Me with my staff in Lower Sheikalmudi Estate, Anamallais
Leadership is not playacting. It is not pretension. It is not a game. It is authenticity, integrity, putting your money and yourself where your mouth is. We learned to walk our talk and the perils of not doing so, long before we knew that there was such a term. Credibility falls through the gap between walk and talk. We learned that there is only one way of living, and that is by our values. And that was a good way. It helped us to sleep soundly at night and to hold our heads high, during the day.
In the plantation world we had two cadres of staff: Covenanted and Non-covenanted. Covenanted Staff started at Assistant Manager (or Assistant Superintendent) and Non-covenanted staff ended at that level. There were very few exceptions to this ‘rule’ and where they existed, you could tell them a mile away. This system was an outcome of the fact that the British planters who ‘opened’ the plantations and for almost a century later, were all army-men, almost to the last one. They implemented the Army/Military system of Officer Staff and NCOs in the plantations also. The ‘glass ceiling’ was made of toughened, almost armored glass and was very rarely penetrated and never broken. Interestingly the same system exists in India, in the army and police (IPS Direct Recruits) to this day.
The pecking order of the servants in the bungalow
was that the butler was on the top, followed by the Chokra (a Hindustani word
with a derogatory tone which literally means ‘urchin’). This worthy was the
assistant of the butler who did all the cleaning, scrubbing, and polishing work
in the bungalow. Then there was the gardener who did all the work outside. If
you had a cow, there was the cow-keeper. There was the dhobi (washer man) who
washed and ironed your clothes. All these for you as the Assistant Manager in
South Indian gardens. I am informed that Managers in Assam and Bengal had more
servants and bigger bungalows.
When you got promoted and went to the Big
Bungalow, you got an additional servant inside the bungalow and a driver for
your car. The pecking order remained the same. The pecking order was very
strictly followed. Almost always the only person you spoke to or who spoke to
you was the butler. He was the one who handled the money. You would give it to
him, to give to the others or to the provision merchant from whom food for the
bungalow was bought on credit. Credit played a major role in life as most
assistants had no money. Many who liked high living had club bar bills that
took up most of their salaries and so they lived on credit. This was obviously
an evil because apart from the obvious reasons, many butlers set up their own
kickback systems as a result. It was a given that you would pay more for
provisions than other people but that was the burden of being the Chinna Dorai
(Small Boss). Some managers were very stingy and corrupt and set up systems of
gratuity and underhand payment in kind that they would write off to some estate
expense or the other. These systems were well learnt by their subordinates who
added to these systems of subterfuge and deception and ran a very corrupt
‘ship’ as it were.
One cardinal fact of plantation life always took
its toll – nothing in planting life was private. If you took a bribe, its exact
amount, who gave it, and for what, was the subject of much conversation in the
bazaar. If you refused to be corrupt and lived a life of honesty, that also
became common knowledge. The result was that the actual love and respect that
you received from the workers and staff was directly proportional to the kind
of life you lived. And in the end, it affected your own success, the loyalty
that people showed you, and the peace of mind you lived with. People spoke with
great respect about managers who were incorruptible and with disgust and
disdain about managers who were corrupt. And in a place where you were the
subject of most conversation, public opinion made a very big difference to your
success as a Manager.
Most people understood the responsibility and meaning of being ‘Covenanted Staff’ and that it was precisely the superior moral position that gave them the ‘command authority’ that neither any special educational qualifications nor social order bestowed on them. They understood the importance of these unwritten rules and respected them. But there were others who abused this position much to everyone’s disgust. They didn’t realize until too late that the resultant loss of respect was the most expensive loss they would ever suffer and something that was never redeemable. People spoke disparagingly about such managers who stole or womanized or got drunk and made fools of themselves and the resultant loss of respect plagued them in their administrative duties. In my decade in planting, I had the opportunity to see both kinds. People for whom I developed the highest respect and those for whom pity, and contempt were the only emotions possible. But the saddest was when some of those who I respected the most showed that their previously uncompromising principles were okay to compromise when it came to what they thought was good for their own careers.
It also strengthened me. I have been stubborn with my principles and have learnt from experience that the price you pay to live by your principles, no matter how painful it may seem, is always much less than what it costs to compromise them. Once you compromise your principles, you can never look those who you used to inspire, in the eye. Maybe some can live with that shame. I can’t. I am grateful that there were others who stood by me and that I never compromised my own principles and ethics. I paid the price by making enemies who did their best to hurt me in every way. That they didn’t succeed was the grace of Allah and not a measure of my own strength or the support of anyone else. I learnt the lesson that if you want to lead you must learn to like being alone. For the tiger walks alone while sheep have plenty of company. We define ourselves and world accepts that definition. Who am I to argue with how you define yourself?
Traditionally, like in the army, there has always
been a social distance between the Managers and other staff. There is social
interaction, but in a very formalized and rule bound way. Most of it is
restricted to ceremonial occasions around festivals. The Manager was the
‘Headman’ of the estate and was expected to be completely secular to the extent
that he was supposed to preside at all festivals irrespective of his or the
celebrator’s religion. We had Hindu and Christian Managers presiding at Eid
celebrations and Muslim Managers flagging off the cart bearing the deity at
temple festivals. This tradition came out of the history of plantation labor
almost all of whom were Dalit and in their own homelands, were not allowed into
temples as they were considered ‘untouchable.’ But in the plantations, thanks
to the fact that they were all displaced and almost all from the same caste,
they created their own religious customs. So many temples in the plantation
districts have Dalit priests, an anomaly in itself. Later, some Brahmin priests
who were perhaps short of money in their hometowns started to come and preside
at the temple, but the shots were called by the Dalits who built the temple and
paid their salary. So, Dalits could not be prevented from entering the temple
and were treated respectfully by the Brahmin priest. That is why the religion
of the Manager didn’t matter; by definition, a Christian or a Muslim were
untouchable in the Hindu caste system anyway. But in a world comprised of
untouchables, everyone was touchable.
The Managers were initially all British, Christian,
and white and lived by their own traditions which were more British Military
than Christian. Many of them were only nominally practicing Christians for whom
the daily pilgrimage to the local Planter’s Club bar was more sacrosanct than
weekly attendance at the Church. Over the years, more out of necessity than
‘equal opportunity,’ the British planters started recruiting Indians to the
‘Covenanted Staff’ cadre because British youngsters were not willing to go out
to India. These people came from upper class families, sometimes local nobility
(which is how we had a number of Hyderabadis from the noble families of
erstwhile Hyderabad State). The key, non-negotiable requirement was social
acceptability. The logic was that everything else could be taught. But Covenanted
Staff needed to be people who held themselves apart and considered themselves
somewhat superior to others. To give this a positive spin, it was probably not
racism alone but the need for the Officer Cadre to have the moral authority to
command. However, there was a thin line which a lot of times got very faint
indeed.
These people and their families automatically got
membership in the Planter’s Club and were strictly supposed to follow
tradition. Almost everyone did to the extent that many even spoke their own
languages with a British accent. I used to have a very hard time trying to keep
a straight face when I heard emanating from a black Tamilian face the words,
“Angamootoo yenge da irkain??” in a very British accent. Those of my readers
who know Tamil can probably imagine how funny this would sound. There is a very
funny story about one of these black-outside-white-inside managers driving to
visit another manager friend in an estate where he was not familiar with the
roads. He stops his car and calls out to a worker who was walking down the
road, “Dey, payyan inge wa da. Inda wali yenge pohudoo?” The man, obviously
irritated replied, “Dorai inda wali nayra Englandu ku pohudoo” (Sir this road
goes straight to England). Once again those who know Tamil will see how highly
disrespectful this entire conversation is towards the worker. There is nothing
more pathetic than someone who disrespects his own people and imagines himself
to be superior and different because of his pretensions.
This internalization of British tradition is
exemplified to this day in the fact that while the racist signs (Dogs and
Indians not allowed) have come down the ‘formal dress’ in most ex-British Clubs
is still lounge suit or dinner jacket and if you, Mr. Indian, make the mistake
of imagining that your country’s national dress is more holy and come dressed
in it, you will be stopped at the door of the Club lounge and told politely
that you will be able to sit on the veranda. But if you entertained any hope of
having dinner in the formal dining room you would have to go home and get
changed into ‘decent’ clothes. At last count, it has been over sixty years
since we became ‘independent’ from the British. As I always tell people, nobody
can enslave you. You enslave yourself. And you have nobody in the world to blame
for it. We Indians are particularly good at this voluntary enslavement. At the
time of this writing, we are very busy exchanging traditional British chains
for American ones. But seeing that the British have themselves done that
already, it is hardly surprising that their erstwhile colonials are following
suit, never having truly shed the colonial baggage themselves.
I remember with amusement my first job interview
in 1978 with the Kannan Devan Tea Company (now Tata Tea) in Munnar, Kerala. I
was asked to report one day prior to the date of the interview. An old friend,
who was an Assistant Manager and knew the ropes, told me that this was to see
if the candidates would fit the social scene. I was to wear a tie and lounge
suit, he said. We would start in the Men’s Bar and after the drinks were over,
we would be asked into the dining room to have dinner which we would have all
together. While we did this, different people would come and talk to us. And
all this would be observed and would count in our favor or against us in the
interview the next day.
Sure enough, that evening we were asked to present
ourselves at the High Range Club, sharp at 7.00 pm. About twelve of us in
various styles of suits and ties found ourselves in the Men’s Bar (women not
allowed). We were asked what we drank. When it came to my turn, I said that I
would like to have a soft drink. People looked at me with various expressions;
the barman with pity, fellow contestants with derisive smiles, and other
inhabitants of the bar with a variety of expressions related to whether they
thought I was a poor fool, uncultured, or just plainly idiotic. To put the
record straight, someone in the meanwhile gave me a fresh lime soda.
As I sat there (I was all of twenty-two years old)
wondering about the job that I had applied for and what drinking alcohol had to
do with it, I heard a loud, “Hello there!” I looked up to see a florid red face
in a body without a neck and a large smile looking at me. “So you don’t drink,
eh?” he asked. Seeing that I was drinking a fresh lime soda (what else can you
do with an FLS?) and that he could see what I was doing, I decided to keep
silent and simply smiled and nodded. Smiling and nodding is an excellent
strategy to allow people to interpret whatever they want.
“Tell me something young fellow,” he said, “Do you
play cricket?”
I said that I did, but others who played with me
wished that I didn’t.
Then he asked me, “Are you a Mason?” At that time,
not being aware of the Free Masons Society I thought he wanted to know if I
could build walls. “No, I’m not,” I said.
He looked me up and down with a sad expression on
his face and said, “You don’t drink, you don’t play cricket, and you are not a
Mason. Boy! You don’t have a chance.” Then looking at my face once again, he
said, “Anyway, don’t worry, I am not on the recruitment panel.”
As it turned out, that did not make any difference
to the outcome since those who were on the panel had the same views. I was
asked a lot of questions about everything other than planting tea and given the
‘kiss of death’ – “Thank you very much, we will get back to you.” In plain
English this means, “We are very glad that we are seeing the back of you.”
Thinking back over this incident, what is clear to
me is the principle behind this method. In a place with a limited population
(you did not count the estate staff and God Forbid, the workers as people) that
you could socialize with, it was essential that you hired people who were
socially acceptable. So social values that matched those of the locals had
overwhelming importance. The skills of tea plantation management were all
trainable. On the other hand, eating at table using the right fork for the
right meat, drinking yet not getting drunk, making conversation that was inane
yet interesting, dancing with the manager’s wife and so on were all skills that
were either thought to be not trainable or too much trouble. So British
managers (including their acolytes, the Brown Sahibs) hired young people from
backgrounds that were socially acceptable to them and then trained them for job
related skills, on the job. I obviously didn’t match and so was rejected.
The Sahib’s prediction was right, even though he
was not on the panel. Brown Sahibs were always more conscious of snobbery; who
wanted a fellow who neither drank nor played cricket? The British indoctrinated
Indians so well in what was ‘decent, socially acceptable, and respectable’ that
Indians adopted their ways as their own. Take the issue of clothing for
example. Even though India has its own national and regional attire, the
official attire for all ‘business, formal, decent’ occasions is Western
clothes. Even today, nobody in their right mind would even dream of going for a
job interview in an Indian company, knowing full well that the hiring manager
is also Indian and that there is not a British person on the rolls of the
company, in anything but Western clothes. And if he did turn up in a
dhoti-kurta or a sherwani (the national attire of India), it is more than
likely that he would not be hired for that reason alone – over sixty years
after our official Independence from British colonial rule.
People adopt new standards because they like them
and see them as adding value to them. Even when it can be argued in some cases
that there is no real value addition, as long as people feel that there is,
they will take to the new standard. The British, in order to demean Indians,
made their doormen dress like Maharajas, in a Sherwani and turban. Sadly, to
this day, this is the dress of our doormen at most hotels.
The most common lament that I hear today has to do with the fast disappearing “Eastern/Indian values,” which are being replaced by Western Pop culture. We tend to blame various agents for this, the chief being TV. My question is, “Why is it that our ancient cultures and their values are so weak that they are so easily replaced by some silly trend popularized on TV?” Blaming is of no use to anyone. What we need to do is to ask these questions and find answers, no matter how painful the process. Why is it that we and the generation before ours have not been able to communicate and sell the values we talk about so nostalgically to our children? What have we done in our own lives to reinforce those values? To what extent are we responsible for creating the exposure to the values we criticize? For example, we complain that our children do nothing but watch TV serials, music videos with all their shamelessness, and play Nintendo and other video games. But we never ask ourselves, “Who bought the TV, the Nintendo Game Controller, and the cable connection?” Do we sit with the children after they have watched something to analyze that program and derive its learnings? Do we spend time to understand what it is that they like about programs that we disapprove of? In short, do we have a conversation with our children? Or are we seen as mobile ATM machines that can be manipulated to get money to do what the kids want to do and can then be ignored until the next urge surfaces?
For more please read my book, ‘It’s my Life’, available on Amazon worldwide
The plantation industry is perhaps the finest place in which
to learn leadership in a very hands-on manner. It is hugely exciting, sometimes
very painful and always beneficial; the lessons learnt of lasting benefit. It
is a treasure-trove of memories that last all life long; decades after most of
us left planting. It enriches us with friendships that transcend all boundaries
of religion, culture, region or language and with the cohesiveness of steel
rope. If I am asked to name three of my closest friends, two if not all three
would be planter friends. Of such a place and time, I speak.
The vast majority of workers in the estates were
Dalit (lower caste Hindus). In some estates there were some Christians
(converts from Dalits). In some estates, especially close to Kerala there were
Malayali (Kerala) Muslims. Anamallais, where I joined, had a majority of Dalit
workers. In the Hindu caste system, these Dalits are considered ‘unclean’ by
other high caste Hindus and so in their villages they have to live in a
separate area, are not allowed inside the temple, and have to even draw their
water from a well set apart from the common village well. These are some of the
facts about discrimination against Dalits, which is still prevalent in India.
When these people came to work in the plantations,
more than a century ago, they organized themselves according to the villages
they came from. Since they were the only Hindus on the estates, they built
temples in some of which they performed the rituals themselves. In other
temples, they hired a Brahmin priest from the plains to do the honors. By and
large, they were able to create their own society on the estates and so lived
with a great deal more honor and self-respect than their own relatives were
allowed to live in the plains in their native villages. However, some of the
sense of low self-esteem and awareness of their own low status in the so-called
real world remained. I got a taste of this very early in my planting career.
One of our workers in Sheikalmudi Estate died
while he was away on leave in his village. Several of his family asked me for 5
days leave to go to his funeral. I was not too happy giving so much leave to so
many people, but I agreed because in the words of my Manager Mr. A.V.G. Menon,
‘Nobody dies so that others can get leave.’ Imagine my amazement however, when
the next day I saw them all back in the estate. I asked them what had happened
and why they were back so soon. They all looked sheepish and refused to say
anything. Finally, after much persuasion, this is the story they told me.
“We reached our village late in the night. The
next morning, we went to the local tea shop to get have some tea. But to our
surprise (and embarrassment) we were not allowed inside the shop. We were told
that if we wanted to have tea, we could take the coconut half-shells that were
hanging on nails from one of the roof rafters and sit outside on the ground
outside the shop and drink the tea. Once we had drunk the tea, we had to wash
the ‘utensils’ and put them back on their nails.”
“But you know Dorai,” one of the younger ones told
me, “The price of the tea is the same for us and for the high caste Hindus who
are given proper cups. No discount price for drinking in coconut cups sitting
in the dust.”
“I guess we forgot who we were, Dorai,” said their
leader. “After all, we all came from the same village, but we have lived here
for so long that we started believing that we also are human beings. This visit
reminded us of what we are.”
I was speechless with anger and sadness. What
could I say to them? Thousands of years of oppression and apartheid, alive and
well in Tamilnadu, a state that claims to have 100% literacy. And a collective
helplessness that seems to be able to do nothing about it. One of my major
motivators in working with Dalits all my life is this incident. I can still
feel the anger and the shame of a society that allows this discrimination while
mouthing all kinds of platitudes about ‘children of god’ – Harijan – the name
that Gandhiji gave the Dalits. If they are children of god, then we must
question what kind of god it is who allows such discrimination.
When I joined Sheikalmudi Estate in 1983 as
Assistant Manager, Lower Division, the pruning season was going on at the end
of which, it was estate tradition to have a big lunch to which all the pruning
workers, supervisors and managers are invited. On the given day, I arrived at
the Muster (gathering place to allot work) and was ceremonially met by the
Union leaders, staff, and some workers, garlanded with flowers and taken in a
procession to the Crèche which was the site for the lunch. In South India we
eat off a grass mat spread on the floor on which plantain leaves are spread in
lieu of plates and so the seating was arranged accordingly for all the
gathering. I noticed that in the corner there was a table set aside with a
place setting; knife, fork, and porcelain plate. I realized what was going on.
The special seating was for me so that I would not be embarrassed at having to
eat with them and save them from the resultant embarrassment in case I refused
to eat with ‘low caste’ people. The diplomatic thing to do was to use social
status as the excuse and set up a separate eating place where both their honor
and mine would remain intact. At the time of this story I was new, and they did
not know what my values were, so they weren’t taking any chances.
I decided
to make a point and set the record straight right away in the context of my
relationship with them.
Pointing
to the table and chair, I asked the organizers, “Who is that place for?”
“For you
Dorai!” he said.
“You
mean you called me to this function, but I can’t eat with you and have to eat
separately?” I challenged him.
He was
horrified at this turn of events. “Ayyo! Dorai, we thought you may not like to
eat with us. That is why we set this table for you. The fact that you are here
is an honor for us. You don’t have to sit and eat with us on the floor.”
I knew of course why he was saying what he was
saying. This was the Dalit speaking to someone who was socially higher than
himself. Even though the caste issue did not apply in my case as I am Muslim and
we have no caste system, all human beings being equal in Islam irrespective of
caste or race. However, the Dalits have learnt to play safe. So, they were
giving me the honor due to a high caste Hindu.
I wanted to make my point. I said to him, “In my
culture, the guest is only honored if the host eats with him. So, if you people
are not going to eat with me, then I will leave as I have no need to be
insulted.”
“Ayyo Dorai, please don’t misunderstand. If you
eat with us, it is we who will be honored,” he replied. There were now big
smiles on the faces of everyone. “Dorai said he will eat with us,” the whisper
flew through the crowd. A place was set for me at the head of the eating mat
and we sat down to a wonderful meal, something which they said was the first
experience of its kind in their lives. My point was made; here was a man who
did not differentiate on the basis of caste and who genuinely believed in
equality of people. I did not fully realize the power of what I had done, just
by following my own religion. Many years and many incidents later, some of the
workers who were with us at that banquet that day said to me, “That day we
decided that you were one of us.” I have seldom felt more honored in my life.
My other butler who joined service with me when
Bastian left was Mohammed Khan, who I used to call Mahmood because he had the
name of the Prophet and I didn’t want to use it to call him as it sounded
disrespectful to yell out, ‘Mohammed’. So, I used to call him Mahmood. He was
perfectly happy with that as he knew that was a mark of respect on my part.
Mahmood was a great cook and intensely loyal. At that time, I was an Assistant
Manager working under a very corrupt Manager. I tried to keep my nose clean on
the principle that his doings didn’t concern me until one day he called me and
ordered me to certify the work of a civil contractor who was his man and gave
him a kickback in every contract. I agreed and asked the contractor to show me
the work so that I could measure it. The contractor looked very surprised and
asked me, ‘Did you speak to Peria Dorai (Big Manager)?’ I said to him, ‘Yes I
spoke to him. He told me to certify your work. So, show me your work and I will
certify it.’ The man went away and shortly, as expected, my manager called me.
‘Didn’t I tell you to certify his work?’
‘Yes, you did. I told him to show it to me so that
I can certify it.’
‘I have seen the work, so you can simply sign the
bills.’
‘If you have seen the work, then why don’t you
sign the bills? I don’t sign anything until I see it myself.’
That was that. Obviously, the man was not pleased.
So, he started to try to make my life miserable. I worked much harder than him
and made no mistakes so there was nothing he could do to get at me. One day he
decided to ‘inspect’ my house. He had a reputation for entering the bungalows
of his assistants and opening drawers and outraging their privacy. He waited
until I had left home and gone to the field and drove up to my bungalow.
Mahmood greeted him at the door.
Mahmood had a signature greeting. He would bend
over at an angle of forty-five degrees and put his left hand behind his back
and bring his right hand in a wide sweeping gesture from his side up to his
forehead in a salute and say, ‘Salaam Sahib.’ The Manager said to him, ‘I have
come to inspect the bungalow.’
Mahmood, ‘But Sahib, Baig Dorai is not here.’
‘That doesn’t matter. This house belongs to the
company and I have the right to enter it at any time without his permission.’
Mahmood responded, ‘Dorai, until he returns, I
can’t allow you to enter.’
‘I told you the house belongs to the company,’ he
yelled.
Mahmood said in a quiet voice, ‘Dorai, but I don’t
belong to the company. I will not allow you to enter until Dorai returns.
Please come back when he is here.’
The Manager was enraged but could do nothing short
of physically forcing his way in and Mahmood would have put him in a hospital
if he had tried. So, he left threatening to have him sacked. As soon as I went
to the office in the afternoon, he called me and said, ‘Sack that bloody butler
of yours right now.’
I asked him, ‘What happened?’ I knew exactly what
happened but wanted to hear it from him.
‘I went to inspect your bungalow, but he refused
to let me enter. Sack him right away.’
‘Why did you go to my bungalow when I was not
there? He was perfectly right in not allowing you. I will not sack him. If you
want to inspect the bungalow come when I am there.’ He never did and Mahmood
remained where he was until I moved to Ambadi when he left me and went back to
Ooty where he had his family.
Mahmood, making sure that I got properly married
It was in that year that I crashed my motorcycle
and went through one year of very difficult times. I had to have an operation
to replace the anterior cruciate ligament in my knee and then a very long
recovery followed by physiotherapy. All through that period Mahmood served me
faithfully and without complaint. He came with me to Hyderabad for my marriage
and the only decent marriage picture that I have has Mahmood peering over my
head through a curtain of flowers. My wedding photography was a complete
disaster and all that I have to show that I’d had a wedding is that one
picture. The best thing about both Bastian and Mahmood was that they were
completely trustworthy in every respect. They were faithful, their integrity
was beyond question, they maintained complete confidentiality, took pride in
their work, and cared for me and later when I got married, cared for both of us
like members of our own family. We also treated them as members of our own
family. I truly have wonderful memories of these two dear friends, both of whom
have passed away.
The tea plantations were an interesting place
where strange things happened as a matter of course. Over the years, I learned
never to be surprised at anything. In the Iyerpadi Hospital where Dr. John
Philip was the RMO as I’ve mentioned and his wife Maya was the Lady Doctor, a
man was brought in after having been bitten by a cobra on his face. How this
happened is a story in itself. This man had the reputation of knowing some sort
of magic spell that he claimed neutralized the effect of snake venom. He would catch
snakes and get them to bite him on his hand and then show people that nothing
happened to him. This naturally gave him a lot of ‘brand’ in a place as
superstitious as Anamallais was. The reality is that most snakes are
non-poisonous to begin with and those that are poisonous usually don’t inject a
full dose, either because they had hunted recently and have used up their
poison on their natural prey – rats – and have not regenerated a new supply, or
for some other reason. Never having been a snake, I can’t speak on their
behalf. The long and short of it is that most people who die of snake bite die
more out of fear than anything else.
In this case, however, our friend chased a cobra,
which tried to escape down a hole in the embankment by the side of the road but
he caught it by the tail and hauled it out and then caught it behind its head
and kissed it. He was himself sloshed out of his mind at the time and his
bravado far exceeded his intelligence. The result was that the snake
reciprocated the affection and he was bitten twice or thrice on the face. Given
that this snake did have some venom to donate and that he was bitten on the
face, he collapsed. Mercifully, some people saw him and brought him to the
hospital. At the hospital, there was no anti-venom and so Dr. John Philip gave
him some antihistamine and put him on the ventilator. Now, the interesting
thing was that the hospital didn’t have an electrical ventilator. What they had
was a mechanical device which was like a bellows and needed someone to sit
there and pump it constantly to ensure that the air supply continued
uninterrupted. It was amazing how everyone in the hospital, nurses, doctors, other
patients, their visitors, passersby who heard the tale, all came to the aid and
took turns to keep the air flowing into the lungs of the man who was completely
comatose. This continued day and night, hour on hour for 48 hours, and then we
beheld that the man’s eyes opened, and he sat up and a couple of hours later he
was as good as new. His love of kissing snakes though, had dampened a bit. I
asked Dr. John about this ‘miraculous’ event. He told me, ‘No miracle at all.
The poison is neurotoxic, but protein based. It affects the nerves and stops
the breathing. But being protein based, if you can keep the patient breathing
mechanically by forcing air into his lungs, when the poison naturally degenerates
within 48 hours the patient can breathe again’. However, miracles are far more
fun to believe in than science and so our friend’s stock went up even higher
after it was ‘proved’ that snake venom had no effect on him. The fact that he
was in a coma and had been kept alive mechanically for 48 hours was soon forgotten
because it came in the way of the belief in the nice miracle.
Shows how such beliefs thrive in all parts of the world, whereas the truth lies either in some straightforward physical reason or in less straightforward skullduggery and playacting.
For more, please read my book, ‘It’s my Life’. It is on Amazon worldwide
I started working in India in the Anamallai Hills,
part of the Western Ghats as they tapered down all the way into the tip of the
subcontinent. Before that I had worked for five years in bauxite mining in
Guyana, South America and lived on the bank of Rio Berbice, in the middle of
the Amazonian rain forest. But that is another story.
The area that contained the tea plantations was
part of the Indira Gandhi National Park. The park is home to an amazing variety
of wildlife which thanks to the difficult terrain, plethora of leeches, and shortage
of motorable roads is still safe from the depredations of ‘brave’ hunters buzzing
around in their Jeeps and shooting animals blinded and frozen in their searchlight
beams. In the Anamallais if you want to hunt (it is illegal to shoot anything
in the National Park, but there are those who are not bothered about what is
legal and what is not) you must be prepared to walk in the forest, up and down
some very steep hills, be bitten by leeches and have a very good chance at
becoming history at the feet of an elephant.
However, if you are not interested in hunting and
killing animals, you have all the same pleasures and thrills with the animal
healthy and alive at the end of it. I want to see and photograph animals, not
kill them. I was looking for an opportunity to just spend time in the
environment that I loved. My job as an Assistant Manager in Sheikalmudi Estate,
my first posting with a princely salary of ₹850 per month, gave me all that I
could have wished for.
Sheikalmudi borders the Parambikulam forest. This
extends from the shore of the Parambikulam Reservoir (created by damming the
Parambikulam River) up the steep mountainside all the way to the top.
Sheikalmudi is the crown on that mountain’s head, manicured tea planted after
cutting the rain forest, more than a century ago by British colonial planters.
Where the tea ends, starts the rain forest of the Western Ghats. Anamallais is
the second rainiest place on the planet. In the early part of the century it
used to get more than three-hundred centimeters of rain annually and
consequently it rained almost six months of the year. Even when I joined in
1983, we frequently saw spells of more than a week at a stretch, when it rained
continuously day and night without any easing of the volume of water. I was
horrified the first time I saw this. I was used to rain in Hyderabad, where we
get about thirty centimeters annually.
Now here was rain and more rain and more rain. Yet
in all this rain, we went to work at 6.00 am every morning. Heavy canvas
raincoat, waterproof jungle hat, shorts, stockings and wellingtons. We rode our
motorcycles down treacherous hill pathways, slippery in the rain and covered
with fog as sometimes a cloud decided to rest on its journey across the sky. It
was very cold because we were between 3500 to 4000 feet high and so in the
first ten minutes, you lost all feeling in your legs, below your knees.
Walls of the bungalow would have mildew growing on
them in damp patches. Small leaks would develop in the roof and their yield
would be received in sundry pots and pans placed under them. This would create
its own music. Little frogs would emerge from every crevice and would hop all
around the house. In the night, they would find some resting place and add
their voices to the night chorus of frogs and insects in the garden, that would
rise and fall like an animal breathing. But sometimes the rain would be so
heavy that all you could hear was the rain on the galvanized iron sheet roof.
This sound would drown out every other sound. Within the first week of the
beginning of the monsoon, all telephone lines would be down. Power supply would
become extremely erratic. And more often than not, landslides would block
roads. So being cut off from everyone for several days was a common phenomenon.
When there came the occasional storm – every year we used to have at least two
or three – all these problems would get magnified.
Candlelight dinners with a roaring fire in the
fireplace were the fringe benefit of this weather. That and in my case, a lot
of chess by the fire. The year I got married, 1985, there was a storm in which
twelve-hundred trees fell on my estate alone, taking down with them all power
and telephone lines. There were two major landslides and we were cut off from
the world for a total of fifteen days. It rained almost continuously for this
period and my poor wife had a wet introduction to the new life ahead of her.
But typical for us both, we enjoyed this time, playing chess by the fireside.
She started by not knowing chess at all and I taught her the game. By the end
of our enforced seclusion she was beating me. Now take it as her learning
ability or the quality of my game but being rained-in has its benefits.
1983-86 were boom years for tea in South India.
Anything that was produced would sell. The biggest buyers were the Russians who
bought on the rupee trade agreements between the governments of both countries.
Anything that could be manufactured in South India was bought by the Russians. Sadly,
quality went out the window. Some people, including myself, were able to see
the writing on the wall and tried to get manufacturers to focus on quality and
to get out of the commodity market and instead create brand. That, however,
meant investing in brand building and hard work in maintaining quality
standards. Since people were making money, nobody was interested in listening
to anything that meant more work or investment. Eventually, the inevitable
happened. Russia collapsed and so did their buying trend and it almost took the
South Indian tea industry down with it. Some companies shut down. Others were
more fortunate. But the whole industry faced some very hard times.
Life in the Anamallais passed like a dream. Berty
Suares was the Assistant Manager on the neighboring estate, Malakiparai. And
Sandy (Sundeep Singh) was on Uralikal. Both dear friends. They would come over
to my place and we would spend Sunday picnicking on the bank of the Sholayar
River where on a bend in the river that passed through our cardamom plantation,
I had built a natural swimming pool. I deepened the stream bed and deposited
the sand from there on the near bank, thereby creating a very neat ‘beach.’
Sitting on this beach under the deep shade of the trees after a swim in the
pool was a heavenly experience. Add to it, eating cardamom flavored honey
straight from the comb, taken from the many hives that I had set up in the
cardamom fields for pollination. The flavor comes from the pollen of the
flowers which the bees take to make the honey. Depending on where you set up
your hives or where the bees go to find pollen, honey can have as many flavors
as there are flowers. While we lazed
about at noon, our lunch would be brought down to us and we would all eat
together. The joys of being a planter in the days when we had people who knew
how to enjoy that life.
Prambikulam view from Murugalli
If you walked down the river for a couple of
kilometers you would come to the Parambikulam Dam backwaters into which this
river flowed. I had built another pool there at the bottom of a waterfall,
thanks to a stream that flowed through Murugalli Estate. We used to keep a boat
in the dam to go fishing on the lake. There was a thickly wooded island in the
lake about half a kilometer from the shore on which one could go and spend the
whole day, swimming and lazing in the shade; a very welcome occupation, free
from all stress. The only sounds that you would hear would be the wailing call
of the Rufus Backed Hawk Eagle and the Fishing Eagle. In the evenings, Jungle
Fowl called the hour. If you stayed beyond sunset, the only danger was that you
could encounter bison (Gaur) as you walked home. That encounter was not
something to look forward to as I discovered one day. Mercifully, I was walking
softly and the wind was in my face, so the Gaur was as startled as I was. He
snorted, spun on his heels, and vanished, crashing through the undergrowth. I
was very fortunate.
The more time I spent with myself, the clearer it
became that it is important to be ‘friends’ with yourself. The more you are
self-aware and comfortable internally, the more you can enjoy the world
outside. When you are not aware of what is happening to you inside or are
unhappy with decisions you have taken, or with your own internal processes, the
unhappier you are likely to be with your surroundings. The normal tendency is
to blame the outer world, but if one looks within, it is possible to find the
solution. One rider however, that you will find only if you seek and only if
you have the courage to recognize what you see. That is where sometimes the
matter remains unresolved. Not because there is no solution. But because we are
unwilling to accept the solution or to implement it.
Time for another dip, then climb into the hammock
and gently swing in the breeze that comes blowing over the water. Those were
the days……………………
One day we were at dinner in my bungalow in Lower Sheikalmudi when suddenly I noticed an orange glow in the sky. It looked like a brilliant sunset, but we were a long time past sunset. It was so marked that I got up and walked out on the veranda to see what it was. What I saw is a sight that I will never forget and which I hope I will never see again. It was like a picture out of a war movie. Sheikalmudi factory, which was probably about four km away as the crow flies, was enveloped in the brightest and biggest fire that I have ever seen. From where I stood on my veranda, I could see flames shooting high above its roof which was three stories above the ground. Tea factories that were built by the British planters were made primarily of wood, bolted over a steel structure. This wood was old and weathered and burnt with a vengeance. Fire was always a hazard and something that we took very seriously. Obviously something had gone very badly wrong and here was the grandmother of all fires, way beyond control.
I grabbed my coat and drove my bike like a racer and reached Sheikalmudi in record time, going hell for leather over dark unpaved field roads. Mercifully, the ride itself was uneventful. When I reached the factory, I parked my bike some distance away and ran to the fire. Lots of people had come to see a sight that thankfully most never see in their lifetimes. The manager of Sheikalmudi, Mr. S. M. Taher, a dear friend was standing by with tears in his eyes, watching his factory burn down. I stood by him. The heat was so intense that we were forced to stand at a distance. As the higher floors burned through, fan motors from the leaf withering lofts started to fall like meteors. The force of impact was so tremendous that in places it cracked the concrete floor. Steel girders got soft with the heat and twisted and bent under their own weight into strange snaky shapes. Every time the fire found something that burned more brightly there would be a huge flare and a lick of flame would reach for the sky.
There was no lighting and neither was there need for any. The fire lit up our whole world in its eerie orange glow. I dare not call it beautiful because it destroyed something that had stood for almost a century. But then, it was beautiful in its own way. A transitory beauty that belied its real destructive power. Among the first people to reach there after I did was Mr. Saleem Shareef who had seen the fire from his estate Uralikal, which was much farther away. He came as fast as he could to try to help in any way he could. This was the code of the planter. We all went to each other’s aid, no matter who it was and no matter how far we had to go and no matter that we may actually not be able to do anything concrete. To stand by the side of a friend is to fill an invaluable space.
In this case there were literally hundreds of people gathered but nothing that anyone could do to put the fire out. As I stood there, watching this sight, the thing that I was most conscious about was my own helplessness. The fire was so big and powerful that there was simply no way to put it out. We had tried everything already. All the fire extinguishers that we could reach had been used up. The ones inside the factory simply melted in the heat. There was no Fire Service to call. We were left to our own resources to fight the fire. And we had none other than a garden hose which was less than useless. All we could do was to stand by and watch. It was a sense of helplessly bearing witness to destruction that we had no power to halt. Today as I read about world events (2002-19 and still watching), I am reminded of that night. Standing by and watching something that was so valuable to us, burn to the ground, with no power to stop it.
But despite that we could not imagine leaving the place until the fire itself had gone cold and all that was left was a black pile of debris, soot, and ash. It was sacrilege to leave and not stand by to bear witness to the end of the life of Sheikalmudi factory. It was like being next to a dying friend. How could you possibly leave? Somehow just the standing by seemed to have some meaning in itself and gave us a sense of parting that those who had not been able to come by that night, did not have.
Fires and estates are companions. Not surprising given the combination of people who smoke and don’t always bother to put out their cigarettes, and forests with semi deciduous trees that regularly carpet the floor with their leaves every summer. We used to take a lot of preventive steps including clearing fire boundaries where we would clear a wide swathe of ground of all undergrowth and leaves and keep it swept clean so that even if a fire started it could be contained. We had also constructed water tanks and dammed streams to create small reservoirs, which would be useful if we needed water in a hurry to put out a fire. These reservoirs were also very useful as watering holes for wildlife in the summer and a source of endless delight for my dear friend, Berty and me to watch the animals as they came down to drink.
One day late in the afternoon someone came running to the office (days without mobile phones or walky-talky radios) and said that a fire had started in the Murugalli coffee area. In the plantations emergencies were everyone’s affair. News would go to all those who could be informed and they all rushed to the aid of the estate which had the problem. All who could go would go, regardless of whose estate it was.
As soon as the runner caught his breath, I put him on the back of my motorcycle to guide me and we were off. When I reached the place I realized that this was a fairly large forest fire. There were about thirty of our workers and two supervisors who had been working in the area. I marshaled them all and got them to clear a belt and start a counter fire. The idea was to burn an area across the direction of the fire and clear it of all inflammable material so that when the main fire reached this place it would simply starve to death. We started the counter fires and once the dry stuff was burnt we beat out the flames with green leafy branches that we had previously cut and kept at hand. The main fire was moving very fast as it was being pushed by a tail wind. As it came up to us it was our task to ensure that it did not jump the cleared boundary. Every time a flame jumped the fire boundary, we beat it to death. There was no water available where we were otherwise to wet as much area as possible as a preventive measure.
It is very interesting to reflect that not a single one of us there had been formally trained in firefighting. Yet we did all the right things. The result in my case of a lot of reading, some of it about forest fires. And in the case of the others, the result of listening to stories of fires of the past that others had fought. Story telling as a way of informal, but very powerful teaching is the mainstay in villages. This is how even great classics of literature are born; as stories to teach life lessons. Over the centuries they acquire a life of their own, get embellished with local color and imagination and are even believed to be real. Be that as it may, their teaching value remains until the story gets converted to mythology where it starts to be considered holy and read as a ritual instead of as a means of learning.
There was huge excitement. People shouting instructions to each other, cheers as a small fire was put out, curses at the main fire and so on. But in all this excitement, we did not pay attention to one small, but critical detail. The main fire had sent a tail around a small hump in the land and while we were busy fighting the main head, its tail had all but surrounded us. I can’t remember who it was who first noticed the smoke and glow because it had become dark by now. We had been fighting the fire for more than four hours when suddenly one of the workers shouted that we were getting surrounded by the fire. All activity stopped and people looked to me for direction.
This is the kind of leadership challenge that the plantation career faced you with. Not every day but certainly more than once in your career. And you had only one chance. I realized that the only way left for us was to actually go across the face of the main fire and down a very steep hillside which would take us down to the Parambikulam Lake. I called out the directions to the people and said to them, “Go ahead, I will follow you.” The reason for this was because the danger was behind us and so I wanted to be the last in the line. But the people of the estates form bonds that are hard to describe. The formal relationship is that of manager and subordinate with all its usual ways. The fact that we all lived together and shared in each other’s joys and sadness led to bonds that may not be visible in normal times, but which in time of crisis came to the fore.
The result of this was that the workers refused to obey me. They told me to go first. I refused. And we had a stalemate in the middle of the fire. Eventually one of them said to me, “Dorai, if something happens to you while we all get away, how will we face Madam?” To this I replied, “If the father gets away and leaves the children to die, what do you have to say about such a father?” That clinched the argument and we started out the way I had ordered in the first place with one small change. Two of the biggest guys flanked me as body guards while the others ran ahead. A knowledge of the culture, tradition and the local language all play a very strong role in leadership situations. As also does symbolism in a culture that is based on a very strong mythological foundation. I loved those people and they loved me. We fought when we had to, but the bond of love based on respect only became stronger.
The forests of the Anamallais are evergreen rain forests and so are not susceptible to burning down completely like temperate forests of coniferous trees which exude oil that is itself inflammable. So during a forest fire, there is no real danger to the trees apart from some temporary damage. The undergrowth burns down and leaf litter converts into potash-rich ash. Fallen dry logs burn partially in every fire. Once the fire cools the forest regenerates. New green grass, germinating seeds and the ash itself attracts all kinds of herbivores. If the fire burns in the day, Bee Eaters, Swallows, and other birds follow the fire and eat insects that the fire flushes. Snakes leave their holes and race to safety. At this time they are harmless as they are too busy trying to get away. Larger animals are in no danger at all as they have plenty of time to get away. The real danger is to the plantation crops that border the forests and that is why we planters are very concerned about fires. This time around, our tea wasn’t damaged apart from some damage to the bushes on the boundaries.
I started my career in Guyana, working as the Assistant Administrative Manager for GUYMINE’s Berbice Operations, in Kwakwani, in 1979. This was a little mining town in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest on the bank of the Berbice River. I spent five years there, living on my own, learning lessons of life about working across boundaries of race, culture and religion. With my love of the forest and wildlife, Guyana was heaven. But I knew that since all promotions at that time had a big political overtone, there was no way that I, a foreigner, would ever have a serious career in Guyana.
When I returned to India and joined the plantation industry, I was serious about making a career as a planter and about reaching the top of my company on the basis of merit and results. So, I put my heart and soul into the job. What helped also was that the surroundings were something that I loved. I started working in the Anamallai Hills, part of the Western Ghats as they tapered down all the way into the tip of the subcontinent. The area that contained the tea plantations was part of the bigger Indira Gandhi National Park. The park is home to an amazing variety of wildlife which thanks to the difficult terrain, plethora of leeches, and shortage of motorable roads is still safe from the depredations of ‘brave’ hunters in their Jeeps and searchlights. In the Anamallais if you want to hunt (it is illegal to shoot anything in the National Park, but there are those who are not bothered about what is legal and what is not) you must be prepared to walk in the forest, up and down some very steep hills, be bitten by leeches and have a very good chance at becoming history at the feet of an elephant.
However, if you are not interested in hunting and killing animals, you have all the same pleasures and risks without the benefit of some wild meat at the end of it. But that is how I was. I wanted to see and photograph animals, not kill them. I had hunted enough in my youth and had lost interest in killing things as my connection with nature strengthened. I was looking for an opportunity to just spend time in the environment that I loved. My job as an Assistant Manager in Sheikalmudi Estate, my first posting, gave me all that I could have wished for.
Sheikalmudi borders the Parambikulam forest. This extends from the shore of the Parambikulam Reservoir (created by damming the Parambikulam River) up the steep mountainside all the way to the top. Sheikalmudi is the crown on that mountain’s head, manicured tea planted after cutting the rain forest, more than a century ago by British colonial planters. Where the tea ends, starts the rain forest of the Western Ghats. Anamallais is the second rainiest place on the planet. In the early part of the century it used to get more than three hundred centimeters of rain annually and consequently it rained almost six months of the year. Even when I joined in 1983, we frequently saw spells of more than a week at a stretch, when it rained continuously day and night without any easing of the volume of water. I was horrified the first time I saw this. I was used to rain in Hyderabad, where we get about thirty centimeters annually. And to the rain in Guyana, where because of the Trade Winds which brought the rain, it rained on most days in the evenings for a little while and then cleared up.
Now here was rain and more rain and more rain. Walls of the bungalow would have mildew growing on them in damp patches. Small leaks would develop in the roof and their yield would be received in sundry pots and pans placed under them. This would create its own music. Little frogs would emerge from every crevice and would hop all around the house. In the night, they would find some resting place and add their voices to the night chorus of frogs and insects in the garden, that would rise and fall like an animal breathing. But sometimes the rain would be so heavy that all you could hear was the rain on the galvanized iron sheet roof. This sound would drown out every other sound. Within the first week of the beginning of the monsoon, all telephone lines would be down. Power supply would become extremely erratic. And more often than not, landslides would block roads. So being cut off from everyone for several days was a common phenomenon. When there came the occasional storm – every year we used to have at least two or three – all these problems would get magnified.
Lower Sheikalmudi Estate bungalow
Candle light dinners with a roaring fire in the fireplace were the fringe benefit of this weather. That and in my case, a lot of chess by the fire. The year I got married, 1985, there was a storm in which twelve-hundred trees fell on my estate alone, taking down with them all power and telephone lines. There were two major landslides and we were cut off from the world for a total of fifteen days. It rained almost continuously for this period and my poor wife had a wet introduction to the new life ahead of her. But typical for us both, we enjoyed this time, playing chess by the fireside. She started by not knowing chess at all and I taught her the game. By the end of our enforced seclusion she was beating me. Now take it as her learning ability or the quality of my game but being rained-in has its benefits.
I always look for challenges. Anything that comes easy does not excite me. My learning that it is the extraordinary goal that inspires extraordinary effort is very personal to me. In the plantation industry I was constantly focused on setting new records. And over the years I was able to do this in all aspects of tea and rubber planting. I set the record in yield per hectare, in work tasks in various cultivation activities, and in the price of the manufactured product.
1983-86 were boom years for tea in South India. Anything that was produced would sell. The biggest buyers were the Russians who bought on the rupee trade agreements between the governments of both countries. Anything that could be manufactured in South India was bought by the Russians. Naturally, quality went out the window. Some people, including myself, were able to see the writing on the wall and tried to get manufacturers to focus on quality and to get out of the commodity market and instead create brand. That, however, meant investing in brand building and hard work in maintaining quality standards. Since people were making money, nobody was interested in listening to anything that meant more work or investment. Eventually, of course, the inevitable happened. USSR collapsed and so did their buying trend and it almost took the South Indian tea industry down with it. Some companies shut down. Others were more fortunate. But the whole industry faced some really hard times.
But then vision is to be able to see that which doesn’t exist. Anticipation is the key which is not difficult to achieve if you do some scenario planning.
This is the kind of leadership challenge that the plantation career faced you with. Not every day but certainly more than once in your career. And you had only one chance. I realized that the only way left for us was to actually go across the face of the main fire and down a very steep hillside which would take us down to the Parambikulam Lake. I called out the directions to the people and said to them, “Go ahead, I will follow you.” The reason for this was because the danger was behind us and so I wanted to be the last in the line. But the people of the estates form bonds that are hard to describe. The formal relationship is that of manager and subordinate with all its usual ways. The fact that we all lived together and shared in each other’s joys and sadness led to bonds that may not be visible in normal times, but which in time of crisis came to the fore.
