Whenever I happen to read the word ‘aspiration’ my thoughts suddenly come to an end for a moment and get restarted from my childhood memories. Yes, I had the aspiration of becoming very rich when I was a boy.
I went on carrying this aspiration even when I was completing my graduation at Victoria college, Palakkad. I thought that I would soon start my own business, start competing with Tata and the Ambanis and soon brush shoulder at the international business meets with Rockfeller and Ford! (Though now I find those thoughts foolish, it thrilled me those days.)
I had been thinking of a line of business that would make me a billionaire. I never knew which business would bring in money or which one would suit me – if one would ever suit me. How would I have known? We had been agriculturists for nearly four centuries and my father , grandfather, great grandfather , great great grandfather or his father had never sold anything across the counter. It is true that they might have sold cart loads of paddy as all farmers do which they considered as the excess production which they wouldn’t need to consume in a year. It may appear a joke now but it is true. Those days, agricultural activity hadn’t been commercialized and it had been out of bounds of the big corporate. Those days if the farmers could produce paddy, green gram, black gram, horse gram and of course hay for the cattle which would last for one year for the human consumption. The hay that comes after the harvest lasted for more than a year for the cattle to chew and cud lazily. In addition to this, every week, the cattle used to have a rich repast of fresh green grass sickle harvested from the banks of the paddy fields.
The farmers were simple and counted in those days. These simple farmers used to feel that the remaining portion of anything they produced were an “excess” !!! This they bartered or sold out never even enquiring about the market price!
When I took to agriculture, I decided to do away with this arcane and primitive system of considering the good yield as ‘excess production’ and started calling it ‘profitable production’. Further, I went on meeting many other fellow farmers and started infusing the same thought into their minds. At that time I didn’t know that a corporate culture was taking its shape through my work!!!
There was great resentment from the tricky rice mill owners who were buying paddy from the farmers at the lowest prices possible. The more the rice mill owners tried to dissuade me the more aggressively I tried to persuade the farmers not to sell their produce at lower prices.
One day a mill owner stopped me on my way to a farmer and asked ironically:
“I wonder why you are so much against us”!
“Against you?! I have never been.”
“It is because of your words that many farmers are not willing to sell their paddy during this low season. My profits are going to be very much affected this year if I don’t procure paddy during this season.” He continued.
“ My asking the farmers not to sell paddy at lower price doesn’t mean that I am against you. I only want the farmers to make some profit.” I explained to him.
“In the business the buyer is always the gainer and the seller is the loser. The farmers have been losing all the years and let them go on losing; as their loses are compensated by the government as subsidies. If I lose my rice business, no one is going to compensate my loses”. The mill owner sounded serious.
“Yes, I can understand your logic of the “survival of the fittest – or fattest. Now why can’t we turn the table a little and analyze the situation from another angle? Let the farmers wait for sometime till they get a higher price from your hands. By this arrangement your margin may come down by some 20-25% still you have the awesome 75% of the profit for you. Is not a 75% a reasonable profit?” I tried to be convincing.
“So do you want me to lose my money”? He was visibly irritated.
“No business school has ever mentioned that a 25% reduction in the profit from the previous 100% lump is a loss!! Our socialists call for equal distribution of wealth, but I don’t say anything like that. I only try to create sustainable profit equilibrium between you people and the farmers”. I solemnly declared.
He looked at me suspiciously and said:
“You sound like a communist than a liberal socialist. Anyway I have to tell you one thing. You think that you are succeeding in convincing the farmers about that equilibrium or something what you said. But soon you will be left alone and the farmers are going to flock our mills gain”. He grinningly said these words and got on to his motorbike.
The next moment he kicked it in all his anger- it was really against me- and ‘thudded’ away.
The Elapully Paddy Growers Society or EPGS as it was shortly called made good profits consecutively for three years and each year no less than Rs. 400,000 was distributed as bonus to the farmers who sold paddy to the EPGS. By this time I had discarded the mild warning given to me by the mill owner a few years ago. What I was unaware was that a politically organized movement against me was taking place to dethrone me from the post of the founder director of EPGS.
The big socialist party might have had the feeling that I was making a huge sum of money out of EPGS by being the Director and feared that being once classified as a bourgeois, I might cause cracks in the portals of the socialist party. In the year 1970 the socialist party had nationalized all our land with the tenants and had successfully made us paupers. (I will narrate this in the forthcoming topic.) Naturally, the socialist party felt that I had been using the EPGS as a shield to wage war against them. But I was ignorant of the tempest that was gathering against me!
The next harvest season arrived and as usual I sent the circular to all the members of the EPGS requesting on a particular day to met and discuss about that season’s paddy procurement programme. I happened to meet a few members before the meeting and didn’t realize from their evasive answers to my off the record suggestions about that seasons paddy procurement that the tempest was so close by.
I didn’t feel least suspicious when no farmer contacted me which was strange. Usually, many would meet me and most of them would put forward some strange decisions to be taken up like fixing the cost of paddy at Rs.10,000 per cart load, to fight with the government to sanction free rail tickets to farmers, free university education for the farmers’ children etc!!! I wouldn’t say “NO’ to any such demands but will convincingly say “Yes. We will take all efforts”. I knew well that if I had said that they were not reasonable demands, it would be taken as my disregard for the wisest suggestion put forward by the wisest farmer in the world! By now you would have realized how the hard time I might have had being the director of EPGS.
The farmers have strange behaviours. They think that they are the cleverest people in the world and they feel that you can express your cleverness by disbelieving all others. Imagine a farmer goes to buy a soap. The moment he enters the shop, he tell himself that he is entering a trap and hence he must be careful enough not to get entangled into any of them. The very sight of the shop keeper makes him think:
“The leech! The money sucker”!
Then he calls out:
“One genuine ‘Lotus’ soap at the right price”
He thinks that the shop man has many duplicate brands of ‘Lotus’ soap which he sells at a high percentage of margin.
“I don’t have any duplicate brand of ‘Lotus’ soap and you don’t need to give me a pie more than what is printed on the wrapper”. Sometimes the shop man will retort like this.
At this moment all the customers would turn to our farmer who would flash a smile around signifying how cleverly he has saved them all from a commercial cheating which otherwise would have ended up in a great financial loss!
Finally, the day of that year’s EPGS’s general body meeting arrived without the director being invited!
I wanted to save the farmers’ hard earned money as much as I could. All our meetings were help in the barn of a farmer. By this practice I could save around Rs.30,000 towards the auditorium charges. During these occasions a little of money would be spent on biscuits, short eats and tea. Farmers may tolerate abuse, discrimination and ill-treatment but they cannot tolerate a meeting without tea and short eats. (It was suggested that we should have a big dinner after each meeting. I had to take a good amount cajoling to convince the farmers that a good share of their profit margin would be eaten away by the dinner expenses. )
So, on the day of the meeting I walked into the barn (meeting hall!) some ten minutes before the meeting. There was no one there. It was not a surprise as the quorum would reach only two to three hours before the start of the meeting. I could her various remarks like these for not being able to come on the scheduled time.
“Oh! I was sleepy and had to check the water level in my fields.”
“I was talking to my friend”
“I had to take my son/daughter to the school”
“The weather is very cold/hot today”
“What is the use of attending this meeting? Nothing can change our living conditions. The cost of diesel has touched Rs.20”. (Now it is Rs.55!!!)
You can’t answer these farmers.
One by one the farmers assembled and it was interesting that all were carefully avoiding looking at me. It was the custom to call the names of the directors and invite them to take their seats around a makeshift table. It was announced that the meeting was going to start, and the names were called out one by one.
“I am glad to announce the name of our new director “Sivadas” , One farmer called out. Now, I realised that I had been surreptitiously fired out! Then the unusual behaviors reeled before my eyes beginning from the farmers changing the conversation whenever I neared a group and avoiding even to look at me.
“That’s the end of it. It’s alright. We have no place here; we will leave the place” another member who had also been fired out led me out.
On the way towards home the ex-member unveiled the developments that led to my shameful expulsion from the EPGS. I am sure Hitler himself might have made this much of systematic plotting before his invasion of Poland.
“All these years I had been working to make EPGS one of the best cooperative societies in Kerala and I have succeeded in making it so. I haven’t taken a single Rupee that belonged to the farmers. Look, I have only spent my money to make it one of the best. This treatment is not fair it is cruel.” I said dryly.
“True. I know how sincere you were. But your action has been causing huge financial loses to many rice mill owners. One among them is Sivadas who is an active member of the Socialist Party.”
“It sounds strange! He was cheating the farmers. How could such a person be genuinely interested in the success of the EPGS? Further what does the Socialist Party got to do with a paddy growers society as long as it doesn’t interfere with the other’s political matters? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I am sorry that you are politically very immature. See, how effortlessly they threw you out even without holding a formal meeting of the EPGS? The socialist party stands for the farmers and workers. Your have enraged the top leaders of the party”
“Me?!!!”
“Yes. You are a bourgeois in their view.”
“I a bourgeois?!!!! Those party people are the bourgeois. They roll around in expensive sedans, conduct meetings about poverty in five star hotels eradication and eat continental dinner and own acres and acres of tea and rubber estates. These leaders didn’t even have enough to eat a square meal five years ago. Where has all this money come to them from? They are involved in corrupt practices that involve millions of Rupees”.
“This is the success of our politicians. They have succeeded in convincing the people that money laundering, and stealing from the government coffer is the liberty vested on the politicians by the constitution! True, everyone knows it but no one dare to speak out”.
“But I am just a small farmer and own no vehicle other than an old cycle. I haven’t been inside a five star hotel not to mention about continental dinner”.
“These are not territorial claims these days”. The ex member pointed towards the barn and continued “If you wanted remain as the Director you should have gone for a liaison with the Socialist party leaders, and eaten continental dinners with them.”
“But from where will I get the money for the expenses?” I asked ignorantly.
“Simple. From the bank account of EPGS.”
“Atrocious! That is misappropriation!” I cried.
“No wonder you have been ousted from the post. You are incapable of understanding the psychology of the people whom you want to uplift. I am very sorry to say that people like you only have repented in the end.”
“ So, do you mean to say that I should have been a boot-licker of the stupid politicians, squanderer of the public money and lead a shameless life?” I got angry.
“This is what is called bourgeois nature! Your grand father was a landlord and naturally a bourgeois.
The Socialist party meeting passed a resolution that you- the grandson of a great bourgeois- will not be truly interested in the welfare of the preliterate even though by profession you are a proliferate”. The ex-director spoke out.
“Strange political theory.” I grinned.
“During one of the meetings the socialist party secretary praised Sivadas as the friend of the farmers and – hitting his fist on the table- called you a bourgeois. He cited various instances when you tried to wreck the society which all were spoiled by him and Sivadas’”
“Liar. There hasn’t been one such occasion! The stupid secretary doesn’t even know me! Only fgools would believe such lies.” I exclaimed.
“The farmers are ready to believe him! They applauded with cheers when you were described as a bourgeois. Listen, that is politics. You should be able to talk about things which you don’t know anything about.” The ex member replied sarcastically and continued” He promised all the help top the farmers from the government if they would be wise enough to accept Sivadas the next director of EPGS”.
“Such things will happen here.” I murmured and asked at a low tone “Did my farmer friend Gopalan object to such unfounded remarks made about me by the party secretary”.
“Not at all. He clapped louder when you were finally called ‘a snake in the grass’ by him. Not only this he even seconded Sivas for the post of the Director”
This way I also became one of the victims of the revolutionary Socialist party.
Once I was fired from the EPGS I didn’t think about it for years. Yes, I even sold my paddy to the EPGS through brokers and asked them to collect the cheque for me. Once I was fired from there I had the same feeling towards EPGS what Mr. Lee Iacocca had for The General Motors company from where he was fired while he was serving it as the CEO. A few more monsoons and a few more harvests came and passed as tumultuously as they came still I didn’t feel like enquiring how the EPGS performed. One day a farmer informed me secretly that (people were scared to talk loudly about any of the failures of the Socialist party!!) the EPGS was in a deep financial crisis.
“How could that be? It was projected that that it was going to have a capital as big as the budget of the State of Kerala!!!” I asked as if in surprise.
The person remarked sadly “Oh. It has all become a pipe dream. Many farmers haven’t got the money for the paddy sold to the society after the last harvest.”
I never would have known that the society had become a sinking ship if a group of farmers hadn’t come to meet me one morning. They started talking about the weather, the marriage of a farmers daughter and how one farmer was robbed of Rs.4, 000 when he had been to Coimbatore to buy some equipment and so forth. Finally, one of the members of the group started explaining the sad state of the EPGS and how they had been affected by it. The trap was set and it was shown to me as a red carpet and the farmer continued in a condescending tone:
“How can we let the society ruin like this? You do not care about the society anymore! Now you must become the Director and save it from sinking.”
“I am sorry. I am not the right person to be the Director anymore. A bourgeois should never be the Director of a farmers’ society. After one or two years, you all would feel like firing the bourgeois out again. So, kindly excuse me.”
Now EPGS is history. A public sector band is meditating over the prospect of suing EPGS to realize a sum of Rs.200,000 plus interest it has advanced to it. Let the bank go on meditating for some hundred more years as the EPGS has no assets and it no longer exists!!
