Following article was written based on an incident during my internship at Pune in June, 2012. It appeared in Avant Garde (Monthly MBA newsletter for IIT Kanpur), link: http://www.iitk.ac.in/ime/MBA_IITK/avantgarde/?p=708
Days have changed since I joined this
company for my summer training. I see my colleagues; these days they are
keeping a constant watch on weather reports. Everyone in office, bus,
rest rooms and cab- halting point is discussing the scanty rainfall this
year. Most of the guys in my company were a native of nearby villages.
So may be the side income from their own fields is bothering them. I
could understand that most of them were also concerned about the day to
day repercussions that come along. A typical rainfall report from
meteorological department for this week was showing a beaming green
coloured Delhi, West UP areas enjoying 20% excess rainfall, while
Maharashtra was looking cracked, painted in red, showing 20 to 60% less
rainfall. I’m in Pune, Maharashtra.
Newspapers are flooded with the reports
that monsoon in pune has not arrived inspite of the weather
department’s positive predictions. (As if the weather department’s
pervious indications have always lived upto the mark! Or as if the
weather department was in constant touch with the assistants of Lord
Indra.) “Obviously these guys are just giving their probable estimates”,
I told to myself. They can’t really do what for example municipality do
in response to mass agitations – Loosen the outlet valve of the water
supply pipe to clear off water shortage problem. Simple quick fix
solutions like hiring the water tanks (that remind me of a golu
kid from my colony) from neighboring city, for example or just boring a
few more suction pumps into the chest of earth.But for weather
department you just can’t do this way. However, what it can quite easily
do is frustrate the cricket lovers. “A randomly selected cricketing
venue would be less susceptible to rains than a venue selected on the
basis of the weather department reports”, a commentator once quipped.
So what was being discussed in the
general public meetings? One would argue how old water storage system
built in the Mughal era in Katraj area of Pune was more idealistic than
the current day storage and retrieval system. To this, others would
contradict by bringing in the emotional side of the argument. According
to them the current system is far better as it provide some nice
landmarks for guiding first time relatives to our homes. “Paani
waali tanky se right le lena mamaji. Fir municipality water pump se
left. Water piping ke liye khodi hui surang ke saath saath chaliyega.
Road ke centre main bdaa sa water suction pump hoga. Wahan se aage aapki
car nahi jaegi. Isliye Ham aa jayenge wahan. Welcome ke liye!”
Anyhow, the brainy rainy situation
continued for this summer trainee. My colleague in office, Nitin, was
getting minute to minute, second to second updates for the change in
positioning of the clouds on his android application. Well, I forgot to
mention, nitin is the customer relationship manager for the company. He
is designated so, because the relation between two companies is
surviving only because he happily absorbs all the high pitch abuses
transmitted from the customer end over the sophisticated system of
telecommunication into the fine curtain membrane cells of his baggy
ears. Surprisingly, today I observed his computer wallpaper has changed.
The satellite images of the clouds released daily or hourly by weather
department replaced his loving Ganpati bappa wallpaper – The one he got
installed into his computer, as I heard, after 2 months long fight with
the IT department. Ganpati image was made out of the green banyan leaves
placed one on other. It was an artistic one indeed. But what I found
out was that these forecast images were also no less a wonder. A series
of parallel lines running to and fro, up and down, diagonal and
anti-diagonal, wet -dry, cool-hot, shrinking-beaming, no, just
saddening! Partially the image resembled the asymptotes of {sin x – x}
curve, and partially a utility curve drawn for a rational customer (the
most irrational assumption in history) thinking to buy an umbrella from
Pune central mallJ. All I could make out of the curves, with my
intelligence finally was that the Meteorological department’s head was
sticking his tongue out at the viewer, laughing at his sheer foolish
attempts to understand it.
In-spite of so many thoughts that needed
verification, I dare not ask Nitin any question. The Maharashtrians
what I have observed are really straight forward with their dealings.
They’ll put a stick straight up your sleeves if you bend forward to
inquire. Or maybe it is just the corporate culture. So for me it’s like
getting quirky feeling in stomach with no loo nearby. God-damn, whom to
ask, why Nitin is in crush with meteorological website? Does he own a
pair of bullocks in nearby village and are his family members waiting
for rains to put them to work in the fields? Or does he have a big piece
of land mortgaged with local munshiji, who paid up for all his
studies so that when he grows up and gets into a job (where he is
screwed up every day from the customer for not sending material on
time), he repay double the loan in form of grains back to him. So far
such assumptions were going in my mind. Only because of that quirky
feeling, you know, in stomach.
I was quite baffled to see him baffled
because his customer was baffled with the baffling scenario in the
automobile industry. His Customer was not getting orders; hence he was
not getting the love calls from his dear customers over the delay in
material transit or customer line stoppage or delivering horse hoofs
instead of the elephant tusks and so on (Well if TATA 407 can be called chhota hathi, these terms may work for automobile parts as well, I guess, no?).
So coming back to the story, I was
baffled (I have already described the bafflement chain reaction). So
this baffling thing finally encouraged me to ask him the reason. “Why
are you checking out the horoscope of these clouds every day, for a week
now?” He looked at me directly in eyes, as if I had put my foot on his
tail. Grinning at me he said, “These clouds are very rogue. Rogue you
understand. Just like a rogue gang of boys roaming in the market,
teasing the shopkeeper though bargains, but in the end not buying
anything. Sagalaa Rogue aahe. Rogue manuss.”
The last words were in Marathi, this was
not a good sign. “Oh! That is really bad.” I said. “I can understand.
Your bullocks are waiting for the day it would rain and…” He looked at
me, “which bullocks are you talking about?” His lips perked upwards,
nose hocked as he leaned back in his chair. “Your bullocks! You must be
having. Er…Village. I mean… Land…” Words tumbled down my mouth. “No
Rains… creating problem.. errr… No?” Before I could pull them back, he
replied, “Yeda manuss! I don’t have any land. Nor do I have any bullocks!” That was a twister. Before I could ask him further about munshiji
and his daughter back in the village, he again spoke up, “these weather
charts are not for my personal use, as you think. These are to track
the demand of the automobiles in India.” I could clearly figure out that
this man is out of his brain. Rain charts predicting for him the future
company sales… I knew earlier he is crazy. I got up from my seat. “I
need to go for lunch. Will catch you back.” He was not listening. “Do
you think I’m a stupid?” he said. I raised my eyebrows and gave a stupid
smile and nodded to say no, while my eyes were shouting at him, “Yes,
any doubt. You are one. A big one, in fact.” To me what he was saying
was equivalent to saying that I’m checking the stock updates at CNBC to
know the next semester fees for MBA @ IITK. Or like I’m checking out the
telephone directory to know who all visited Avant Garde web page last
month. I mean, it could be any link that your brain may draw, that
totally defies logic.
“Hmmm… Are you sure, Nitin?” I asked. By
now, he was also getting serious. “Our company’s 90% of products” he
said, “are for domestic automobile market. We export only 10% of the
produce.” Hfew! I knew it already. Also, what does this has to do with
rainfall and all, I thought. He continued, “And who do you think creates
the pull for the automobile in domestic market?” That was too basic a
question. He was asking questions as a television news reporter do.
Asking ‘just anything’ to the people around her. Still I replied, “We. I
mean Indians. We create the pull, simple.” May be not as simple, as I
thought. He was not happy with my answer. “Nakko re baba.” His pitch of the voice raised, as he asked me, “India madhye kaun?” Oh I just heard Marathi again. He must be turning violent now. ‘Majhi Satkli’
could be his next dialogue I thought (from ‘Singham’ you might know).
“Na. Na. I never kept a track for this”, I said. He smiled. “Rural
buyers! Village men.” He spoke very softly this time, “Agriculture
oriented folks.” It was barely audible to me. “Rural people have a major
share in the HUV sales in India.” Oh! It means he was asking about the
customer demographics. Yup, I knew this to be true. The villagers with
deep pockets preferred HUV’s. That suited their requirements, and status
both. “So unless there will be a good agricultural yield,” he
continued, “They won’t be able create a pull for automobile in the
market. And hence I’m looking for a good & healthy rainfall this
time also. It is a must for our jobs, you know.”
Oh now I could understand. This guy,
that guy, every other guy in the company was engaged in discussing
rainfall for their own different concerns. But this reason was a
peculiar one. It stood apart from other reasons and most importantly, it
sounded more appealing to a budding manager! “That’s a great logic,
Nitin!” I looked at the corner of the ceiling. In a thoughtful mood, I
started walking towards the canteen. “But whatever the case may be,” I
thought, “this relation was otherwise hard to draw. I mean how the
evaporated drops of water in the air, brought nightmares to the customer
relation manager in automobile industry who is afraid that he may end
up losing his job in case these suspended water drops didn’t condense in
time!”
“Most of the times, tiny things are just
floating in vicinity. Just before us. But we are hardly able to realize
their potential effects. Yes, effects! If not here, then may be
somewhere else. If not now, then may be in future. Nature (read God) works in its
own mysterious ways.” As I was contemplating on this, a drizzle started
pouring on my head, and I rushed towards the canteen.
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