when I was red…

An item today in The Hindu suggests the way to laughter, which is to look beyond anger to the absurdity of the situation. I glanced at the story and read only the big-lettered nut graf on my way to work and forgot all about the idea when we entered the gate, where, for two months and a half there is the sore sight of workmen on strike, and from yesterday the scene punches the gut, the unbearable vision of unwashed men on a relay hunger strike, and their unwashed cohorts who have slept there overnight.

My anger against those that have misled them, and have them still in their thrall, dried up many days ago.

They want me to talk to them, and their request they have sent to the newspapers and to the television channels, but not to me. A young man came with a TV camera today, himself the reporter, himself the cameraman. He spent good time outside with the workmen and his mind was made up before he entered the factory. “Can you not speak with them? On humanitarian grounds? How can you allow a hundred and seventy workmen to sit outside?” When the HR Manager came to me and told me these questions that the young man had asked him, I remembered my own youth and my strong belief then, which I don't remember whence it came, that only the devil begat businessmen.

He left schlepping his camera and I wondered if I should call him and talk to him myself, and repeat to him that we've been beseeching them every day for seventy days to come in and work; that a matter gone to court is a matter abandoned to its time; that it is not done to press for the recall of workmen dismissed on disciplinary grounds. The things I composed for him sounded awful in my mind, and I decided to let him go, to allow him to indulge in the romance of outrage at capitalists and exploitation and at the oppression of the working classes. Then I cursed the owner of the news channel who is himself a businessman, and a politician, and I asked myself how his channel can send a kid to cover something of which he cannot see all dimensions.

But the boy has stirred remembrances, of when my tilt was toward red too, when my gear was meager, a ten-cent pen and a rough-woven kurta that fell below my knees and let the sun and the wind of Mysore and Manasa Gangothri through to my skin. Now in the evening I'm writing these notes and I'm thinking how I'd have enjoyed it in my time on the campus, if I'd had that boy’s large camera, and his freedom, and his access, and businessmen like me to make a mess of.

red in my head

This week, on the treadmill, it has been The Who and Janis Joplin. It was Joplin today, and I finished my exertions to the tune of Ball 'n' Chain and her messianic advise to stay locked on today, to hang on to the moment.

Zen. If I could do what she and zen ask I should feel better, so I'm trying to be present, but I'm also wondering which tomorrow will change these straits of today. Eleven days have passed since the strike in the main factory. Three workmen have come in and joined those who never went out. The supervisors and managers and other leaders are pitching in with their hands, the sum of them producing a fraction of the normal output. The rest are out at the gate, shouting in unison for justice that is rightfully due the company.

They’ve been shouting abuses that I didn't think—for twenty-one years—they knew and used.

And they've been whispering lies: regarding the purpose of the strike; regarding the procedures at the labor office; regarding the outcomes before the Deputy Labor Commissioner; and that the management is sending conciliatory messages. Money in lump sum has been mentioned and who hasn’t a problem for which a lump sum is the exact cure they’re praying for? With such falsehoods they've drawn the numbers of workmen they want, and they’re saying they'll sit at the gate for three or six or nine months.

A good number of workmen are women, and some among them are the most spirited.

They've called the media—the newspapers, the television channels. Early last week the TV channels arrived at the gate. We rushed our press releases to them. The channels carried the story the same night, and one of them took care to mention our version. The next morning, when we went through the gates, the shouts were the loudest of all days.

That morning, in the distance, an arm came through the bars above the wall by the gate and twisted and shook when I walked from the factory to the cafeteria.

My lawyer rued with me how far that defiance has gone: In Coimbatore, a few weeks ago, they killed the Chief of Human Resources of Pricol; in Chennai, the Managing Director of the Ballal chain of vegetarian restaurants was knifed in the kitchen by the cook who was also the union leader; in Tumkur fifteen union-hands beat up seven officers of the company; and the memory has not faded of the lynching with hammers and iron rods, of the CEO of Oerlikon Graziano in Noida, by a band of workmen protesting the dismissal of eleven colleagues for non-performance.

We have dismissed thirteen, for instigating and leading two illegal strikes last year. Our people haven’t shown murderous intent, but I saw the flame in their eyes when I stood before them last week and they cried their slogans at me—fiery eyes that wouldn't look into mine.

Two men came from the press midweek and spent time interviewing them and taking pictures. We brought the two inside and gave them the full story and sent with them the prints of our statements. The story is in the paper today. The photograph has women in the foreground, arms punching the air above, mouthing slogans, looking so wronged. The men are in the rear. The union president has issued a statement that the administrative staff has been harassing women, that the thirteen are wantonly dismissed, and that they have suffered sustained exploitation. Not a word is written of our side of the story in the paper, one of the oldest, among the most respected.

I went through the hour of dismay that every such move from them causes me. Then I walked for an hour and my head cleared. My lawyer called from Bangkok where he has gone for a week and said it is alright, that I should focus on production and that he'd handle the rest. I floated back down to Sunday on that assurance. I'm good now, until the workmen strike me with their next idea. There is talk among them of shaving heads. I'm imagining how that would look. I will not laugh.

I'd not imagined I'd be at war with them one day.

Right now, I’m thinking I’ll abide by Janis Joplin and not peer toward far-off days. This Sunday seems quite fine for today. As regards this moment, I’m mixing Pearl Jam and Van Halen and Coldplay into playlists for the next trip on the treadmill.

I’m also struggling with wishful outcomes that wiggle like worms in the mind; they’re clung to each other and won’t be shaken off.

the customer is a baby…

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve paid so much more for my tickets to the US, I thought all costs that go to flying a plane have gone up. Not true. I went today with a group of delegates to three plants that make aerospace components and subsystems. All three plants have elaborate programs that lower cost in their every process and also in their supplier-factories. Their success in cost-reduction are celebrated on every wall of their plants, and the extent of savings is so dramatic, my ticket should have cost less than half I paid.

In the evening on my second day there, in a plush hall in the the best hotel in town, amid the distracting aromas of an expensive dinner that lay outside, a senior executive from a top-two aircraft builder spoke to us: He has worked in the automotive industry in the past, where their creed was: The customer is king. What he demands, he should get. "Not in aerospace, though," the speaker lamented: "In the aerospace industry the customer never gets the low lead-time he needs, and never the low price. In this industry the customer is no king—he is a baby—he demands and loses and cries.” His audience were mainly his suppliers, so grim faces looked up at him.

The next speaker was from a leading international airline: “Every time the cost of fuel rises by a-dollar-a-barrel my corporation has lost forty-million dollars for the year,” he declared.

It doesn’t appear that I’ll pay less for my next ticket.

kendasampige

A promising new kannada blog appeared today: kendasampige, a herald for a new, ambitious Kannada portal which will appear later this quarter. The team of accomplished writers behind it is led by Rasheed who, besides being a great writer himself, has been a broadcaster for twenty years. He knows how to engage his audience, so if you can can read Kannada, go there. Expect flame and fragrance. Have fun.

Beginnings

I went again to Hassan this week. We were twelve this time and we spent all our time in the hotel—except two hours—making plans. We went to the factory-site for two hours, saw the construction, and strolled on our land. We went down to the edge to the river: two ribbons under the dilapidated bridge fused to a sloughy green before our land. We didn't stand there for long. I have spoken often about the river with my colleagues and they were looking forward to seeing it. But they were in good spirits and had fun all the same: they brought down mangoes with stone and stick, and pulled out some unripe jack-fruit to take home for curry. We went up to the lake which is dry in spite of last week's rains. Our neighbors who farm the acres next to ours came out of their tile-roof home and asked questions without being inquisitive. Their cattle stood about us on the bund-road, and some crossed the bund and went down to the lake-water. The neighbors told us the lake is leaking through the bund and they were sure the government would in time fix it.

The sun was now diffused by clouds and level with the distant tip of the straight road which rises steadily from the bund. The construction-workers started for home, and walked without looking tired. My colleagues had brought sweets for them which they took silently, and expressed thanks only with a slight shift of lines on their face. A half-moon shone above, and looked vain, his light working only for himself. Our contractor has brought his labor from Bangalore, and he recruits from the village when he is short of hands—Sujaya was astonished at the beauty of some of those women. I saw them too: they are tall, they have high cheeks, large bones, they appear healthy, and they have a pleasing gait. They speak easily with the men.

A cart has appeared on the high corner selling tobacco and pan-masala. A deep trench is ready on our boundary for a high wall to stand. A micro-economy has sent out its baby roots.

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