires a lot of chewing to eat warthog flesh and our jaws pain at the end of the ordeal. It is also difficult to digest and I can clearly anticipate another day of painful stomach for us all tomorrow, but having been hungry now for two days, anything is better than not eating at all.

As I anticipated, our tribe jumps up and down in joy while making all sorts of sounds on seeing the food on my shoulders. Before the sun goes completely down, we quickly skin the warthog, cut pieces of flesh with our stone weapons and set off the difficult task of chewing it.

With different tools for different purposes, we are able to hunt a wide variety of animals, skin them, peel the flesh off their bones and cut them into smaller pieces to take one mouthful at a time. While the flesh forms our food, we use the animal skin to cover ourselves during the wind season, and as floor covering on which we sit and sleep. The skeletal bones are used for various tools, such as the hip socket of dead elephants used as a pestle for grinding nuts and fruits to improve the flavor of food. With fruits from trees, game from the wild and teaming among the tribe members, life has been lot easier than what our ancestors had to endure, a million and a half years or so ago. What would have been great is if we could find a way to soften the meat before eating, but that has to wait for several hundred thousand years later.”

============================

And evolution continued beyond Africa, resulting in Cromagnon Man who is considered the first of modern man. Africa too had its shares of modern man, with numerous tribes forming hundreds of years ago, for which there is no written history. One such people who continue to struggle to keep their ancient traditions alive, under the onslaught of modern, western civilization with its morals, laws and ways of living threatening to completely obliterate any alternate, ancient ways of living. Here is a story of the Maasai as told by one of them.

================================

“It was still dark outside when I heard my mother shout outside my inkajijik (hut), which is made from mud, sticks, cow dung and cow’s urine by my mother, and looks like a bread loaf. Maasai houses are arranged in a circle with a fence made of acacia thorns surrounding the entire group. In the middle of the village is another fence where cattle are herded in for the night. The entire collection of inkajijik is called manyatta.

The head of this group is the oldest member of this family, who is my grandfather. He had six wives, two of whom have died since. Each of my grandmothers sired several children and our extended family is now 33 people strong. We own 112 cows, sheep and oxen, which is one of the large collections among the Maasai families around here. Our cattle are our wealth and we use cattle for bartering and payment.

My mother calls me “Parampit, Wake up; today you need to graze cattle as well as search for a new grazing area for the family to move”. In Maasai age-set, I am a laiyok – the lowest in the age-set ladder. I am yet to be circumsized, when I will be considered a mature person moving up the ladder to become a sipolio first. Before becoming a sipolio, my primary task is to graze cattle and do chores that are given to me by the elders. Once I become sipolio, I become a warrior and will be defending the village and cattle herd. I will also be teaming with other warriors to scout for new cattle among other tribes.

We Maasai are primarily cattle herders, and our food consists of milk, butter, cattle blood and cattle meat. We take care when bleeding cows not to take too much so that the cow is not harmed. We do this by creating a small incision along the jugular vein of healthy, young cows, collecting the blood while all the time monitoring the condition of the cow, and finally sealing the incision with a mixture of charcoal and herbs. This seals the wound with a clot and the cow recovers to full health very quickly.

Recently, after the incursion of western civilization into our habitat, some Maasai have started adding maize, vegetables and other meat to their diet. In general, Maasai look down upon other tribes who subsist on farming, as Maasai people consider ploughing the earth and growing food is against nature. Growing vegetables and cereals depletes the land of minerals and that is against the way nature intended the land to be. We Maasai, like all ancient tribes all over the world, have our rituals, beliefs and customs.

These are essential for our way of life to sustain over centuries, and through numerous external influences into our society. I already talked about age-groups, with each age-group having different responsibilities and duties towards the village. Cattle herding is the task of the lowest age-set.

Upon reaching puberty, the boy goes through a ritual symbolizing his movement to become an adult. His views are sought in making decisions, and there is more respect given to his words. This age-set would be the young warriors, who defend the village and cattle. There are then several senior warrior age-sets, each of which have higher level responsibilities in ensuring security, increasing cattle through barter and raiding of other tribes, and mentoring the younger warriors. At the top are the elder age-sets, who set the tasks for the day to everyone and make key decisions for the village.

Coming back to my day chore, a few of us youngsters take the cattle out for grazing in known grasslands about an hour’s walk from our village. While the cattle are grazing, I start scouting walking further away into the grasslands for a good spot for our family to migrate.

Selecting the location, while seemingly simple, comes with a lot of hidden dangers. For one, all of savanna is covered by grass, which provides an excellent cover for all kinds of predators. On the low end of the scale are the biting ants, a wide variety of bugs, slithering snakes, and rodents as fat as a well-fed cat, that hug close to the ground and are difficult to spot unless one directly lands on them. Many a Maasai boy has been brought near-death to the village elder for administering medicinal herbs to all types of bites. On the more dangerous end are the bigger quadruped predators – the cheetah, leopard, jackals and hyenas, to the king of all predators – the lion.

I carry a stick with me which I use to prod ahead of me while being alert to movements in the grass nearby, and carefully scout the grasslands. A good spot to build our kraal would be one where there is an acacia tree in the midst of a flat piece of ground, with plenty of bushes not too far away, but not too close the ground. The bushes supply plenty of sticks and thorns that our womenfolk will need to build the huts, as well as to build the fence around the kraal. Having them not too far would help in gathering our building material relatively fast. If the bushes are too close, these provide excellent cover for an elderly or an adventurous lion to eye our cattle for dinner and hide very close to the kraal waiting for an opportune moment to launch its attack.

To make a long story short, I identify a few different spots which the warrior group will come and check and they will then recommend to the elders. When the place is decided, an advance party of youngsters will bring cattle to graze in the area, and then clean out the remaining grass. Then the women folk and the boys will start collecting sticks, dried bush and acacia thorns. Each inkajijik will take a woman a day to two days to complete, while the youngest age group will be used extensively during the construction to get building materials, mud and cow dung. Cow urine is used instead of water, which is scarce throughout the savanna for building the huts.

These days, many Maasai are coming under western influence, and education. Still, most Maasai want to protect our way of life and after education, come back to the villages to be the interface between the Maasai people and the outside world. While the other tribes in the Serengeti have mostly integrated into the modern society, Maasai are one of the last people who are still preserving our way of life.”

==================================

Well, even though we have come to the end of this story, Serengeti has millions of such stories happening every minute of every day. With the abundance of life that thrives in these savannas through the year, it is the best showcase of nature in both its simplicities and complexities that I have ever seen. Even in my short visit, I was able to see over 50 different species, each with a story of its own.

On the animal front, the Serengeti offered Bison, Cheetah, Leopard, Zebra, Antelope, Elephant, Buffalo, Rhino, Warthog, Wildebeest, Golden Jackal, Baboon, Lion, Giraffe, Hippopotamus, two varieties of Gazelle – Thomson and Grant, Black back Jackal, Crocodile, Bandit Mongoose, Blue Monkey, Black faced vervet monkey and Impala as feast for my eyes against a backdrop of white, yellow and purple flowers spread over a green carpet. There were a wide variety of birds too – Superb Starling, Secretary bird, Hawk, Eagle, Vulture, Quail, Ostrich, Flamingo, Ground Hornbill, Nobhill duck, Pelican, Egyptian Vulture and large number of other colorful birds that whizzed past us before we could consult our guide to know them better – many perched on top of an equally amazing variety of trees – Acacia, Baobab, Wild Mangrove and many more. There were tall trees, Umbrella-like trees, Gnarled trees – they are there in all shapes and sizes.

Serengeti is a place of immense beauty and perfection in a way. A fully self-sustaining ecosystem, with a delicate balance among all species that ensures their preservation across centuries, while not demanding a lot of earth’s resources taught me several profound truths. While there is continuous change every moment in numerous ways, in other ways, Serengeti has remained constant at a macro level for thousands of years. Adaptability is the key word to survival across Serengeti. While there is sufficient to ensure every being’s need, the only species that can upset this balance is humans.

With man’s greed to consume much more than one’s need, there is a real threat of damaging nature’s sustainability in a single century – what all other living beings put together did not do for thousands, and in some cases millions, of years. There has been more acknowledgement of this fact in the recent years than ever before. With events like Earth Day and an increased focus on climate change and sustainable lifestyles, will Humans as a species be able to reverse the trend of over consumption and restore nature to its delicate balance to sustain with all its beauty for another century, another thousand years or more? Only time will tell if we become wiser and cherish nature’s bounty and diversity, or in the process, destroy parts of it. With that profound thought, I bid goodbye to Serengeti with a heavy heart.

===============================

The Vacation that wasn't

2007-10-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

The Beach

It is said that very few people ever experience an event that completely changes all their knowledge and beliefs in a fundamental way. Where there was certainty before the event, after the experience, one is not sure anymore about anything. Confidence disappears like a morning fog, and the mind questions everything that was considered as truth before. Such an incident happened to me during my vacation with my family in Phuket, Thailand.

My wife and I started planning a vacation to charge our batteries. After evaluating the usual vacation places like Goa, Singapore and a few other popular places, we either rejected them due to budget mismatch or were rejected due to non-availability of suitable accommodation. We finally settled on the tiny island of Phuket in Thailand as it met both our budget and had availability. At that time, we knew nearly nothing about Phuket save the fact that it was popular among vacationers. In the past couple of years, the only two news items on Phuket that I had read were both depressing. One was the impact of Tsunami on the island, like many other islands that it had ravished; the other was a recent plane crash of a Thai economy airline. But these news items did not deter us from our Phuket Adventure. And what an adventure it was.

Our visit started off like all tourist visits. Our hotel was fabulous. There were 3 large swimming pools to relax and bars attached to the pools provided sufficient hydration and “High”dration for the populace (of course, all for a fee). The private beach had very little crowd, and guests could swim in the benign waves in total privacy. Children built sand-castles in the beach, while adults relaxed on beach chairs nearby with a novel to read and the Sun above to bathe their bodies. The rooms were encased from all sides with greenery. There were coconut and palm trees, bamboo groves, weeping willows, and an assortment of dense plants to keep a botanist busy for the rest of his life. We lapped it all up on our first day in Phuket before venturing out of our hotel in the following days.

The second day saw us take a conducted tour to the nearby island of Phi Phi. Our bus took us to the Phuket Marina from where we boarded a speed boat on a 45-minute ride to the twin islands of Phi Phi – Phi Phi Lei, the smaller, uninhabited island; and Phi Phi Don, the larger island with hotels and restaurants but no roads and only paths. All along the route, we could see several small islands that spotted the smooth sea like warts. The islands are really rock formations that rose from within the sea’s bowels with sheer sides, and tropical vegetation covering their top – somewhat akin to hair on the head. The sides of the islands are tucked within at the point where they met the sea, due to rock erosion, giving an impression that these huge rocks are sitting on top of the sea surface. Our boat’s first stop was in the midst of three surrounding islands which formed a private swimming pool of the sea between. We all jumped out of the boat into the sea, with a variety of colorful fish for swimming companions. The sky was clear blue above, the sea was turquoise due to the coral reef below, and the island mountains protected us from the harsh tropical Sun. The tour guide educated us on various tunnels leading off from the sides of the island walls into caves within the islands with the only access being through the tunnels during low tides.

After the swim in the open sea, our next stop was a popular beach called Maya Beach, which was the site of a popular Hollywood film. This beach is in Phi Phi Lei, and is actually a cove. The island is shaped like a horseshoe with the beach on the inner side of the base and mountain on all sides. The sand is pure white and smooth, and I could imagine why this would form an ideal location for a film. We had a couple of hours to swim near the beach, and I decided to explore the interior of the island instead of the swim. Little did I know that this small, innocuous decision would be a momentous event for the rest of my life.

The Island

The island on which the beach is located is formed of three mountains – two on the side and one behind the beach. All three are covered with green vegetation for the most part, and the two mountains on the sides have sheer vertical sides slipping into the sea in the now familiar pattern of curved ends where they meet the sea (due to erosion). The third is fronted by the beach, with a small path leading to the interior. It is this path that I decided to take to explore the interior. The path was surrounded by lush vegetation. There were tall trees, thick bushes and flowering plants all along. Soon the path was covered on all sides by tree branches, creepers and leaves. I was bathed by green lighting with the sun trying its hardest to peek through small gaps in the vegetation. The path started climbing upwards and it soon became strenuous to climb. Huffing and puffing, I continued my climb through the green tunnel which was now winding and become steeper.

I could now scent moisture in the air and faintly heard what sounded like a waterfall. This gave me fresh energy to speed up my climbing efforts into what had become a forest. The path was all but a faint outline. It was clear that it was not very frequently traveled on. With the sound of the waterfall now becoming a roar, I suddenly emerged out of the tunnel into what was the most astounding sight I have ever seen. With the thick forest enveloping on all sides, in front of me was the lush waterfall ending into a serene, clear pool below. The water was shimmering and sunlight reflected in the millions of water droplets that formed at the base of the waterfall. There was even a private rainbow competing for attention with the most beautiful garden of flowers – white and purple orchids, yellow sunflowers, red roses, white lilies, red and yellow marigolds, white, fragrant jasmine, pink lotus in the pond, dandelions and a number of other flowers which I could not identify. It seemed as though nature was inviting me to this heaven on earth with a bouquet of colors. Bees and butterflies seemed to be the only other inhabitants enjoying this nature’s kaleidoscope. I was mesmerized by it all, and sat down after the strenuous trek to enjoy the scenery peacefully.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” – I heard a deep, guttural voice nearby. What struck me was that this was stated in Tamil, my mother tongue. How did this person know that I knew Tamil? Did someone else from my tour group follow me? I dismissed this as I had not seen or heard anyone following me in my trek nor did I know of other Tamil-speaking fellow tourists in my group. I had left my own family swimming in the Maya beach with other tourists.

I turned around in the direction of the sound and confronted a short, stooped old man squinting at me against the backdrop of Sun behind me. He was wearing a conical straw hat (like the ones I had seen in pictures of Vietnamese farmers) and had a long, flowing beard. He was bent with age, and looked very small. He was bare bodied with a small leather sarong covering the lower part of the body. His bony hands were holding a staff, made of forest wood.

“Beautiful” he repeated, waving his free hand at the scene in the front. “Uh-huh”, I replied, a bit disconcerted by his sudden approach, as well as his conversing in Tamil. Also, his Tamil was distinctly different from what I spoke in India. But I was less disturbed by this since I was aware of differences in the language as spoken even in different cities of Tamil Nadu in India and was also aware of Sri Lankan Tamil being totally different from any spoken in India.

“You are visiting the beach, aren’t you?” he asked, responding to my non-responsive answer to his earlier question. “How did you know that I know Tamil?” I countered with a question. “I don’t know. I just know Tamil. It is a very long time since I met anyone in these parts, and hence spoke to you when I saw you. Nowadays, no one comes to these areas. It was not always like this, you know” he said.

“Do you live here?” I asked. I was surprised that someone lived on this uninhabited island (based on what the guide told us).

“Yes, a very long time. It is a very lonely place” he said.

“First tell me how you ended up being in this island. I was told that Phi Phi Lei is uninhabited. Also, how come you speak Tamil?” I enquired.

“Did you know that Phuket was called Manikram – the crystal mountain in Tamil, once upon a time? We Tamils have inhabited these islands now for almost 1000 years. Then the Malays came and named the island Tanjung Salang, which the Europeans corrupted to Junk Ceylon. The name Phuket, derived from the Malay word Bukit, meaning Hill, was a very recent name” he countered.

“Looks like you know a lot about Phuket. I could benefit from your knowledge” I said, interested in knowing more about Phuket from this man.

“Why don’t we go down to the shade of my home over there, and talk over some fruits and drinks?” he invited me, pointing to a cave that was well camouflaged by a thick bush. He sauntered along, dragging his cloak that was flowing onto the ground. I followed him to the cave, which had to be reached by parting several bushes, which he did with a practiced hand. I tried to follow his movement and ended up with several scratches while clumsily pushing my way through the small opening I created in the thick bush.

The cave had a small opening, through which the old man easily scampered through. I tried to follow him and found it impossible to go through. I finally managed to crawl through on my hands and knees. Once in, I found that the cave opened up. On the far end was a narrow tunnel going down and disappearing into darkness. Strangely, the cave was well lit and I wondered how that would be possible in the middle of this dense forest, until my eyes looked up at the source of light. The roof of the cave was pockmarked with several vertical tunnels climbing through the mountain all the way to its surface. Through these vertical tunnels, sunlight streamed down and flooded the cave with plenty of light.

The cave itself was divided into different sections for different purposes. One corner had a reed mat on the floor, several rolled up mats neatly arranged near the corner and a thick fur skin rolled up neatly in one corner. This, I presumed, was the sleeping quarter of the cave. The openings in the ceilings here were blocked by animal skin covering with a bamboo channel leading down to a downward sloping tunnel. I presumed that this was to protect the bed from rain and to divert the water downward to the sea.

There was another corner where there was an assortment of fruits, vegetables, herbs and dried meat stacked up. The herbs were neatly arranged next to each other – basil, thyme, mint, oregano, turmeric, and a few others I did not recognize. Set aside all by itself away from the rest was a small quantity of some special herb. There was a pestle nearby to grind the herbs. There was a small fireplace and several copper, silver and bronze vessels neatly stacked. A large cauldron had plenty of fresh water with a small copper mug at its side. This was the kitchen corner. A third corner of the cave had all sorts of implements. There were hoes, shovels, knifes, pickaxe, a saw and a lot of small tools that I could not discern from distance. And close to where we had entered, I noticed several pieces of vestments made of different animal skins, and some assortment of garments – a baseball cap, a torn jeans jacket, a discolored sweat band, and a sarong type cloth.

“Sit down and have some refreshments” my host invited. When I was taking in the cave interiors, he had neatly spread out two reed mats near the center of the cave, brought two copper bowls filled with an assortment of fruits – papaya, bananas, watermelon, oranges, pineapple – and two copper tumblers filled with fresh coconut water. We sat in front of each other and he started his story of Phuket.

Old Man’s Story

Long ago, about 1000 years back, the Southern India was ruled by a powerful emperor of the Chola dynasty named Rajendra Chola. His father, Rajaraja Chola was also another great warrior who had conquered most of the south, which the son expanded further beyond the Indian borders. Amongst the islands to the south that he conquered through superior naval power were the present-day Sri Lanka, Maldives and most of the Malay Peninsula that includes the present day Malaysia and Thailand. When his ships reached this island, they were taken in by its beauty, natural defenses around the island (as you could see, there is only one way in to the island – the way your boat must have reached the beach), and its bountiful food. The sea provided marine products while the land had plenty of fruits and vegetables as well as a plentiful of small animals to hunt. Several people who came in that expedition settled in the island with permission from the emperor. You see, at the time when the expedition came here, these islands were uninhabited and hence the first people who settled here came from Tamil kingdoms. The people who inhabited the island named it Manikram, the mountain of Crystals. The corals on the sea bed here make beautiful patterns when seen from above on calm waters and the initial settlers mistook them for crystals.

Life was initially hard when the settlements were being built. The initial expedition had arrived here during the rainy season, and the weather was not very favorable. There were several storms and the sea raged making it impossible to fish. The floods from storms made the whole island wet and several people from the first expedition died of snake bites, epidemic and through exposure to elements. Subsequent expeditions that came later when the weather calmed were able to build settlements.

After about 100 years or so, the Chola kingdoms started waning in India, and the local Malay kings raided the settlements and took control of the islands here. The settlers did not have any contact with the Chola kings by then, and hence settled for peace with the Malay kings. This brought a new wave of Malay settlers into these islands, and they renamed the island as the Cape of Salang, or Tanjung Salang. There is, now, a district in Phuket named Thalang, which is a shortened version of that name. The island was a major shipping stop for trade between India and China in the olden days. That accounts for plenty of Chinese settlers who came to stay back at the island. Gradually, due to easier navigation and size, most people moved to the larger islands and smaller ones like this one went mostly uninhabited.

Various Malay and Thai kings in the past several hundred years claimed these islands as part of their kingdom. About250 years ago, Burmese kings defeated Thai kings and took control of the Thai peninsula. However, King Taksin drove out the Burmese from Thai territory and unified Thailand. The Burmese, wanting to take revenge, decided to attack these islands and wrest control from the Thai kings. A passing sea captain sent word of the Burmese military advancing towards these islands. Two sisters – Kunying Jan, who was recently widowed wife of the deceased governor and Mook – rallied the island people to withstand the Burmese siege and effectively warded off the threat. After a month of siege, the Burmese navy withdrew and the two sisters were honored by the Thai king with titles reserved only for royals. You would see the statues of these sisters near the island center in Phuket.

“That was interesting” I remarked.

“Yes. In this lonely place, all that I have for company is memories” he responded.

“I was meaning to ask you. How are you able to cope in this old age being alone? I can see that the forest and sea give plenty of food, but what happens if you fall sick? Who tends to you and nurses you back to health?” I asked, very concerned about the old man’s need for healthcare in his last days.

“Didn’t you notice those herbs?” he said, pointing to the herbs in the kitchen corner.

“With those, there is no disease that cannot be cured, and I have lived a healthy life all these years, thanks to those various herbs” he proudly declared.

“What is that herb over there? What does it cure?” I asked the old man, of the special herb that was kept aside from all others.

The old man smiled mischievously. “That, my friend, is the king of herbs. No one knows about its existence. If I reveal its secret, you can be sure that this island will lose its tranquility” he responded mysteriously.

Seeing the disappointment in my face, he said “I will give you a clue to its power. It is an ancient herb, as ancient as the Indian epics. It has special medicinal powers that no other herb or medicine has.”

Suddenly, I noticed that the shadows within the caves had lengthened and glanced at my watch. To my dismay, I noted that I had been in the cave for almost two hours. Thanking the old man for the refreshments and the wonderful time, I crept out of the cave (which was easier than crawling in), squeezed through the bush and came to the waterfall. Turning back, I saw the old man stand near the bush and wave at me. I waved back, and just when I was about to move through the path, something that was nagging all along in my mind came to clarity. I stopped my stride, turned and faced the old man who was still at the same place near the bush. “How come you know so much in such details about events that happened 1000 years ago?” I asked.

The old man seemed to have been waiting for me to ask this question, as he laughed out loud. Then, he responded mysteriously for the second time that day – “Very perceptive, young man. Wouldn’t you know events that happened in your life?” he cryptically asked with that same mysterious smile and then turned quickly and disappeared into the cave.

What did he mean by that? Obviously, the old man was senile to think that he was around 1000 years back. Thus thinking, I rushed through the tracks downhill and ran back to the beach. The guide and other tourists were searching for me near the beach. On seeing me, there was a collective cheer as they were worried that I had lost myself on the island. After the initial relief, I had to hear plenty of earfuls for making everyone worry and also for delaying the departure. While outwardly, I apologized to everyone and tried to socialize, my recent experience was never far from my mind. I kept mulling over all that happened and tried to think of a logical explanation of all that happened. This preoccupation was noticed by my wife when I was distracted during the open sea snorkeling we did. While my family enjoyed the swim with the fishes and watching all the beautiful corals covering the sea bed through the snorkel, I swam absent-mindedly on my back, watching the sky and thinking. During lunch in Phi Phi Don, I was aloof from everyone. To my wife’s and the guide’s questions, I brushed off their concerns. The lunch was followed by a swim in the beach by everyone but me. I just sat on the beach in a shade and wondered about what the old man meant about him being there all along. I was not convinced by my initial simple explanation that the old man was senile. My impression of him during the interaction did not indicate anything senile about him, but I could not think of any other explanation.

Back in Phuket

The next few days went by very fast with daily excursions. I did not notice or enjoy on the daily excursions, though my family quickly learnt to ignore my moody behavior and enjoyed themselves. The following day, we went hiking in the nearby mountain and afterwards, had an elephant safari through the Phuket jungles. The next day, we went shopping in Phuket city center. It was the annual Chinese Vegetarian week, when everyone honours the Gods by not eating meat. So, we had plenty of choices to eat in, which is not normally the case in most foreign countries. We decided to eat at a roadside vegetarian restaurant. The food was not only the best we had in Phuket, but it was also very inexpensive. We also visited a Chinese and a Thai shrine. On the final day, we visited the Patong Beach, which was very lively with jet skiing, parasailing, speed boating and other fun activities, in addition to more shopping. This seemed to be the primary tourist center as there were numerous hotels and tourists milling about the streets. There were also plenty of shops with all sorts of memorabilia and my wife really enjoyed my distraction as she could shop without my normal interventions and adverse comments.

After a hectic day at the Patong beach, we returned back to our hotel and rested in front of the ocean watching the setting sun. The sun itself was covered by clouds and splashed its red colour on an otherwise blue sky. The colors, clouds and the constant sound of the sea made for a tranquil ending to an action-packed day. The clouds were shaped in all forms – that one over there looked like an elephant; here was another that was a tiger; a few smaller ones rushed past like deer in the forest; and there was a lonely cloud that looked like … I rubbed my eyes, sat up on my lounge chair and re-looked at that cloud. There was no mistaking it. It looked just like the stooped old man who had never left my consciousness. While I watched, the Sun sank into the horizon and the cloud melted away as though its purpose was just to taunt me on the mysteries I was still consumed with.

“Sanjeevani” I burst out all of a sudden. The word had come into my mind just when the old man cloud had melted away.

“What?” exclaimed my wife, jumping from her seat at my sudden hollering.

“Nothing”, I respond as I had not shared the details of my adventure in the Maya Island to anyone yet.

Sanjeevani is an herb that is described in Hindu Epic Ramayana as having magical properties. More recently, scientists had proved its medicinal properties, though not the magical properties attributed to it. In Ramayana, it is described as having powers to restore life to the dead, and was used on Lakshmana who was brought back to life when he died in the war against Ravana.

I reeled at the implication of it all. If it was indeed true that Sanjeevani had magical properties that as yet modern science had not decoded, it meant that the old man I met was indeed 1000 years old as he claimed, by the virtue of this wonder drug. This also explained the mysterious clue that he gave regarding that herb.

While the Phuket vacation was refreshing and enjoyable to the rest of my family, it confronted me with a crisis of belief and rationality – should I believe in what Science taught me and dismiss the old man as a phoney who was either hallucinating or trying to take me for a ride? Or should I go with instinct in believing that the old man was telling the truth and revise my own knowledge of what is possible even if it went contrary to what Science claimed today? Both choices threw up numerous unanswered questions – how did the old man knowing only Tamil end up in the island if he was indeed a phoney or hallucinating; how was he taking care of his health all alone at this age if the herbs did not have medicinal properties as he claimed; if Sanjeevani indeed had magical powers, how did all the scientific analysis miss these powers; biologically, how did the body replace cells for as long as 1000 years if indeed one could live that long? … Questions like these kept popping up in my mind on and on. Not finding any answers in my crowded mind, I returned back from vacation more mentally exhausted than when I embarked, but with an experience in life that was worth it all.

The Art of Leadership and Science of Management

2007-09-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

Leadership – this is a word that has often intrigued me. It is widely used, especially in corporate world to refer to even regular management, and many a times, is associated with positions. Recently, when I was watching the movie “Chak De India”, some things became clear to me – leadership and management are not synonymous though there could be often overlaps in where these play a role in organizational outcomes.

There are numerous formal definitions for both these words. The ones that throw some light into where they differ are reproduced below:

“Leadership is the ability to affect human behaviors so as to accomplish a mission designated by the leader”.

“Management comprises directing and controlling a group of one or more people or entities for the purpose of coordinating and harmonizing that group towards accomplishing a goal.”

Leadership is about influencing a large number of human minds to rise above their own beliefs of what is possible of them, to reach a new level of performance together. Leadership is about defying conventional wisdom and creating disruptive performance levels in a team. It is about thinking out-of-the-box to tap as-yet untapped energies and mental abilities of the team, to create new outcomes that were thought to be not possible by the team and possibly the world.

Management, on the other hand, is about applying known techniques, processes and tools to achieve specific objectives. The focus here is to apply known skills and competencies of the team to achieve the mission of the organization. A successful manager would focus on common processes, trainings and tools among the team members so that they can work in a common framework to most effectively apply available resources towards the mission.

Leadership and Management are not mutually exclusive of each other, but neither are they the same. When both are applied complementarily, the organization gets the most of the team. While management gets known levels of performance from the team most optimally through use of common framework, leadership creates new levels of performance from the team.

If one were to think on what parts of the brain does leadership and management appeal to, I would postulate that leadership appeals more to the emotional side of the brain, and personality aspects like self-ego, pride, competitiveness through challenge to prove conventional wisdom wrong and pushing oneself to a new level for a noble cause and prestige. On the other hand, management is to apply known, tried and tested solutions to a new team to achieve mission objectives with a known framework. Thus management appeals more to the rational mind in terms of understanding how success on similar missions was achieved by other teams in the past, and learning the mechanism, procedures, processes and tools to re-apply these techniques to the new mission at hand. Here too, there are emotional aspects in terms of the new team being able to achieve the mission successfully, but less because of a new way of working and more due to being able to perfect the known solution and execute the same in a team fashion.

Leadership is about appealing to the emotional mind to put the team objective and the teammates above one’s own personal motives. By each member of the team putting the team at the top, the team as a whole accomplishes at a new level than if the motivation was more of the individual and less of the team. Leader’s job is to constantly reinforce the over-arching higher level objective of the team, so that the individual seeks the team to win more than the self. This in turn enables individuals to focus on the strengths of their teammates to cover their own shortcomings, rather than focus on the shortcomings of teammates and become oblivious to their own shortcomings. This aspect also brings the best in team bonding and support structure, thereby enabling the team to be greater than the sum of parts.

Management focuses on standard way of doing things, so that the members in the team can work in tandem and minimize resource wastage. Thus all the efforts and resources are applied to delivering the outcome, and the team as a whole gets the maximum return for the resource investments it makes. However, the focus is not only totally new ways of doing things or taking high risks, but in being able to do what is already known most efficiently. Management is about approaching the mission in a structured, methodical manner and applying all past lessons, processes, practices and tools in the best way possible within the team, and hence my rationale for the title.

Management is more scientific and methodical, while leadership is more about discovering and applying non-obvious techniques and hence more of an art. One could argue that management too has opportunities for applying the so-called soft skills in providing customized mechanisms for most effective training of individuals, for example. Similarly, there are several standard and known techniques in leadership that have worked in the past and are applied repeatedly by other leaders. Thus the terms “Art of Leadership and Science of Management” are applied more relatively to each other than in an absolute sense.

Management being more methodical and scientific, one can get trained through courses, workshops and other means to become a good manager. Leadership, on the other hand, being more of an art, requires repeated practice to become more effective over time. There is a need for constant innovation into techniques to be applied, as what works in one circumstance, at one time or with one team might be totally different from what is needed to be effective in a different circumstance, time, or team. Both leadership and management can be applied to teams of any size. They can be applied to a small team, or a big company. There are also leaders of nations, and managers of Government departments that are much bigger than any company. Thus, size of the population does not matter for either, though complexity typically increases with the size of the teams.

Leadership is often without precedence, as each situation, mission and team composition calls for totally different leadership techniques and styles. The focus is to get the team to perform to its fullest potential. This not only taps known capabilities but also innate hidden talent and potentials. All this needs to be extracted by the leader while keeping teamwork and team objectives always in focus of everyone. This requires a powerful, endearing vision and reward for achieving the mission. This reward is more psychological, such as pride, demonstration that an impossible task could be accomplished, or patriotic such as achieving a goal for the nation. There could and would be material rewards too in most instances, but the primary driver of breaking conventional wisdom needs to be more than the material reward for achieving success.

Management, on the other hand, deals more with clear articulation of risks and rewards, mostly material in nature, for accomplishing the mission. The focus is on tapping known skills and capabilities of the team members to the fullest, and in minimizing waste. Both address well defined objectives, with finite and available resources in a finite and specific timeframe.

In conclusion, Leadership and Management, while mostly confused with each other, are clearly distinct. They are not mutually exclusive, but are also not one and the same either. Leadership appeals to the emotional mind as it tries to get the team to achieve what is thought to be impossible by many. Management, on the other hand, is about achieving the mission with defined resources in a finite time by minimizing wastage. In corporate as in other world, both Leadership and Management are needed for many missions, and the two can be applied complementarily for maximum benefit for the organization.

Indian Trucker's Monsoon

2007-05-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

The night is dark and black,
The rain gods had their bowels go slack;
It poured in torrents and streams,
The drivers had to turn on their high beams.

The lone trucker and his cleaner had their heads out both sides,
Looking out for ditches and mud slides;
The cyclist weaving like a drunkard in the mud,
A black plastic sheet, the only protection over his head.

The poor truckers peer to discern the dark figure
In the Black Darkness and pouring sheets of water;
The trucks and cars slithering slowly like a snake,
The slippery black road testing their brakes.

The night turns to dawn in God’s own land
In the mountains and valleys of Wynaad;
The downpour giving the forests a green sheen
Every road and hamlet washed thoroughly clean.

The poor truckers have had a sleepless night,
Avoiding every pothole and pedestrian alike.
The heavenly landscape that now filled their sight
Was wasted on two tired men after their all-night fright.

Let this be a lesson to all that follow
God’s own country in monsoon is a feast to swallow
Only if you are not the ones in the driver’s seats
Trying to navigate the rain pouring in sheets.

Agent of Change

2007-05-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

Indignant was I
For they denied me my piece of the pie
Unmade Promises they shattered
Assumed dreams they altered.

My share of the spoils they stole
It matters not that my story has a hole.
Hatred for all filled my heart
Just thinking how they cheated one so smart.

For am I not entitled to all?
Their only purpose, to serve me at my beck and call?
And lest you are confused who "they" are
It includes you and anyone else near and far.

Anger and Hate make their way
To saner thoughts which hold their sway;
Why is it that "they" will work for me,
Am I tall enough in my deeds for the world to see?

Wherefrom comes my right to demand
The services and toils of all in the land;
What can I do with my own sweat
To surely get my prize instead of just a bet.

Not hoping and demanding for fruits that I don't own,
But with Wisdom and confidence, I plough my field alone.
For there is promise that my efforts will yield
Just fruits for my toils in my own field.

Love for all fills my heart
Foes turn friends till death do us apart;
With all the world lending me their hand
No prize is too far for me to land.

With humility and experience I learn
The secret of success that I yearn;
The change I wish for the world to be,
I see that it has to first start with me.

Ramu Goes to America

2007-05-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

The Beginning

The crimson rays of the Sun draped everything with gossamer gauze. It was early evening somewhere above the Atlantic. Ramu was nestled in one of the tight-fitting Economy class seats in the trans-Atlantic flight. After the initial excitement of the trip, the long journey that started some 24 hours or so earlier in India had its effect in tiring his mind. His eyes lazily registered nature’s beauty outside the window, with the sun splashing its paint on the azure canvas of the sky. He was finally about to fulfill his dream of reaching US shores. It all started so long ago that it had a feel of happening in an altogether different era.

Ramu was born as Ramachandra Bobbili in a sleepy village in Andhra Pradesh, a southern state in India. He lost his parents when he was a child and moved to the village of Gunjanur, along a major highway near Bangalore, to stay with his uncle. Working in his uncle’s auto mechanic shop, he learnt about cars and trucks that came for minor repairs along the highway. He also made friends with many of the regular truck drivers that plied the highway.

Upon graduating into the adolescence of his life, he decided to make a career in truck driving. As is common in India, he started off his career when he was 15 as a “Cleaner” or assistant to a truck driver. Cleaners are all-in-one assistants to the drivers in their long journeys along Indian roads. They are expected to do everything – clean the truck at various stops in the journey; arrange for nourishments to drivers that go beyond just food and drink; be the chatting companion when the driver is in the mood to talk; tolerate his ire and even some blows when he gets angry; and provide him entertainment when he is bored on the journey. The most important task is to be the left seat driver by showing hand signals on the left side of the truck and direct the driver to avoid pitfalls and traffic on the left of the truck, in the mostly congested roads near major cities. In this way, like most other cleaners, Ramu learnt to drive first on the wrong side of the road without the steering, and then eventually graduated to the right side with steering.

One other thing Ramu learnt in those days was English. In the early days, when he was working in his uncle’s auto repair shop, Ramu befriended a young English teacher who worked in the village school, Victor Arulraj. Having a head full of ambitions, Ramu used his friendship with Victor to learn English informally. The informality of the arrangement added to the success of the Teacher-Student relationship, and Ramu learnt to read, write and speak English quite well. Victor encouraged Ramu to read English newspapers wherever he could find them – in Kannabiran’s chai shop while sipping tea, in Sundar's barber shop while waiting for a haircut and in Victor’s house that Ramu frequently visited. This effort was soon to pay big dividends.

Sitting in the confines of his airplane seat, Ramu's thoughts took him back to that day long back.

On that fateful evening six months back, Ramu was driving a 40-foot container from Mumbai port. He took his usual break at his favorite Dhaba (roadside restaurant mainly patronized by truckers) – Happy Meal Dhaba, owned and operated by his friend Sarabjit. It was around 6 pm in the evening. The Sun, along with countless other living beings, was calling it a day. His driver friends, Maade Gowda, Aslam Dar and George Panickkal were already there in the dhaba along with their cleaners. The drivers sat down to their evening meal of Alu Parathas and Chole Bhaturas (Indian breads and vegetable dishes). Ramu browsed the local newspaper while Sarabjit tossed the Bhatura dough up in the air, creating an ever-widening circle of the dough.

A small advertisement in one corner of the newspaper caught Ramu’s eyes. It was seeking truck drivers for job opportunities in the United States of America. The requirement, in addition to experience in truck-driving, was that the applicant needs to be conversant with English. Ramu knew that finding English-speaking truck drivers in India was like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack. Most Indian truck drivers were not educated enough to be speaking English. So, he wondered how many applicants the school will ever get. But who cares, he thought. He was qualified.

“Hey, look at this. They are seeking English-speaking truck drivers for working in America. I am going to apply”, he exclaimed, jumping from his seat.

The Bhatura dough almost froze in mid-air… or so thought Sarabjit. He was initially confused by Ramu’s excitement, and then the implication of Ramu’s statement hit him. He was ecstatic.

“Good show Ramu. This is great news. Once you are in America, if they need someone to set up a dhaba there, count me in”, said he. The others too joined in congratulating Ramu, as though he was already selected.

“My truck owner’s son is in America. He talks funny whenever he visits India. When he is here, my owner asks me to be his driver for local trips. The son once asked me to fill up the car in a "Gas station” before going on a long trip. The only “Gas station” I know is Sarabjit’s dhaba with his chole”, guffawed Made Gowda, making a crude joke of chick peas and their flatulence properties.

“Ramu, I heard that they drive on the wrong side of the road there. Is that true?” asked Aslam.

“Not wrong side, you fool. They are the ones who drive on the right side of the road. We are the ones on the left side or the “wrong” side”, responded Made Gowda, now trying to show off his American knowledge.

“That should not be a problem for you. You started driving on the right side of the road here too, right?” joked George Panickkal, referring to the cleaner experience.

“Hey folks, don’t worry. The ad says that there will be an eight-week training to teach driving American trucks in American-style tracks. They will also teach how to live and speak in America”, responded Ramu to all the spontaneous advice.

“It also says here that they will cover the costs for the training, visa and other paperwork. So, I just need to fill the application and wait for the rest”.

“You are lucky Ramu. The most we could hope to go abroad is to Iraq and Kuwait for driving trucks. While the pay is better than here, kidnapping and getting killed also form part of the job”, lamented George light-heartedly, referring to such opportunities during the American invasion of Iraq.

“Don’t worry George. This is just the beginning. You too quickly learn some English and can come in the future batches”, encouraged Ramu.

His reverie got rudely interrupted with the announcement over the PA system. They were approaching New York and the air hostesses started their mandatory disturbing of the relative calm in the aircraft, with various instructions repeated in multiple languages each time the flight was ascending or descending, and many times in between. While Ramu was excited and looked forward to his arrival in the US, he was also apprehensive of his ability to cope up, especially since he did not have enough opportunities or companions to speak English regularly in India. With excitement mixed with apprehension, Ramu eagerly peered out the window to see the approach of John F Kennedy International airport tarmac as the plane touched down.

“Curd rice”

In due time, Ramu went through the bureaucratic filters of immigration and customs without much incident. Having a few minutes before his next domestic flight to Philadelphia, he decided to squelch his hunger pangs with a visit to one of the eateries in the airport.

“Hi, How ya doing?” enquired a friendly waitress while she directed him to a table nearby.

Ramu nodded his head from side to side like his head was a church bell anchored at the top. This was how people convey affirmation in south India, but it looks close to how people convey disagreement (shaking head from side to side) in rest of the world. Thus it is more often than not that someone not familiar with the south Indian gesture can easily mistake the movement to be conveying exactly the opposite of what was intended. This is what happened with the waitress too.

She got flustered as she read disagreement in Ramu’s gesture. “Cool it. No offense” she smiled, placed a menu and quickly moved along. Ramu, not knowing what he did wrong to incur the waitress’s abruptness and reprimand (for that is what he thought when she said to cool it), too was disconcerted. He decided to be safe and communicate as little as possible until he learnt the local ways and customs first.

Ramu’s training did not extend to American gastronomic delights. Thus Ramu could not relate to most of the items in the menu – he did not know what a hotdog was and the ingredients in the various burgers. Being a non-beef eater, he played it safe and settled for the most familiar items in the menu – a plate of raw rice and Yogurt (Yogurt was one of few words he had learnt in the language part of the training, meaning Curds).

Like a true south Indian, he mixed up the curds with the hot rice and started eating, only to find that the Yogurt was flavored sweet and was intended as a dessert rather than for mixing with rice. Smiling sheepishly at his inadvertent mistake, he somehow swallowed the semi-sweet rice in front of him, while making a mental note of his new learning for the future.

First Impressions

“Mr. Baabili” , Ramu heard a voice calling him behind his back. He turned and saw a tall, heavy set man in the Arrivals terminal of American Airlines in Philadelphia International Airport, approaching him.

“Uh. I am Ramu Bobbili” answered Ramu, as the caller came close by. He had been told by his company in India that he would be received at the airport by Sam, who would take him to his temporary apartment. Ramu had been expecting a typical white American, and was momentarily confused to see this 6 ft 5 inch tall, 280 pounder of an Afro-American man, making a hash of his family name. Furthermore, all through his life in India, he had never been called by anything other than Ramu and had almost forgotten his last name, until he filled the numerous forms with his complete name.

“Hi, sorry for mispronouncing your name buddy. No offense. I am Sam Fairweather. Welcome to America”, said Sam, greeting Ramu. Ramu shook hands with Sam, and found Sam’s handshake firm and hard. His hand was completely enclosed with the bear paw of a hand that Sam offered.

“You can call me Ramu. That is what everyone calls me back home”, offered Ramu.

“Whatever you say, Buddy. It is your name, after all” laughed Sam loudly, admiring his own joke.

Ramu was reminded of Made Gowda, when he heard Sam’s laughter at his own silly joke.

Once Ramu’s check-in baggage was retrieved, Sam drove Ramu to a small apartment that the trucking company had arranged. Being the first time out of India, Ramu started looking out of the car window at the sights and sounds around. The roads and sidewalks were pristine and perfect. There were road signs clearly indicating places, warnings and upcoming intersection. The roads were virtually empty of people. Even cars were very few and far between. This was a total contrast to Indian roads.

In India, the roads were typically one lane with traffic crossing each other on both sides. People, dogs and cows shared the road along with vehicles. Vehicles and pedestrians crossed the road from all directions, and one had to watch all over to avoid collisions. There was a cacophony of noises and every vehicle constantly used its horns to clear a path ahead.

“Hey Ramu, Wanna grab somethin’ to eat?” bellowed Sam, bringing Ramu's thoughts to the present, like lights being switched on in the middle of a movie in a theater. He pronounced “Ramu” as “Raemu”.

“Why should I want to grab something?” enquired Ramu innocently. Sam got bewildered by this question.

“You feelin’ hungry, buddy? Wanna go to a fast-food?” he tried again differently.

“Oh. Yes. Are there dhabas here too?” asked Ramu.

And thus started an imperfect communication between the two, which took some time for both to unravel. He did not know it then, but Ramu would soon notice that there is something common with all human beings in terms of their desires, anxieties and fears. Superficial differences in culture, language, accents and upbringing act as a shallow mask on the underlying commonality. When one scratches the surface of this mask like scratching a surprise lottery ticket with a coin to reveal one’s prize, one can see the humanity that lies underneath which is the same amongst all humans across the globe.

Morning Walk

The first morning in the US was a revelation in small differences. Upon getting up early due to his jet-lag, Ramu noticed that there were no usual chirping of sparrows and cawing of crows that he was accustomed to in his village. In fact, he noticed, over the coming days, that he could not spot any crows at all. The neighborhood was very quiet. Ramu was used to an Indian experience that was in direct contrast to the current stillness.

Ramu was woken up by the chirping of 10000 birds (or so it seemed) too early. The sun had not yet risen in the eastern sky and the air was damp and humid. Even though he was tired and wished to sleep some more, he could not ignore the enthusiastic welcome of the birds, and rose to do his morning ablutions.

In a short while, he could hear the tinkling of Manga’s cycle bell as he delivered milk to each house. That was followed by the newspaper boy, and when the sun had just warmed the night sky, he saw Doddaiah pushing his vegetable cart and shouting out the various vegetables he had colorfully arranged on his cart – light green beans; plump and juicy red tomatoes; purple brinjals (or eggplant, as it is referred to in the US); creamish colored cauli flower; green lady’s finger (or okra in the US); onions and potatoes occupying the lower platform of his cart; green chillies, coriander and an assortment of other greens occupying the remaining top part.

The village by now had come to life. Women walked to the community tap to fill their pots with water for cooking; village urchins cheerfully raced each other to the pond nearby for a morning swim in the murky water; adults went about the various chores that formed part of their daily life. Ramu went for his usual walk around the village, picking up his friend Victor Arulraj for their morning English discourse along the way.

The traffic on the village road had picked up by now. There was the plastic merchant with the impossible looking load of multi-colored plastic pots tied to his bicycle slowly pedaling it to the nearby city. The bangle seller was loading his wares on top of his head and both his arms, for the long trek to the wealthier portion of the city a couple of kilometers from the village. Ramu saw his companion and cleaner Chand Ram, washing the truck and checking various fluids in preparation for their upcoming long journey. In short, there was plenty of life around the village, early in the day, to make a living. Everyone was busy with their own chore while still being part of the bigger tapestry of life.

These thoughts brought homesickness and a strong urge to meet other people. So, Ramu decided to go for a morning walk in the hopes of meeting people. There was a highway that went past his apartment and through which Sam had driven him the previous night. Since he was going to spend most of his days on the highway, he decided to get himself familiar with his future abode and walked along the exit ramp into the highway.

No sooner had he walked on to the highway proper from the exit ramp, he saw a police car approaching from behind with its lights blazing. He lazily watched it while walking along the highway. To his surprise, the cop car pulled alongside of him.

“Hey you, what are you doing here early in the morning?” asked the police officer. He had pulled over to the side, but was still within the car.

“Why, is there a problem? I thought it was a lovely morning and decided to take a walk”, replied Ramu.

The cop got out of the car and came to the curb.

“Don’t you know that it is against the law to walk on highways?”

“I am sorry. I am new to the US and just reached here yesterday. So, please let me go” pleaded Ramu, not wanting to get into issues with police on the first day of his stay in the US.

The cop enquired where Ramu came from, and what he does for his living. He asked if Ramu had his passport and visa with him. Luckily, Ramu had the necessary documents with him; he had taken them as he was uncomfortable leaving it in his apartment. That saved the day for Ramu, as his story checked out with his documents. The cop decided to go lenient on Ramu as this seemed to be a genuine mistake, and warned Ramu to learn the local laws and follow them. He asked Ramu to get into his car so that he can get dropped back (as it was against the local laws for him to walk on the highway). Thus ended Ramu’s first walk in the US, at the back of the police car.

First Day of Work

Ramu’s next few weeks were a hectic mixture of learning through observation and mistakes. Sam proved to be an excellent teacher and a great companion. On the first day, Sam came promptly at Eight AM and took Ramu to their company offices. The company explained that Ramu would accompany Sam for the first four weeks on long road trips, sharing the driving with Sam and learning from him. Eventually, he will be given his own vehicle to drive to various destinations. All cabs had Citizen Band Radio and hence, he would be in constant touch with the nationwide network of dispatchers, who would direct him appropriately.

With that introduction, Ramu was off with Sam on a trip from Philadelphia to Virginia along the Shenandoah Mountains. Having driven all his life on the undivided, single-lane Indian highways with undisciplined traffic that included stray dogs, cattle, pedestrians, cyclists and all forms of motor vehicles, Ramu was struck by the divided multi-lane highways with disciplined traffic. While he had seen the highway on his drive from airport, it did not register in his mind due to general tiredness.

“Wow. This is super. Driving here will be fun” exclaimed Ramu.

“What are you talking man? I don’t understand” replied Sam, not being used to words like Super in the way Ramu had used.

With the different accents and expressions that the two used, the comedy central confusions continued. Sam finally understood that this was Ramu’s way of expressing happiness at what he was seeing.

After driving for four hours, Sam decided to take a break at a rest stop with a few restaurants. He told Ramu that he will take the next exit which was a truck rest stop, and started slowing for taking the exit. Ramu immediately wound down his side window and put his hand out and moved it up and down in a wavy motion. Sam was focusing on the road ahead and suddenly heard and felt the sudden rush of air and sound from the open window. He glanced sideways to check what Ramu was doing, and was at once alarmed and confused by Ramu’s acts.

“Hey buddy, what are you up to now?” he exclaimed.

“Didn’t you say that you will be taking the exit? I was just indicating to the vehicles behind that we will be slowing down and take a turn” responded Ramu. He had taken on the role of the cleaner in Indian trucks, who made hand signals on the far side whenever the driver was making left turns, or was slowing down.

“Ramu, Get your hand in and relax. I have put the indicator on, and we don’t need to signal by hand” laughed Sam, while educating Ramu. Thus began Ramu’s education on the road with some unlearning to start with.

In the coming days, Ramu learnt Trucker’s lingo, the Truckers’ language that had meanings of its own. He heard a fellow driver once on the CB radio – “Sam buddy, watch out. There is a bear in a blue wrapper on the back door a half mile from the McD sign”. Sam responded “Preeshaydit, buddy. Ten Four”.

Sam later explained that his friend was warning him of a police officer in a blue car behind his truck a half mile from the Mc Donald’s sign post they had passed. Sam responded by thanking the friend (“Appreciate it”) and acknowledged the message (“Ten Four”).

At other times, he heard Sam talking about a “meat wagon” “hammering down”. This was explained as an ambulance driving very fast. There were other such insights that Ramu gathered over time, with words such as “Boss man” meaning supervisor, “bird dog” for radar detector, “big truck” for 18 wheeler, “brake check” meaning that traffic ahead is slowing down, and several different words referring to law enforcement officers, such as countie mountie (sheriff’s deputy), city kitty (city police), diesel cop (DMV enforcement officer), etc. Without knowing this language, Ramu realized that he would be alone even with the CB radio when he drove solo. So, he listened and questioned Sam a lot in the coming days to quickly learn their
language.

Four Seasons

The following months saw Ramu graduating from accompanying Sam, to sharing the driving with Sam, and finally driving solo. Over time, Ramu drove all across America and saw the diversity of the land and seasons. Ramu had arrived in the US when it was summer. While he noticed greenery all around, it did not strike him any different from the greenery he had seen all over south India. However, he had a surprise waiting for him as the season changed.

In a few months time, Ramu saw the trees along highways displaying a dazzling array of colors as Fall started nudging summer out of the way. The leaves ranged from deep red like fire, to orange like dawn, to golden yellow and finally greenish yellow. In between these, there were some hold-out leaves that still retained their greens. It was a sight to behold, and Ramu had never seen such variations in all his months in India. While the forests in India were lush and cool to the eyes, he saw for the first time that green leaves could turn totally red too.

In due course, Fall got replaced by winter. Ramu saw leaf-less trees and his first snowfall. The first snow was an experience of a lifetime for Ramu. He got out in the open when it started snowing, and skidded and fell and really enjoyed the experience. As winter deepened with snow and slush everywhere, it became a real nuisance, as driving speeds had to be greatly reduced and the weather became drier and colder. For the first time, Ramu had layers of clothing to cope with the cold, and had his cab heated to the maximum while driving.

Winter in the US brought rains at places where the temperature was a bit warm. Ramu saw all the variations in rain along his travels in the US. While the Indian rains brought gentleness and lasted for a few hours, the rains here felt evil, threatening, dark and voluminous. When driving on flat, straight highways, he could see the rain in the distance and both he and the rain approached each other on the highways. Those moments had a menacing quality as though it was a portent of a war about to be unleashed. Many a time, he had felt dread and was tempted to turn back on the highway, but reason told him to plough on as the dark apparition ahead of him was only water pouring in force. He noticed that even in severe rains, it was not very difficult for him to drive here, as the lane markers were reflective and most vehicles were driven responsibly.

Contrasting the seasons in the US, India just had three seasons – summer, monsoon and winter. Summer was the fiercest. Temperatures soared 100 F (or 40 C) and above, especially in the cab of the trucks he drove. Most truck drivers in India either drove bare-chested or with just an undershirt, with windows wide open. Trucks in India did not have air-conditioning, and hence the rush of air through open windows was the only coolant within the cab. During some months, the outside air too was very hot and those were the dreaded days for the Truck drivers, as there was no respite from heat anywhere – inside or outside the cab. Most truck drivers drove only at nights during the severest of the hot summer days, to avoid the heat.

Monsoon brought all the water and sweat that was sucked out of bodies, by the unrelenting summer sun, back to earth. The heavens opened up as they raced with each other to pay back the water debt they owed earth and its beings, with interest. Rivers, lakes, and even roads and villages overflowed with water everywhere. In villages where most homes had tiled roofs, water leaked through gaps in the tiles and it was a constant struggle to remove wetness from everything. Clothes never dried enough, but the earth welcomed the cool and wetness of monsoon, after the hellfire of summer had sucked all humidity.

For truckers, monsoon brought new hazards of the job, due to very low visibility during both days and nights. It was as though the Sun and clouds took turns in their courtship with earth exclusively. They jealously guarded their time with earth and ensured that the other does not even get a stolen glance at earth during their watch. Due to this limited light, especially at night, amidst the sheet of water that continuously poured, truckers had to be extra attentive to discern other obstacles and traffic on the roads. George Panickkal was so obsessed with the rains one season that he spontaneously expressed his anguish in a song, during their get-together in Happy Meal Dhaba thus:

The night is dark and black,
The rain gods had their bowels go slack;
It poured in torrents and streams,
The drivers had to turn on their high beams.

The lone trucker and his cleaner had their heads out both sides,
Looking out for ditches and mud slides;
The cyclist weaving like a drunkard in the mud,
A black plastic sheet, the only protection over his head.

The poor truckers peer to discern the dark figure
In the Black Darkness and pouring sheets of water;
The trucks and cars slithering slowly like a snake,
The slippery black road testing their brakes.

The night turns to dawn in God’s own land
In the mountains and valleys of Wynaad;
The downpour giving the forests a green sheen
Every road and hamlet washed thoroughly clean.

The poor truckers have had a sleepless night,
Avoiding every pothole and pedestrian alike.
The heavenly landscape that now filled their sight
Was wasted on two tired men after their all-night fright.

Let this be a lesson to all that follow
God’s own country in monsoon is a feast to swallow
Only if you are not the ones in the driver’s seats
Trying to navigate the rain pouring in sheets.

Indian winters were relatively mild and brought a welcome chill, like in an air-conditioned room. Mornings were misty and mildly chilly, needing a sweater over regular clothes. He had heard that winters in the north of India were much more severe, and had even read of deaths among the worldly unpossessed, due to the cold. But in the south, winter was very mild and pleasant in some ways. The morning haze was something that he loved in those days, as it was like a dream sequence in a Bollywood movie. The dreamer that he was, the haze gave physical expression to what was happening within his head.

Winter in the US gave way to spring, with life coming back to forests and trees. Nature greeted spring with bouquets of flowers everywhere. It occurred to Ramu that Nature had only selectively exposed the colors to India and reserved the rest to be used in spring in the US. While fall displayed the warm colors, and winter the pure white, spring was when Nature really got down to business with its landscape painting, using all the colors in its palette.
Spring also brought with it allergies. In all his time in India, Ramu never fell sick seriously and all the dust he was exposed to never created problems. In the US, the pollen from the blooming flowers brought runny eyes and stuffy nose to Ramu, and he suffered through the initial weeks before seeking medical advice and anti-allergens. He wondered about this phenomenon where the dust and bacteria in India could not do anything to his body, while the harmless, life-giving pollen is making him suffer so much. Is it nature’s way of telling that imperfections give opportunity for betterment and excellence, while perfect conditions make one complacent? And had his body relaxed to complacency in the near-perfect environment of the US, while it was always on guard and worked harder in imperfect India? – he mused.

Near-death

During one of the summers, Ramu was driving in the state of Colorado when he had his first encounter with hurricanes. He was driving on a straight, level-stretch of highway with flat fields on either side of the highway. The day was sunny and warm, and the sky was bright and blue with not even a small cloud visible anywhere. The air was still and there was a slight mix of humidity in the warm weather. The traffic was light and he was just staring ahead and driving mostly alone in the deserted highway. On the far distance, he could see mountains in the backdrop. The landscape imprinted itself as a backdrop in his mind’s screen with the drive being very monotonous. Out of the corner of his eyes, Ramu spied some movement ahead and to his left on the distant horizon. He turned to see what exactly diverted his attention in the mostly unchanging and monotonous landscape. Right in front of his eyes, he suddenly saw crystal clear lightning in well-defined, precise lines in the far horizon. The air seemed to be surcharged with electricity. The few thin clouds in the far horizon did not portent rain. Since Ramu’s experiences with lightning were always when it was accompanied by thunder and heavy rains, this was a first time experience. But there was more excitement in the air.

What started as a disturbance started appearing in a funnel shape, as though the Gods wanted to pour something onto the earth and were creating a funnel out of thin air for the purpose. Ramu had heard mention of twisters and hurricanes among his driver buddies, but what he saw ahead was a hair-raising experience (or was it the electricity in the air that caused the hair in his arms to really stiffen? – he wondered). He was fascinated by the forming hurricane in the distance that his entire attention was captured by the spectacle ahead. What formed initially as a fuzzy small funnel kept expanding at the top, while a shifting, thin tail was its link to mother Earth. While the shape was like a funnel, Ramu noticed that the purpose was reverse – the narrow part sucked everything on the ground and lifted it up into the funnel and things then got thrown around randomly back to earth. The twister was now much closer and moving towards the highway ahead of him. He could discern some houses along the path of the hurricane. He could see the tail of the funnel randomly shifting from place to place, while the top of the funnel was moving more methodically in its path. The tail went over one of the houses and as the twister passed the house, there was no house but some rubble left behind. He saw a car getting thrown out of the funnel on to the field.

The twister crossed the highway some distance in the front to Ramu’s right. While Ramu was concentrating on the twister, he did not notice the slight turn ahead of him in the mostly straight highway and did not make the necessary corrections. The truck gradually veered onto the right shoulder, following his vision of the twister’s path ahead and he was driving on the rough and graveled shoulder instead of the main highway. Normally, drivers would immediately notice the difference as the shoulder was deliberately paved to provide more resistance to fast moving vehicles and hence one would feel it in the steering. Moreover, the increased friction also creates different sound than normal driving. None of these alerted Ramu, whose single minded attention was in watching the captivating twister in front of him.

Some short distance ahead, there was an 18-wheeler pulled over to the side, while the driver was attending to some problem with the truck. He was standing at the back of the truck while he turned around and saw Ramu’s truck heading straight towards him at high speed. The driver shouted and waved his hands to attract Ramu’s attention. But he was no match when compared to the exquisite sight of the destructive twister that had just then crossed over to the right of the highway. Noticing that the gap was closing between him and Ramu’s truck, the driver rushed to the front of the cab and switched on his CB radio and shouted “Hey Cottonpicker (Jerk in Trucker lingo), Look out. There is a big truck (18-wheeler) ahead”. The distraction from the CB radio, even though Ramu could not figure out most of what was said, was like shaking him awake. Ramu looked out just in time to see his truck hurtling straight into the 18-wheeler on the shoulder of the highway. With less than seconds between life and death, Ramu pulled hard to the left onto the highway and the truck barely missed the 18-wheeler by inches and careened to the inner-most lane of the highway.

Luckily for Ramu, there were no other vehicles on the highway and he quickly got control of his truck and pulled up onto the shoulder ahead. He was very shaken by the experience. This was not the closest or the only time he had come to a near-death situation. In India, most driving was touch-and-go, especially on the mostly undivided, two-lane roads. With traffic going in both directions on both lanes, most over-takings were near-death experiences, with avoidance entirely dependent on vehicles driving on opposite directions coming within inches of each other before veering away onto their proper lanes. Even if trucks, being slow moving, did not attempt overtaking, there was still no respite from the danger, as vehicles in opposite direction drove on the wrong lane, while overtaking slow-moving vehicles in their lanes. However, on none of those situations did Ramu feel as concerned about the experience, as he did on this occasion.

The current near-death incident shook Ramu very much. The twister was completely forgotten, and Ramu pulled onto the shoulder, first to calm his nerves a bit. Once he had recovered from the shock, he got out of his truck and walked back to the 18-wheeler truck to thank that driver for alerting him and saving his life. The other driver too was on the edge and heaved a sigh of relief at the happy ending to the near-disaster situation. Ramu apologized for the lapse and mentioned about the twister. The other driver, Malcolm Greenback, soon forgot the near-death situation and started looking for the twister. But by now, the twister had done its damage and had melted away, like smoke from a chimney disappeared into thin air. Malcolm and Ramu talked a little, and Ramu profusely thanked Malcolm for his quick thinking in alerting him through the CB radio. When he was sufficiently recovered, Ramu continued on with the journey, wondering about his own reaction to the near-death situation which was totally unlike his reactions to similar situations in India. Was it that life now was more worth living than it was in India, and hence situations depriving life was much more serious now than in India? Thinking about it, he did realize that life indeed was more valuable here. Or more appropriately, there was very little value attached to life in India than what should have been. Nobody noticed it in India since there was abundance of life and that somehow justified unconsciously the lesser value associated with life there. He realized the true worth of life and its preciousness only when
he was here.

Marriage

His first spring in the US also brought life’s bouquets as he was soon to realize. In his various drives across US highways, he stayed at motels along highways – many of them run by Indian Gujarati families. Many gas stations were owned by Indian immigrants from Punjab. He met immigrants from various parts of India among various agencies he dealt with. He gradually started socializing with these people as he was less shy speaking in his imperfect English among them than among non-Indian Americans. Over time, he built a network of acquaintances, and eventually friends, on the routes he plied.

One such family he made friends with was the Dhillon family in Texas. Papa Gurnam Singh Dhillon owned a gas station in a suburb of Arlington, Texas. Ramu used to stop at the gas station every time he drove through Arlington on his East-West jaunts. Thus started a friendship with Gurnam that soon extended to his family. Gurnam’s pretty daughter, Preetam Dhillon, caught Ramu’s attention. Having started enjoying and cherishing life a lot more than he did in India,
Ramu had realized a vacuum due to lack of close friends here. He started missing his Indian friends more due to that vacuum. That vacuum was soon filled by pretty Preetam, who was not only attractive for Ramu’s bachelor eyes, but was also intelligent. Being the intellectually curious type, Ramu found that Preetam filled the role that Victor Arulraj had done earlier in his life. He was happy to spend all his spare time with Preetam. Preetam had never been to India, being a second generation Indian American, and hence was fascinated by Ramu’s stories of his life in India. She in turn helped Ramu integrate into his new surroundings. The story of immigrant assimilation into the great American society thus got repeated once again, as it had numerous times in the past centuries.

What started as a friendship soon blossomed into love. Preetam was bowled over by Ramu’s yearning for learning and adaptability. Ramu was very attracted to the confidence and independence of Preetam. Soon Ramu took personal diversions to Arlington whenever he was passing anywhere within 100 miles of the place. He requested his supervisors for routes that took him past Arlington. His supervisors, knowing Ramu’s new love life, obliged him as often as practical and contributed their investments to the enterprise of love between Ramu and Preetam.

Six months into this on-again-off-again courtship, Ramu mustered sufficient courage to take the next step. It was a lovely late-summer evening. Ramu had delivered cargo to Los Angeles a few days back and was driving to Atlanta, when he made the stop at Arlington. He had decided to stay the night with the Dhillons, and asked Preetam out for dinner. They chose an all-night diner and had a quiet, private dinner. Preetam was her usual self and talked about her life when she and her parents were living in California when she was eight.

“Those days, my dad worked for a hardware store, and my mom worked in 7-11. Rohit and I went to the public school. Even though we did not have a lot to go around, my parents ensured that we kids did not suffer for want of anything. My dad worked 12 hour days, and my brother and I never saw much of him. It is only when we started to go to college that we were well off and I got to know my dad well” said Preetam.

“Uh-huh. That must have been tough life for your parents” remarked Ramu, a bit absent-mindedly.

“How was your childhood? You mentioned that you were orphaned early. It must have been very tough.”

“Yeah. It was tough, but it was fun in a way.”

“What is wrong with you Ramu? You seem to be pre-occupied with some thoughts. What is troubling you?”

“No, I am OK” responded Ramu staring Preetam in a dreamy-eyed fashion.

“Well. If you are not in a mood to talk, fine. I will do the talking. There was this funny incident at school, where Rohit and I attended. One day, our teacher had all of us talk about where our ancestors came from, to demonstrate the diversity of American society. When I said that my parents came from Punjab, there was this kid who remarked how it was living in the Middle East” said Preetam, smiling at the recollection of that day.

“Will you marry me?” asked Ramu, taking Preetam by surprise.

“What?” responded Preetam, not being sure whether she heard him right.

“You asked me what troubled me sometime back. I lied when I said I was not troubled. Actually, I am troubled and you are the cause. You trouble me day and night. You are never out of my thoughts, and I am not able to think of anything else, or enjoy anything. I could not even understand most of what you talked today. So, will you please put me out of my misery? Will you marry me? There, I said it and now I feel less troubled” blurted out Ramu in one continuous monolog, afraid that if he paused in the middle, he may not again get the courage to continue. After blurting out his love to Preetam, he sat with a stupid smile on his face. Preetam was shocked by the abrupt delivery of such a message.

“Huh, that was some way of proposing” expressed Preetam, out of breath. It was too much and too serious of a topic for her to digest all at once. It was not that Preetam disliked Ramu. Actually she too was very attracted to Ramu. However, she had not thought of marriage yet, and she expressed this to Ramu.

“Ramu, you are a nice guy and I like you very much. Heck, I probably love you too. It is just that I have never thought of marriage” responded Preetam tentatively. She immediately saw Ramu’s face shrink with disappointment, like a flower withering under some poisonous gas in the air. She felt very sorry for him. She felt a sudden urge to hug and protect him from the disappointment she created in him. She got up and hugged him and said shyly “I did not say that I don’t like it. You said it with such suddenness that I don’t know what to say. But I too like the idea”.

Ramu realized the import of the message even in his clouded mind. He leaped up, hugged Preetam tightly and shouted “Yippee. That means yes, right? Let us tell papa right away”. And thus ended their dinner with a proposal and an acceptance, not in ideal conditions like it happens in romantic novels and movies, but with the same outcome nevertheless.

Preetam’s family greeted this news with lots of happiness and excitement. The wedding preparations and planning went on for the next several weeks, and in due course, Ramu and Preetam got married in a Gurudhwara (Sikh temple) nearby. All the guests were friends and family of Preetam. Ramu’s uncle was too old to travel and gave his blessings remotely over phone, when Ramu called him in Gunjanur. His Indian friends all sent their greetings by mail, when they came to know.

Settling or Un-settling?

The next years and decades were spent in settling and becoming more American with support from his new family. At work too, due to his ambitious and hard-working nature, Ramu rose up the ranks to become a trucking supervisor. This job involved assigning drivers and supporting them from home office and involved only occasional travels on the highways. This suited Ramu well as he could spend more time with his family, and soon he was part of the local Punjabi community. The desk job also gave Ramu a lot of time to ruminate on his past. He never forgot all the good and bad times he had with his early friends during life in India.

As Ramu aged, he had the perfect life that a lot of his friends in India had longed for. He had purchased a house, had two cars, and his family was perfect with a charming and intelligent wife, and two lovely daughters. Since Preetam was an American citizen, Ramu had immediately gotten permanent residency upon marriage and stayed back past his initial two year assignment. His in-laws treated him as their own son, and with help from his family and community, Ramu established himself well in the new society.

Yet, from time to time, Ramu felt a longing for India that he could not explain. It was not that he liked the life he had led in India better than the present one. In fact, his present life was what he had dreamed for all those years back when he was with his uncle. Once he had attained it, he seemed to feel incomplete. He felt that he had lost something from his imperfect life in India. He found that he no longer had any uncertainties in life, and hence his achievements too brought less happiness than they had before. Life here had become more precious than in his youth in India. Yet, the constant presence of danger, the mystery of not knowing what life had to offer in the future, and the clear and tangible goal for a better life had made his life more meaningful in the Indian past, than at present in his more perfect US life.

After several years in the US, he visited his friends in India and found that they too had changed as had India itself. Now, there were highways similar to the ones in the US, as part of the Golden Quadrilateral project, connecting the major metros in India. His friends too now drove on six lane highways when driving from Mumbai to Bangalore, to Chennai and other cities. The road infrastructure had improved significantly from when he was in India. Yet when he borrowed his friend’s truck to try his driving skills for a short while, he found that there were still lots of differences that did not allow for the carefree driving experience of the US. For instance, in the six lane highways, one could suddenly see a bus or a truck or a bullock cart driving in the wrong direction coming directly head-on in the fast lane. Those drivers did this to avoid having to go in the right direction, away from the direction they wanted to go and take a legitimate U-turn farther away from their destination. His conversations with his friends too clearly indicated that he had a perfect life compared to what they had achieved, and hence he had nothing to feel negative about. Yet, there was this unexplained sense of loss that stayed with him always. It was as though there was a soft, mild pain in his heart that never subsided and never went away completely.

As he drove further ahead in the highway of life, the sense of loss and pain became more acute. This void in him was something he had found among other Indians too, who had come and settled in the US like him. But he did not see this feeling in his wife, who was born and brought up in US, nor his daughters. This was a strange phenomenon and an irritant that neither allowed him to fully enjoy his life in the US, nor to participate whole-heartedly in contributing and enjoying the adopted nation. It was a constant confusion on where his innermost loyalties lay. On the one side, he was very grateful to the welcome and hospitality that this great nation of America offered for immigrants like him. He too wanted to give back to this society now that he was well off, and immersed himself in social causes as well as in helping other new immigrants.

Yet on the other side, he felt as though he owed his native country something. In return for what, he could not understand. His life there was full of thorns and yet he felt as though it was that country that gave him a foundation on which he had built his mansion. The feeling for America was something he could easily understand with reason, but the feeling for India was something that defied reason. When he was in India, even small achievements brought immense happiness. Here in America, even major achievements brought less happiness. The wisdom of why this happened dawned on him many, many years later. Satisfaction and happiness are relative, and come when one succeeds under adverse conditions. When one is bestowed with the
success without too much of adversity or effort, one derives less happiness at the outcome. Thus when he was in India and there were more adversarial conditions, his small successes meant a lot more to him, than when he was in the US and had a lot of support structure for his successes. He also realized that no matter where one reaches in one’s life, the experiences and early moments of one’s life stays with them for ever. Those moments and memories are very precious and there is always a sweet fondness for all the travails and uncertainties one experienced when one was young.

With this understanding, he was more at peace and lived contentedly with his family, while visiting his friends in India once every few years. His uncle had long since departed this world, and only his friends Maade Gowda, Aslam Dar and George Panickkal remained of late. Maade Gowda was beset with a chronic cough due to years in dust and smoking cigarettes. He stayed with his grandson, who worked in a garment factory and counted the remaining days of his life. Aslam continued driving small delivery trucks locally even at a plum age, to make ends meet for his family. His two sons worked in a nearby warehouse on daily wages, and he had to put in his share of work so that the family had proper meals at the table. George remained a bachelor and with the savings he had made over the years, he had purchased a small house in his native Kerala and lived a peaceful retired life all alone. All this left Ramu a little sad for his friends – sad at their individual plights, sad at the breakdown of their friendship network with each one at different places, and sad in general at the cruel destiny that life had dealt them while giving him all the happiness, all because he was fortunate enough to make it to America.

The End

Ramu returned back from the cremation place to his lodgings, in the mid-day Sun. He was at his friend Maade Gowda’s funeral. Maade Gowda had passed away suddenly the previous afternoon.

Ramu was in India on his now-annual pilgrimage to Gunjanur. He was in his sixties and missed his Indian friends more often. Hence he had the habit of visiting India at least once a year. His life in the US was now sedentary – he and his wife lived off their savings and the Social Security checks that the Government gave them. Both his daughters had married into non-Indian American families. Except on special occasions like Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas when there would be phone calls and possibly family visits, the daughters lived their own lives most of the time. They were also living in different cities and hence informal visits were out of question altogether. Thus, for the most part, Ramu and his wife were on their own with plenty of time on their hands.

Ramu had arrived in Gunjanur a week back and was scheduled to return back to the States in another four days. He had visited Maade Gowda a couple of days back and was making preparations for his return, when he heard the news of Maade Gowda’s sudden demise the previous afternoon. During his visit, the two of them had reminisced for two hours on their early days together and hence this made the loss even more personal for Ramu. His friends George Panickkal and Aslam Dar made it to the funeral. But the sad circumstances surrounding their get-together did not bring much pleasure to anyone.

With the sad happenings and thoughts, Ramu returned back to the States and shared his grief with his wife. Preetam empathized with Ramu, and noticed that this grief made Ramu more reticent in the days to come. Ramu spent all his time alone and was immersed in his private thoughts all the time. He relived his entire life. Memories of his early childhood brought a welcome smile on his face, and he cherished those memories. He took cognizance of all that he had achieved in life after coming to America. Yet, his days in India held a special place in his heart.

It was a lovely warm and sunny day. As usual, Ramu relived his life browsing through his mind's album like he had been doing lately. The repeated attempts by Preetam to draw him out of his self-imposed solitude did not meet with much success. Preetam retired to the house and let Ramu be in his own thoughts.

The sun was about to set. The sky had reddened with the impending sunset, and Ramu was reminded of the day when he first arrived in America on a similar evening like this one. Those thoughts led to other thoughts of his early days in America when he learnt the differences in seasons, his early experiences driving here and the comedies of language he had in his early life here. With a smile on his face and half-closed eyes, Ramu enjoyed the external and internal posters of nature and his life. He saw himself coming to live with his uncle as an orphan. He saw the early days in his uncle’s workshop, learning the trade of fixing cars and trucks. He saw his early life as a cleaner and a truck driver in India, with lots of ambitions and uncertainties about life. He saw his selection by the training school and his arrival in the US. He remembered with great fondness, Sam Fairweather and all the time they spent in Ramu’s learning. He saw in his mind’s theatre the graduation from a truck driver to a supervisor. The near-death experiences flashed in his mind and he could fondly look back at all that had become his life’s memories without fear, without anxiety and with a certainty that comes only when one is looking back
at the past.

Suddenly, Ramu felt a piercing pain on the left side of his chest. Ramu’s life prepared to leave his body, as the Sun retired for the night in the far horizon. Ramu relaxed his body for the last time of his life in his arm chair. His mind was calm and welcomed the chance to meet up again with Maade Gowda in the netherworld. As darkness crept slowly over his house, Ramu’s life breath left him and darkness filled Ramu’s inner vision for a moment just before he breathed his last.

Customer Focus – Lessons from a Fruit Vendor

2007-02-27T20:18:00.000-08:00

{Author’s note: The protagonist in this story is neither the author nor a senior manager. He could be an engineer, project manager or any other employee of a large corporation, and hence his views in this story should not be confused with the official position of the author in his present employment. However, the author endorses many of the learnings expressed in this story.}

It was a Saturday and I had come to office to finish some urgent work. I started feeling hungry after a while and, since the cafeteria was closed on weekends, decided to explore what I could find in the street to squelch my hunger pangs. I noticed a fruit vender parked in the corner of a busy intersection which also doubled up as a bus stop. I decided to nourish myself on a few enticing yellow-green bananas that were decoratively kept on a glass case atop a pushcart. There were other cut fruits inside the case, vying with each other to attract customers – orange-red papaya, light-red watermelon, brown chickoo, light yellow jackfruit and artistically cut pineapple. The fruit vendor was doing brisk business even on the weekend. I made my purchase and stood nearby devouring the bananas, while absent-mindedly scanning the street scene. I suddenly experienced an epiphany. I noticed a business perspective in everything about the fruit vendor – the location, the offerings, the way he went about his business. Everything about the business seemed to have been deliberately chosen. I tucked away this observation in my mind’s shelf for later investigation.

A few days later, when I stepped out of my office, I noticed light traffic in the fruit vendor’s stall and decided to explore my hypothesis. I bought some bananas, and while eating them, engaged him in a conversation.

“Hi, I notice that you have a choice of fruits. How do you decide the fruits to carry, how much of each would get sold, and what sizes should the cuts be?” I asked.

“Arre saab, that is simple. I noticed a while back that I needed to keep multiple fruits to cater to different customer preferences. Initially, I kept only bananas. I could barely make ends meet then. One day, I found some Papaya that was selling cheap in the market, and added a few to my purchases. That day, I saw my sales double. That was when I decided to add more variety to my offerings. I had to carefully plan the quantities though, since I had to fit everything within my limited budget. Otherwise, the unsold fruit gets spoiled quickly and I get nothing for my purchases”.

I could relate to that. Being in an IT Products Company, I know that we have several different products that we carry in our company’s portfolio, somewhat similar to the fruit vendor. Different customers choose different products and based on the sales volume, we carry different amounts of inventory for our products. However, I had never thought of the investment angle – dividing up the investment dollars among the different products. Being in engineering, I never thought about where our budget came from. Whenever there was a request from marketing for new products or more features, we gave them a budget for implementing the same, and lo and behold, the budget materialized. Sometimes, we were asked to do a tradeoff between older and newer products or amongst features to fit the budget. Now I understood better on the rationale behind such tradeoffs and requests. There must be a “Fruit Seller” somewhere up the management chain making these decisions like my fruit vendor friend.

Lesson 1: Managing a Portfolio of products is critical to capture maximum number of customers. But equally important is to make the right investment choices to get the most return for the available investment.
Lesson 2: The customers are the best bet to listen to, when deciding the portfolio of products as well as the size of the inventory. Monitoring what is being sold gives an indication of the inventory to carry.

I continued “That is great. But how you decide how big you should cut different fruit?”
“That is simple. If you notice my customers, most of them are waiting for the busses that stop here. While waiting, they notice the fruits and make an impulsive buy. They do this only because the fruits are priced cheap. Hence they don’t think too much spending Rs. 2 to 5. Also, they need to be able to eat the fruits quickly in case their bus comes. So, I serve the fruits in bite sizes that cost them at most 2 to 5 Rupees per piece.”

Wow. I realized that there was so much thought behind the seemingly innocuous fruit pieces displayed there. I had heard a lot being talked about in my company on Customer, Market and Business Understanding. But till I heard from the fruit vendor, I did not understand what this was all about. Here was a person with little, if any, education and definitely not an MBA who made a lot less than me in the IT industry, and yet he knew a lot more about customers and markets in his business than I did in mine. I resolved to get to know more about my company’s customers and their business similar to what my friend, Chikkanna (for that was his name), was doing. I decided to get most out of my investment in the bananas (by now, I had bought and consumed 3 bananas).

Lesson 3: Know your customer’s business. That will reveal how they plan to use your product and will provide you clues on product features, sizing, packaging and product delivery. Target Customer’s affordability assists in right pricing of the product and the features that can be afforded in the product for that price.

I also noticed that the various fruits Chikkanna had were not all equally easy to cut. He had created some artistic cuts in the pine apple, while cutting the watermelon into long, thin strips, the papaya into cubes and the chickoo into a flowery pattern. I could relate to the different projects in my company, with different technical complexities, different team sizes and different outputs for the customers. I wondered, however, how he managed the different costs and pricings. I always thought that in my company, they had the larger teams and more complex projects being charged higher to the customers and wanted to validate if that is what he did.

“I notice that the labour you have put in cutting a jackfruit and pineapple is lot more than for cutting papaya or watermelon. Why are you then charging the same price for the different fruits when your labour cost is different?” I ventured.

“Saab, the customer is not paying me for how difficult it is for me to cut the fruit. So if I charge differently for the different fruits, he would either go for the lowest priced one, or if he does not like that, he may not buy anything at all. Most customers who come here are coming for choice. If I charge differently, they may not perceive a choice. They pay for the value they get. But don’t worry. I make sure that the fruits are priced in a way that on average, I can recover all the costs including my labour”, explained Chikkanna patiently.

I was chastened. While my colleagues and I always argued with my manager that we deserve higher pay for more complex software we develop, or the number of lines of code we implement, here was Chikkanna who understood that he cannot charge his customers differently for his labour as they pay only for the value they derive. Probably that was true for our customers too. The price they pay for our products have no relation to the number of lines of code or the complexity of the algorithm. Their value of our products is based on the complexity of the business problems these products solved. I was relieved that even though my colleagues and I were ignorant of this basic principle, somebody was doing the right job somewhere in the company for us to get our pay and raises even if our specific product may not cover all of our costs.

Lesson 4: The customer does not pay for the complexity of what goes into producing the product. He is paying for the value he derives from the product. Simplifying the process of producing the end product benefits the company in realizing higher profits.

By now, I was impressed by Chikkanna’s wisdom in Business basics. I abandoned the Q&A method of learning and instead told him “You seem to have thought out a lot of things in this business. What are the other factors that were important to you and how did you go about those decisions?”

“You are right, Saab. For example, take the corner I am standing. Why did I not stand in that corner over there instead of this one?” he said. “Over there, the only people who will come are those who are walking along the pavements. If you notice those folks who are just now doing that, they are walking briskly with a purpose. Maybe a few will stop by to buy fruit. Over here, people are all standing and waiting for the bus, with nothing much to do. Sometimes, they look around and either due to hunger or to fight boredom, they come by and make purchases. So, I make more money here than over there”.

I nodded in my mind that this is what they call “Go to Market” strategy. For different products, we have different channels depending on end-customers – for value products, we had direct and indirect channels, and for volume products like printers, notebooks, etc, we had retailers.

Lesson 5: Go-to-market strategy – a means by which customers can know
about the product and purchase it – is very important for revenues to flow in.
Having a right product alone is not sufficient. Right price is equally
important; it is a measure of customer’s derived value from the
product.
Continuing on, he said “You notice the relatively new knife that I have to cut fruit and the cart itself. The glass case is cracked and I am waiting for another year before I can replace that. While the tools of the trade are important for me to carry the business, these are good enough and refurbishing them too often does not increase my profits or revenues. However, if I had a rusted knife, none of my customers would approach me. So, I change the knife once a year, while the glass case and other paraphernalia on the pushcart are changed maybe once in 5 years. I put aside some money every month to take care of these costs.”

It was clear to me that he was talking about his capital strategy. My company too buys software, computers and other such assets for us employees periodically to develop and test software. Usually these systems are written off in 4 years or 5 years, when they become too “rusted” like Chikkanna’s knife. It occurred to me then that this applies to my skills too. Some skills (usually soft skills) are valued throughout my career life and these need to be polished frequently. Other skills (like my C knowledge and Java knowledge) are handy while I am a programmer, but need to be replaced with newer, different skills when I get promoted to a manager. I also appreciated his forethought in putting aside some investment on a regular basis towards upgrading his tools and resolved to do the same for sharpening my own skills and tools of trade.
Lesson 6: Investment towards tools and skills are essential to the long-term viability of the organization. If the company is a knowledge industry, then Talent Management is a critical strategy to remain competitive. Regular, modest investment should be set aside as a practice to keep the tools and skills current at all times.
By now, it was apparent that Chikkanna had taught me a lot about Customers, Market and some Business basics. Next I asked him if he could teach me something about how he understands his market and what considerations he has for his business. Here is what he told:
“I often talk to my customers to understand their trends and preferences. I also scour the fruit market to see if there are new, exotic fruits. If I find any changes in eating habits or some new offerings in the market, I try something different and see how my customers take to the change.” This made sense and now I started understanding some of the strategies that our senior management tells us from time to time – like when the market for one product is shrinking, they move people and investments to some other newer product. I also now better understood the transformation happening in the marketplace wherein enterprise customers are replacing more Enterprise Unix systems with Windows and Linux systems. My customers’ tastes seem to be changing from exotic fruits to more abundant and cheaper fruit that are equally tasty. Sometimes these changes occur gradually over a long time, and sometimes this happens rapidly.

I asked Chikkanna if he was worried that his customers will take to packaged foods instead of fruit. Engineers in my division were quite concerned about their jobs when the market for my products started shrinking and hence this worry should also be with Chikkanna when his market gets threatened. His answer surprised me. He indicated that he was not worried at all, since he would sell whatever his customers want to buy. If they abandon fruit as a valuable eatable, he too would abandon selling fruit and instead sell whatever the customers want. This, in a way, was focusing more on the customer’s choice rather than the product we currently have. I applied the same logic to what my work unit produces and understood better what our VP said when he urged the division to focus on multiple operating systems and different form factor servers and blades instead of being tied to the current product we were developing and maintaining for past several years. My VP was asking us to understand where the customers wanted to move, and offer them a choice of current and future products (just like Chikkanna did).
Lesson 7: As technologies and products evolve over time and better and cheaper solutions are available, customers migrate to the newer solutions. A customer focused company too will transition with customers from one product portfolio to another, instead of forcing their current products to customers who have moved on. Understanding market and customer trends and responding quickly to these changes makes a company sustainable and profitable in the long run.
I had learnt a lot in one day from Chikkanna on customers and markets and did not want to distract him too much from his customers. As fees for the lessons, I bought a dozen bananas and one uncut pineapple and said my thanks to him for sharing his wisdom. While I was about to leave, I noticed that his glass case with fruits had one or two flies buzzing around. Surprised that he had not better protected his fruits, I asked him about it. He smiled sheepishly and said “Saab, I did plan to buy a protective mesh for the flies. When I enquired about the cost, it was more than Rs.100. I realized that it was more than I could invest. I also noticed that the flies did not bother my clientele and so decided that this glass case is good enough for the customers I am targeting.” While walking away, I wondered whether he was telling me that it is OK to have few bugs for a good enough solution that the market accepts. I imagined the squirming such a proposition will put my manager in, especially if I discuss it as the right investment of quality and then bring in the bug angle after he agrees on the investment argument. That brought a smile to my lips. I saved the thought for another occasion and went home happy.

The Glove

2007-02-03T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Finding

The fuse box of the ski lift was racing at a very fast pace right onto me. I was swerving this way and that to avoid it, but to no avail. I was skiing down a steep slope in Swiss Alps. GOD, Please save me… and other thoughts went through my mind. CRAAASH. I hit the fuse box. My whole body was sprawled on the hard ice and my head was exploding. While the pain subsided quickly, I found that I was unable to move my body. A loud ringing sound started off somewhere. I guess it must have been a fire alarm due to the damaged fuse box. I tried to look around to find the source of the ringing, but was unable to move any part of my body. Panic gripped me, starting a headache and I tried to scream for help. No sound escaped me!! I was shouting soundlessly, HELP…, but no one would hear. Then suddenly the whole scene was rubbed off like a wiper clearing away rainwater from a car windshield, and there I was, blinking my eyes and looking for the source of the still screaming alarm.

I realized that I had just woken up from a dream when the alarm went off. The alarm sound just blended into my dream and caused all the Panic. The clock said 6 AM and I shut the alarm. I laughed at myself, and set about trying to prepare for the day ahead.

7.30 AM: I am on the road near Marathhalli, trying to be part of the daily Guerilla war that is Bengalooru city driving. I am trying to fight off a motorcycle foot soldier trying to steal my space on the right, while listening to the Radio Mirchi RJ exhorting everyone to “Chill Maadi” in a “College Girl on a first date” voice. I suddenly notice a Tata Sumo tank pushing me on the left to squeeze through. I somehow fight off these two attackers and gain some ground, only to notice two BMTC armored carriers (buses) in my rear-view mirrors. The Radio Mirchi RJ is now reporting other road battles in the same schoolgirl tone. Someone not knowing the language would not be faulted for assuming that she is announcing that she won a lottery instead of reporting on the mindless acts of the collective driver community creating avoidable Traffic Jams, judging by the lilt and enthusiasm in her voice.

The BMTCs are trying a pincer movement on me and are mercilessly trying to crush me between them. I somehow maneuver my Honda City out of the squeeze. I spot a stretch ahead of me that is free of vehicles. Like a child stuffing a lot of cake in a party when her parents are preoccupied, I floor my accelerator to gain as much of the empty stretch as I can. It is also the first time I am able to entirely focus in front of the car and not having to look at both sides constantly. Suddenly a hand appeared in the middle of my windshield, slightly ahead of me. It was lying in the middle of the road. My mind put the car in evasive action, trying to swerve and avoid the object. Near simultaneously, it also reasoned that it could not be a hand and focused my eyes on the object for a closer examination, as I slow my car when approaching it. It was a dusty and worn glove that appeared like a hand because of its color – a deep brown color matching that of human skin.

Continuing to drive on, my mind starts becoming inquisitive about the glove, while routinely dealing with the continuing traffic saga ahead. Questions start to pop – how did the glove end up in the road, who was its owner, what happened to its pair, was it from a local owner or someone who was visiting here from a colder place? Did it belong to an Indian or a foreigner? These thoughts were soon taken over by other immediate concerns, and I completely forgot about it like so many thoughts that meander through our minds, never to get revisited again.

Ganguram

It was Sunday. I heeded the Radio Mirchi clarion call and decided to chill out in Lalbagh. To avoid the traffic battle at least on this day, I started off very early. The air too was a bit chilly, concurring with the “Chill maadi” theme. There was dense fog – it was one of those days when air passengers wished that they had traveled by train to be on time. Suddenly out of the fog appeared the hand, I mean, the Glove in front of my windscreen. It had moved a little bit on the road more towards the sidewalk, but once again, my eyes first played tricks and made it appear like a hand. The Glove brought back my numerous thought questions and piqued my curiosity. With no urgent purpose at hand, I decided to pull over to the side of the road, investigate and look at the Glove that mentally taunted me so much.

I got out of the car, walked a few paces and picked up the Glove. As I had first imagined, this was a glove that someone wore in cold weather, not the one in Bengalooru but more like in the Himalayas. It was quite worn, but at one time, would have served its master’s hand very ably by providing sufficient warmth. I started walking to my car while examining the Glove in close-up, when I heard some sound on my side. I turned and noticed an apparition a few feet away in the dense fog talking to me – mumbling might be more precise as I could not make out any words.

I paused, “Excuse me? Did you say something?” In the dense fog, about 5 feet away stood a gnarled old man with a hunched back. He had a flowing white beard and his face was gaunt. He was wearing a white flowing robe, or at least that is what I think, since the thick fog did not show much of the man other than a faint outline. However, his eyes were very bright and penetrating. They were set deep in the sockets, and had a sort of red luminosity that I had never seen before.

“I said that you seem to be curious about that Glove” – he responded. His voice was very soft. I had to concentrate to pick out his words.

“Yes, I do. Why do you ask?”
“Well, I was its owner once. I disposed it off a few days in that garbage bin over there”, he said pointing in the distance. “Probably one of the stray dogs here dragged it onto the road”. Suddenly I had an “Aha” moment that I can get answers to all my idle questions that taunted my mind. So, I said, “Actually it is propitious that you approached me. I had several questions in my mind when I noticed the Glove and that is why I was examining it. But I had never dreamt that I would find its owner right next to it”, I smiled. “Mind if I ask you some questions?”
“What is it you want to know?” he asked.
“Well, for starters, I was wondering what a Glove as thick as this was doing in Bangalore. Wasn’t it too hot for you to wear in this weather, even in winter?” I ventured.
“Well, I did not wear that Glove. It is a long story. If you have the time, I am happy to tell you. But we might as well sit over there and talk” said he, pointing in the distance to a stone bench that was hazily visible in the fog.

We walked over to the bench. I noticed a field on the right of the road. In the distance, next to the bench, there was a small mud shed, the kind built for temporarily storing construction goods. The old man led the way, swaggering along slowly. I could still not distinguish any features, other than his gaunt, bony face, his sunken, luminous red eyes and white flowing beard, whenever he faced me. He introduced himself as Ganguram. He had hailed originally from Bihar, but has lived a long time locally. We did some chitchat, which was not too much as Ganguram spoke slowly and haltingly and at times, I had to request him to repeat as he spoke in a low voice. Soon we were at the bench and settled, and Gangu started his story.

Ganguram’s Story

Ganguram came to Bangalore (Bengalooru was not even in the thought process of the local politicians then) a long long time ago. He has no clear recollection of when that was, but estimates that it must have been more than 60 years ago when he was just18 years old. He came with just the clothes he wore and one alternate pair tied in a bundle. He had traveled ticketless from Bihar and had somehow managed to evade all the ticket collectors that came by to check tickets in such a long journey. In those days, Bangalore was a quiet, peaceful, green city with sprawling bungalows, very few migrant workers and a retiree’s paradise. Gangu came to Bangalore by accident. His recollection is that he had intended to travel as far away from his abusive father as possible when he got on a train. So, he kept changing trains along the way and when he finally ran out of the money for food – money he had stolen from home for this escapade, he decided to get out of the train and train station. There he was, in front of the Majestic station in Bangalore.

The initial years were very hard and he did all types of odd jobs, slept wherever and ate whenever. A few years after this nomadic, uncertain existence, he happened to work for a film producer doing odds and ends, and stuck on to that job for several years. This guaranteed a steady place to stay, regular food (mostly left-over from the catering to the film crew), and income to boot that he started saving for the future. He became a regular among the city’s film studios, saw several yesteryear stars up close, and got to learn quite a bit about film shootings. Over the years, he was relied on by a wide variety of film personnel as their “Man Friday” to get last minute things done – to arrange for extra catering, getting props or running to a tailor to get some last minute costume stitching done. He gradually became interested in and learnt a lot about costumes and props. Much later, he started his own firm supplying costumes for various film crews, using his contacts both in the film world and among local tailors and cloth suppliers. He prospered over time, and his gentle personality and ability to get along with all types of personalities endeared him to one and all. Somewhere along the way came a wife and son, and he became a regular Bangalorean, well established in his own way in a thriving industry with lots of excitement and nerve. Life became quite a roller-coaster that it normally is.

He supplied costumes for Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Hemamalini and other stars for Sholay when it was shot near Ramanagaram. He became a close acquaintance of the local hero Rajkumar. He traveled with film crews on locations, and developed many contacts among art directors and costume designers in Madras and Bombay as well (Chennai and Mumbai are recent happenings and did not exist then). One such outstation contract was to supply costumes for Kabhie Kabhie, starring many notable stars. It was during this assignment that he had to purchase several pair of gloves for outdoor song shootings in snow in various locations in the Himalayas. This particular glove was part of a pair that Rishi Kapoor wore during the filming of a song sequence in that movie.

Well, life hits a speed bump just when everything is going perfect and you are enjoying a pleasant ride. It happened to Gangu when his son suddenly developed cancer. It took everything financially and emotionally from the entire family in trying to fight it. Just when they got used to the initial shock and reconciled to living an existence among hospitals, doctors, medicines and temples, fate intervened to terminate this long suffering and ended the fight. And so it was that Gangu lost his only son, after losing everything he built all those hard years in a fight to save him. His wife too was reduced to a living skeleton by the ordeal and lost all interest in life after that. She lived on for another decade – a walking corpse. She was spared further pain and became a real corpse. Gangu was devastated by all this, lost all interest in life, and went back to doing odds and ends to cover his existential necessities. All his worldy possessions save a few of his costumes melted away in time like a soap bar in water.

Now we come to the end of Gangu’s story. The last few years have been particularly hard on Gangu. Due to old age, he is unable to do anything and like millions others, he is depending on other people’s generosity to get one square meal a day (if lucky). He now lives in abandoned shacks, park benches or in front of shops when the weather and the police permit it. His latest home is this bench that we are sitting on and when it becomes too chilly at night, some of his costumes have come in handy to keep warm. The pair of Rishi Kapoor’s gloves served him thus for many nights over the years, but they too became tired of serving him and wore out completely. And so he disposed of them, only to find one being pursued by me.

I felt sad for Gangu, and left the Glove and a 100-rupee note with him, before parting. He rummaged through his sack and gave me an old beret that he claimed Dev Anand wore in Guide and numerous other movies. I walked back pensively wondering on how life deals unexpected largesse when one least expects it, and when things are going really great, it takes away everything, as though mocking that nothing is in one’s powers. Gangu’s life story had a sobering effect on me, and my original plans to visit Lalbagh disappeared just like the fog had done by now.

I reached my car and just before getting in, turned and waved towards the far away white apparition with red luminous eyes that Gangu had become from the main road, and he acknowledged the wave with a gentle nod.

Epilogue – The Twilight Zone

It is six months since I had visited Gangu. In this period, I was too busy with my own life (thankfully when it was on its upward swing, bringing me riches) and complete forgot my Sunday encounter. On another Sunday, I was doing what they call “Spring cleaning” (though it was not Spring here), when I chanced upon the beret that Ganguram gave me a while back. That brought all the memories flooding back and I decided to visit Gangu to see how life has treated him in the past six months. I took the beret with me and drove to the roadside where I had found the Glove, parked my car and walked towards the stone bench in the side road. The sun was bright and it was a pleasant day. In the fields by the road, I watched several kids playing cricket, and I sauntered to the stone bench while watching the kids play. There was no one near the bench and the temporary shed nearby was also not present. I assumed that the builders who had built the same had dismantled it once it served its purpose, though I could not discern any recent buildings nearby. Disappointed that I could not meet with Gangu, I sat on the bench and watched the children play cricket.

What is this I see? Are my eyes cheating me? I see the kid behind the wicket wearing a similar but fresher pair of gloves as Gangu’s Glove. I hurry onto the field for a closer inspection and the kids pause in their play to see what I am trying to do. I approach the wicket-keeper kid and ask him “Where did you buy that pair of gloves? There was an old man near here about six months back, who had a similar pair. Have any of you seen him hereabouts?” I describe Ganguram to the kids.

The kids try to answer in unison and before long, one kid (who I presume is their captain) takes control and says thus, “Uncle, we have played cricket here every weekend for the past year. There was never any old man who lived anywhere, at least not to our knowledge. We all live close by and do not know of anyone in these parts that fit your description.

As for the gloves, there is a factory close by here where they stitch and make these gloves for exporting. They throw away the ones that do not pass their quality and we go and pick them up for our cricket practice. Once they wear off (which is quite often since they are not really the type used for cricket balls), we just go and salvage a new pair. If you want a pair, uncle, we can take you to where you can find some.”

I was too stunned for a moment. I recovered, thanked the kids and walked back to my car. Was it all a dream then? Did I not meet Ganguram at all, or hear his story? The stone bench was there, though the tool shed wasn’t. And, where did the beret in my hand come from? Did I day-dream the encounter, or was there a mysterious apparition that did meet me? Thoroughly puzzled and confused as to what was true and what was my imagination, I walk back to my car. I turn around one last time towards the bench and notice in the distance very far away, an electric pylon, possibly carrying high-tension wires. It had red lights at various levels to warn approaching planes. Two of those red lights were at eye level. Were they what I imagined as Gangu’s luminous eyes? In daze, I walk back having more questions in my mind now than when I first chanced upon the Glove. Life seems to have more mysteries than our mind is able to rationalize. Or is the mind itself the greatest mystery of them all?