'Mahatma Gandhi is My Hero', says Obama

07-09/09

As a child my father had bought me scores of books about Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy many of which I have lost on the way. My father and I were frequent visitors to Baskaran Nair’s kiosk in Pulimoodu Junction, Pai & Sons at Statue Junction and the famous Higginbothams in Thiruvananthapuram in the sixties.

The famous “I have a dream” speech of Martin Luther King made on the 28th August 1963 from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial had remained deeply embedded in my mind as much as the famous “Sisters and Brothers of America” speech of Swami Vivekananda who addressed the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in the same country.

Later on, as I took interest in history I came to know that Mahatma Gandhi’s Principles of Non-violence have been a source of inspiration for many freedom movements across the globe. It is indeed a matter of great pride for Indians. Today yet again President Obama made me feel proud of our Father of Nation Mahatma Gandhi when he said that Gandhi was his hero. I am a great admirer of Obama and I felt elated to hear his opinion about Gandhiji.

The Hindustan Times carried a good piece of news about this matter and I thought of sharing with you all.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Mahatma-Gandhi-is-my-hero-says-Obama/H1-Article1-451797.aspx#hide

'Mahatma Gandhi is my hero', says Obama
Lalit K Jha, Press Trust Of India
Washington, September 09, 2009
First Published: 10:33 IST(9/9/2009)
Last Updated: 10:52 IST(9/9/2009)

US President Barack Obama has said given a chance he would like to have dinner with Mahatma Gandhi, whom he considered a real hero.

Obama expressed his desire in response to a question from a student Lilly during his discussion with 9th graders at Wakefield High School in Arlington Virginia where he accompanied with the Education Secretary gave a national speech welcoming students back to school.
Obama called for students to take responsibility and to learn from their failures so that they succeed in the end.

"Hi. I'm Lilly. And if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?," Obama was asked by one of the students.

"Dinner with anyone dead or alive? Well, you know, dead or alive, that's a pretty big list," Obama responded amidst laughter. The next moment he was serious.

"You know, I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine," Obama said. "Now, it would probably be a really small meal because he didn't eat a lot," he said amidst laughter. But Mahatma Gandhi is someone who has inspired people across the world for the past several generations, he said.

Terming the iconic figure as the source of inspiration for many, Obama said "he (Mahatma Gandhi) is somebody whom I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr King (Martin Luther), so if it hadn't been for the non-violent movement in India, you might not have seen the same non-violent movement for civil rights here in the United States".

Tailpiece:

Till yesterday I had held Obama in high esteem for being the son of a Microfinance Practitioner (his mother) and for fulfilling the dreams of Martin Luther King. Today my opinion about Obama has gone further up with his opinion about Mahatma Gandhi.

P.Uday Shankar

Coimbatore

Working in a Jinxed Branch of a Bank

6-08/09

In my earlier blog post of June ’09 titled Road to Manantoddy, (now renamed Mananthavady) I had written about my first trip to Wynaad District, Kerala state in India. Quitting from the Government service in 1982, I was on the way to Mananthavady to join as Rural Development Officer in a nationalised Bank.

The Bank had only one branch in Wynaad District and it was covering the whole district. The picture given to me about Wynaad was that it was a popular punishment placement for government officials and was a difficult place to live and work. Had it not been for the then Manager of the branch, I would have indeed got frustrated. From day one he took good care of me and guided me well. Incidentally he happened to be of my fraternity – a graduate in Agriculture and that was another reason for the proximity. He was the one who patiently taught me banking and initiated me into rural banking. A native of the Lakshadweep Islands, he was a devote Muslim, an altruistic person and big hearted when it came to helping poor customers of the bank. My seeds for Microfinance were in fact sown in this branch despite being plagued with incessant problems.

As days went on it became difficult to work in the branch although the agriculture loan portfolio was being taken care of very well by my team. The Mananthavady branch of the Bank was in a way a jinxed branch. On the first day of my joining the branch I was informed by the Manager about his predecessor’s corrupt practices. The former Manager had landed in jail for his nefarious activities and investigation of the case was still in vogue when I joined the branch.

One year passed of and even before dust could gather on the files of the case, another case of embezzlement of bank’s money by a Senior Clerk came to the fore. This person had been discounting fictitious foreign instruments and had been siphoning off bank’s funds for over a year. The case was first detected by the bank’s inspectors during the regular annual inspection. But it was a bit too late as the culprit had bolted off into oblivion by that time. In a major set back to the branch, the second case was also handed over to the same central agency for investigation.

Two cases at the same time was a bit too much for my Manager to take it lying down. With little moral support and logistics coming in from the headquarters for the branch my friend started showing signs of a grind down of his spirits. As a person doing namaaz religiously five times a day and with an impeccable and unsullied sincerity he started showing signs of withdrawal. By this time a third case of embezzlement also surfaced wherein a Clerk had siphoned off an amount.
With all these three cases and a Nelson’s Eye treatment meted out on the branch by the headquarters forced my friend to take the extreme step of quitting from the position of Manager. It came as a bolt from the blue for most of us in the branch. For me it was a personal loss.

The onus of running the branch then fell on the Assistant Manager who had been desisting from taking up Manager’s position for quite sometime despite his seniority and experience. He took charge of the branch reluctantly with assurance coming from headquarters about immediate support from them. I had to take up the role of joint custodian as there were no officers between him and me. As days went by the assurance vanished in thin air and the Assistant Manager developed cold feet. The recalcitrant attitude of the head office about such a serious matter drew flak from all the staff of the branch. As an officer on probation I was under training and just learning general banking, although the rural finance portfolio was taken care of well by me and my team, I was piqued by the fact that a joint custodian’s responsibility was entrusted on me so early. Just as I was contemplating on the pros and cons of this additional responsibility rammed on me, the Assistant Manager “fell ill” and applied for a fifteen day leave. He handed over the responsibility of running the branch to me and went home.

Driven to the corner I had no other options but to take the responsibility. For a person who had always aspired to join the army, this was like a call to go to the war front ! I get goose pimples even now when I think of that bolt from the blue responsibility. It was the year 1984 and we did not have cell phones and computers. The first job I did was to shoot a one page hard hitting telegram to the head office informing them that a junior officer on probation had been entrusted with the work of running a branch, which had three cases being investigated, and needed new officers to be posted immediately. The Nelson’s Eye attitude of the headquarters seemed to go on undeterred with absolutely no response. I had to run the branch for three months before a Manager was posted. Despite the pressure on me I was able to run the branch without any major problems. The fact however remains that the bank took almost six months to find an alternate Manager for my good friend!

My friend’s predecessor, the former Manager, had a stint in jail and was dismissed from job. He is reported to have ruined his life after that. The Senior Clerk was reported to have been absconding for about two years and finally was caught one day. His life also got ruined after that. The Clerk who got involved in the third fraud case was given a reprieve and was transferred to Cannanore in Kerala. As committing fraud was probably in his DNA he was caught red handed when trying to cheat a lady customer of that branch and was summarily sacked from his job.

Those three fraud cases and the three month stint of running an ill fated branch still remain as a nightmare for me.

I had a chance to see where man’s greed and lust for money can lead to.

I worked in that ill fated branch for two more years before getting a transfer to yet another difficult place.

Twin surprise

5-07/09

Two buds of Nishāgandhi

The two buds at night on 13.07.09

Just before blooming on the night of 16.07.09

In full bloom at 10.30 pm on 16.07.09




The twins in bloom
(all photographs were taken by my son Abhishek)

The Dutchman’s Pipe (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) is a cactus like plant grown in our small garden. Popularly known as Nishāgandhi, this plant blooms at night. It belongs to the cactus family and can be easily grown at home. The flower blooms at the end of a stalk that grows out of the leaf and therefore looks odd. In the stage of a bud the reddish tepals of the flower, which would measure up to 10 cm, give an eerie look to the bud. The bud blooms into a beautiful flower with a scent that is very pleasant. It is said that the aroma of the flower is similar to the smell of benzyl salicylate. The plants in my house have bloomed many times but this night we had a twin surprise. Two buds bloomed at the same time. Normally the flowers bloom between ten and eleven in the night and stay in the bloomed condition for around two hours before they slowly droop down and wither away the next day.

Moving Away from a Beaten Track

4-07/09

My career started in March 1980 in the Indo German Project of the Horticulture Department in Ooty. My work was in the Vijayanagaram Farm and I stayed in the quarters near the farm (please see picture- courtesy Google Earth).

After this first stint of assignment I was shifted to the Collector’s office on deputation to the ARDC Scheme (ARDC- Agriculture Refinance Development Corporation is the old name of NABARD). The scheme office was a hotchpotch of people from different departments and functioned under the State Government.

The scheme office coordinated the work of the four Cooperative Land Development Banks (popularly called LD Banks) in the four Talukas of the Nilgiris District. ARDC refinanced loans to the LD Banks. I was entrusted with the work of inspecting farmers’ plantations before sanction of long term loans for planting tea, coffee, cocoa and pepper and also before release of annual loan instalments in the Coonoor and Kotagiri Talukas. The loans were long term mortgage loans with a major portion of it released in the first year for the purpose of clearing the land, landscaping & soil conservation measures, cost of planting material & planting expenses and maintenance cost for one year. Depending upon the crop three or four more annual instalments of the loan would be extended every year till the plantation is ready to yield.

Specific days were allotted for my visits to the two LD Banks. Farmers who were in need of loan instalments would visit the Bank and I would accompany them to their plantations. Nilgiris District had good roads and buses to almost all the villages and therefore I started insisting on traveling in public transport buses to save the farmers money spent on hiring a car or a Jeep. The practice followed earlier was to engage a car or a Jeep to visit the farms. However, in some cases we had to travel in a car or Jeep as the site would be in a very remote area not connected by buses.

Eventually during the visits I came across another practice which I had to stop with lot of resistance from many angles. There was a practice of tipping the inspecting officer with cash or kind (fruits, tea, coffee, cardamom, pepper etc.) soon after the inspection at the farmer’s plantation. I put a full stop to this system. The practice had been introduced by my predecessors and was then followed as a tradition for quite some time. The farmer who extended the tips seemed to be oblivious of the fact that he was in fact bribing or greasing the palm of the official for a smooth sanction of the loan amount. They were simply adding it to their cost of plantation.

Initially, I tried to educate the farmer that he was in fact committing a crime by extending such a “incentive” to the officer and later, went to the extent of counseling them that if they carried out the plantation work perfectly they had the right to get the next instalment of the loan and they need not waste their hard earned money on bribing officials.

This earnest effort of mine to educate the farmer sent ripples across the banks and the scheme office and I was looked as an intruder on a beaten track. Despite the estrangement I went on the path driven by my conscience. I had hardly worked for nine months and I was transferred to another new project in Kotagiri where my job was, as a Subject Matter Specialist, to train co-workers in methods of dissemination of technical knowledge to farmers under the Training and Visit System of the World Bank financed project.

The day I left the assignment I had a gratification that a new trend was introduced for my successors, if they are conscience driven, to emulate and pursue. As I took the bus to Kotagiri I thought that what I had done was right. If you are not able to make a sea change in a rotten system you can at least make a small difference by not taking the beaten path and by being different.

Road to Manantoddy

3-06/09
In 1982 when I got my posting orders to work as Rural Development Officer in Syndicate Bank, Mananthavady in Wynaad District, (Kerala State-India), I was forewarned that it was a difficult area and was considered as a punishment area for the state government staff of Kerala. The general impression about Wynaad was that it was predominantly a tribal district and it used to be the home of militant Naxalbari activities in the late sixties. They also warned me of the incessant rains and the mosquito menace.

Despite all these impressions I fell in love with the place from day one. The winding uphill bus route from Calicut to Mananthavady (then known as Manantoddy- the anglicised version of Mananthavady), was so picturesque that I got spontaneously inspired to write a poem. I scribbled it on the back side of a cigarette packet while making my first trip to Mananthavady.

Ode to the October Breeze

The October breeze felt my skin that morning,
as I started for my first assignment,
“A ticket to Manantoddy, please”-
And the next second all eyes focussed on me.
I felt ecstatic to be the cynosure
as the October breeze felt my skin that morning.

The steadfast bus streaked through spiral roads
as I kept staring at the striking scenery
of the endless greenery and the morning skyline.
I felt levitating to the soaring Wynaad heights
as the October breeze felt my skin that morning.

Everything around seemed to be lively
as the October paddy with panicle heads
seemed to perform ballet in an open opera
to the tune of twittering early birds.
I was dumbfounded at nature’s choreography
as the October breeze felt my skin that morning.

(The poem was published in the June 1983 issue of Giant- Syndicate Bank’s House magazine.)

As days passed by I had already picked up a platter of spoken Malayalam and was out in the fields most of the time mingling with the tribal families and local settlers. In next four years of my stay from 1982, I got so much involved with the people that we were in jitters when we moved out in 1986. In the next few blog posts I would be writing interesting happenings in Wynaad.

Microfinance and Royal Enfield Bullet

2-06/09

Royal Enfield BULLET 350 cc

It was in the late sixties. As a teenager the bicycle always fascinated me but it was difficult to get one with my parents having their moorings in the middle class. Dame luck however struck when I was in the eighth class. My friend Dilip Kumar’s family was shifting to Madras and they donated their cycle to me - an 18 inches Saibro Model. From then on I went to school driving the bicycle, running errands became easy for me and fetching Siruvani water in two heavy Kudams (water pots) became my daily morning routine.

After post graduating in agriculture and landing up in the villages of Nilgiris the Royal Enfield Bullet- the hefty 350CC motor bike, caught my attention and I started dreaming of riding it some day. Later when I joined the Syndicate Bank as Rural Development Officer at Mananthavady in Wynaad the pre-condition to join was to have a two-wheeler license The Manager politely said that the branch had a Bullet and I should get my license immediately. A local mechanic was engaged to teach me driving. I still vividly remember the way he gaped at my lean and puny physique with probably a question in his mind, “How is this 45 kg guy going to handle this 210 kg beast?”

The first day’s exercise was to push the vehicle manually up and down a road and to place it on its stand. It was like dragging a full grown stubborn horse. The next day when I was allowed to sit on the Bullet it was like placing me comfortably on the saddle of the tamed horse. The fear of weight was erased out of my mind and on the third day I was able to drive my dream vehicle on my own. The Manager, Mr PSM Koya was impressed and bought me a new vehicle.

Driving a Bullet in Wynaad was a real challenge due to the bad condition of the undulating roads and the hilly terrain. The worst part was driving on a rainy day and it used to rain for over eight months in Wynaad! Later, on transfer to Kotagiri in Nilgiris, I insisted on a Bullet and those were my best days. Since the vehicle was driven only by me and was serviced by a seasoned mechanic the unique thumping beat was well recognized from a far of distance.

The most risky stretches were however covered when I was attached to the Kollur branch in Karnataka where an old Bullet was used. My Manager Mr TS Bhat and I used to go to Mudoor village driving across a forest area. It was a virtual dirt track where the powder like red soil used to cover the entire vehicle and our dresses. Snakes, monkeys and hornbills were common sightings but the worst of all was the “close encounter of the furry kind”- a bear crossing the Bullet a few feet ahead! Incidentally all my postings were in difficult places along the Western Ghats mostly considered to be punishment areas. Had it not been for the Bullet these postings would have been a punishment for me as well. Thanks to the Bullet, on the contrary I could do my best in those 16 years in the Bank.

Later in 1998 when I quit the bank job to join as CEO of a start-up microfinance institution in Marthandam, the only facility I insisted on was to provide me with a Bullet. It was nice to be back on the Bullet and on the Western Ghats again. My friend, Mr. Jobins and I used to cover many areas every day and those were real hectic days. We used to spend our daytime in the field and spend late nights doing office work. Had it not been for the Bullet we both would have had recurring back pain.

Once a Bullet always a Bullet goes the famous adage among the Royal Enfield connoisseurs and true to it I could complete my silver jubilee having covered over two lakh kilometers on the Bullet. If microfinance is all about financing the poor, I have been practicing microfinance from 1982 onwards and apart from my personal dedication to the cause; it was the contribution of the Bullet in assisting me in reaching out to thousands of poor families.

I owned a Bullet for sometime but had to do a distress sale when constructing my house. Back to square one, I am again dreaming of a Bullet and this time maybe a Royal Enfield Bullet Thunderbird!

Paradigm of Loyalty

01-05/09

We had crossed our third year of existence in 2001 and it was yet another of those hectic days at the microfinance institution (MFI). Perched on the second floor of a building we were managing with just four rooms and most of the time the hustle & bustle at my office would remain till late in the evening. Women customers would be flocking in to either remit their EMIs or to avail fresh loans. With a penchant for timely remittance all our customers were maintaining 100% repayment. Groups were in tact, unhindered by any external influences and were maintaining the peer pressure at the core of their activities and loyalty of the individual members towards their group, their NGO and the MFI was at its best at that point of time.

The first thing I did, when I transformed from a rural development banker to a CEO of a MFI, was to see that I was not cut off from my customers at any cost. I still do not remember having closed the door of my room for any matter. My customers had the freedom to walk in at any time to express their grievances or to exchange pleasantries.

It was around noon that day, when one of my team members came to me and informed that leaders of one of the groups in her area of operation wanted to meet me. This team member of mine was made of a sterner stuff and was known for her meticulous and tactful handling of any situation in the field or in the office. I had never seen her so gloomy and depressed as she guided the president, secretary and treasurer of the group to my room. All three of them also looked serious and the usual bountiful smile was missing.

The president started of with a question, “Do you remember Stella (name changed) the lady in our group who took a loan for her husband’s centering work?” (Centering work: wooden materials and bamboo shafts used at the time of RCC work on ceilings of buildings for retention of the ceiling). After hearing from me in the affirmative she continued, “She was admitted last week in the hospital for delivery of her baby when Stella had to receive the news of her husband’s death in a work related accident. Her husband had gone to the neighbouring state of Kerala for carrying out a centering work. When he was dismantling the bamboo shafts he got hit by one of them and had died of head injuries. Stella was still in the hospital when we went to see her.” She pulled the free end of her sari and wiped the tears while we all were looking at her stunned. How God could be so cruel, I thought.

The lady continued her narration, “As was our custom in the village we offered her some money which she asked us to keep it under her pillow. Consoling Stella, we were about to leave her when she asked us to wait for a minute. She rolled on to the other side of the bed and pulled out something from under the other side of the pillow and gave it to us. She gave us her monthly EMI and asked us to pay it for the month.” As she said this the other two ladies were already in tears and so also my colleague. I was upset too and my eyes got filled with tears. I consoled the ladies and assured them of our assistance to the bereaved member of their group. They left behind gloominess in my heart. Eventually we had assisted the member in settling an insurance claim. But the spontaneous act of loyalty by the lady despite her state of distress had shaken me and my colleagues for some days.

This is one episode that could shatter the views of people who still believe that the poor cannot repay loans. I had narrated this time and again at many trainings on Microfinance.

Welcome to microMUSINGS

It has been a long felt dream of mine to contribute to an exclusive column in my favourite newspaper in my country- India and call the column ‘microMUSINGS’. I was at the verge of sending the content for publication when I decided to blog. My disillusionment is not only confined to my favourite newspaper but also to the entire Indian media on their inept handling of the Sri Lankan Tamil issue.

As a kid I had started reading my favourite newspaper for its daily dose of a comic strip of Tarzan and over the years adhered to the paper for its bold exposés and matured editorials. However, I was saddened by the fast deterioration of its quality and started reading blogs. Having discovered the blog it is now going to be exciting, I thought.

What am I going to write about?

A glance at my profile will let you know that I do not belong to the average age group of bloggers. As an urban bred person my career ambitions were to study agriculture and work in the villages of my country. After completion of my post graduation in Agricultural Economics in 1977 I started off my career in the Government sector where I had my first brush with the idiosyncrasies of the bureaucracy and the way they affected the poor gullible farmer slogging out in his fields oblivious of the happenings around him.

Thinking that the public sector would be a better place I moved to a nationalized bank in 1982 as a rural development banker. Although I could seek a space for myself in all my rural postings and could do my best in rural development and rural banking, various reasons drove me to look at the private sector as my next option. Callous treatment of a segment of sincere employees by the so-called nationalized bank, total apathy on the part of the management on various matters, the hegemony of the staff unions and the resulting sycophancy of the staff towards either the management or the union, deep rooted corruption and malpractices- are some of the reasons. Sincere employees who were not sycophants of either the management or the union were left high and dry. Caught between the devil and deep sea I landed up working only in difficult areas all the time. But I always took it in my stride and have left an indelible mark of path-breaking work in all the places I was posted.

In 1998 when the leading housing finance company in my country inserted an advertisement inviting applications for a CEO for its microfinance venture, I found the requirements and the responsibilities virtually tailor-made for me. For a person frustrated with the government sector & the quasi-government public sector and always seeking a bigger space to work the assignment was God-sent. The nine years from 1998 to 2007 were my career’s best period.

You may now wonder why I left the institution. When everything was going on fine, I was suddenly reminded of the dictum ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ and I took a conscience driven, thoroughly introspected decision to quit and go on my own.

During the course of my career I had wonderful experiences in the field which I thought of sharing with everyone. Coming from lower-middle class moorings, I had over the years developed a passion to work for the poor- in other words the small families out there. The word micro in microMUSINGS is symbolic of the small person out there. I am going to sing my song about the small woman/man out there for I know that I alone can play the best tune for my musings. I can assure you that my musings are going to be of great interest for people who share my concerns- some of them would be eye-openers, some nerve- shattering, some conscience-pricking, some tear-shedding, some touching the heart….My musings are not to be read as case studies but as random ramblings of a rural development worker.

Uday Shankar
Coimbatore-INDIA
26.05.2009