The Game Plan

Before the advent of the Indira Gandhi canal, Nachna in Jaisalmer district (Rajasthan) was considered a very “hard” posting. Nachna, in the middle of the Great Indian Thar Desert was always considered tough as water was scarce and in the summer the temperature often crossed the 50 degree Celsius mark. Food items included only millets and ghee (liquefied butter). Transportation was few and its only connectivity was with the main desert town -- Jaisalmer. There were only ten telephones in the hamlet which most of the time remained inoperative.

Arvind Mathur was in a fix. None of the staff were willing to go to Nachna. The vacancy position showed two vacant posts. How to motivate these staff to go to a “hard” station with no benefits to lure them.

Anil Kumar had been married for the last ten years. He has an eight year old daughter studying in a reputed school at Bangalore. Anil Kumar had recently been transferred to Jodhpur. He had an earlier posting in this set up during his initial career. Anil Kumar had worked in these places and is as comfortable as a local person would be. Anil Kumar voluntarily opted to go to Nachna.

Arvind Mathur heaved a sigh a relief. Anil Kumar is efficient and knows his job. Arvind Mathur gave him the liberty to form his own team members. Anil took charge of the Nachna unit. Two years passed. Everything went on smoothly.

Arvind Mathur wondered why Anil never took a vacation to visit his family stationed at Bangalore. It is purely a personal matter. Why should I worry?  Arvind thought.  One morning Anil turned up at Jodhpur and met Arvind Mathur.

Sir, you post me at Bangalore or else my wife will divorce me. He couldn’t keep the smile off of his face.  Arvind was shocked. Transferring individuals out of the set-up is not within his ambit. He can only recommend for a transfer to a particular place.

Arvind Mathur started to ponder. The conversations he had with Anil began to strike him again and again. How casually Anil told him that his wife would divorce him. Arvind knew Anil has some plans. Arvind set out his trusted staff to find out the actual truth.

Anil Kumar has a paramour in Nachna. He had become friendly during his first posting in the set-up. Due to cultural and caste differences Anil was not allowed to marry the girl of his choice. Anil had to marry as per his father’s choice. Anil’s marriage never took off. His wife remained unhappy.

What was Arvind suppose to do now? Re-unite Anil with his wife by posting him back to Bangalore. This would certainly unite a family and also pre-empt Anil from initiating a divorce from his wife thus making her guilty.  Or don’t post him anywhere and continue with the present situation.

Sitendu De is the author of this post.

Posted via email from Sparkling Insights

Management Upside Down - Sparkling Insights!

Rahul, a young Executive Director of a fast growing multi-national company startled by his nightmare broke into a cold sweat as he woke up.

What would happen to his vibrant flourishing business if the top management team who were ready to fly to Dubai for the annual sales conference in two days time died of a violent air crash? His global business would then come crashing like a pack of cards and there would be none to look after the vast wealth that has been created as he narrated his nightmare to me. 

"Why would that be?" I asked. 

"Isn't that obvious? All knowledge of running this company lies with these few chosen ones. Once they were gone wealth vanishes in no time" he replied emphatically. 

"But don't you think that sooner or later all of them would leave the scene anyway? What do you do then?" I quipped in response.

"Frankly I don't know. That has really kept me thinking. There are no Jack Welch or A M Naik who is determined to make his way up from the ranks. Don't know how to make even one?", Rahul voice trailed off pensively.

This story made me sit up and start thinking. Isn't this the same story for all companies all over the world? Aren't people fighting to find an answer to these deep questions on knowledge, leadership and organizations? What can be a possible solution to this business problem that has spread like an epidemic and refuses to let go of its iron grip on our lives?

Such difficult questions possibly can't be answered through a brilliant stroke of imagination. Many have tried without much success. To find an answer we would have to look at something deeper - the evolution of management from the early uncertain days of the industrial revolution to the present day where all time honored rules of management are headed for a grand collapse (Nature's Model). The clue lies there. 

This is how management always worked with minor and insignificant modifications here and there. 

It always started with a grand plan to make a profit. Don't suspect that I am against 'profit' or like to label it as a dirty word. Far from it! Profits are needed. It is blood of an organization. Anyway, to chalk out the grand plan a few old men (only now it is fashionable to include a few women too) sat together in a room called the board room to come up with a 'how to' list of making money from an idea. We called that strategy.

Once that was framed the next question that plagued these old souls was how the hell do we organize ourselves and operate? They then came up with exotic game plans, choc-a-block with funny rules and regulations, making the entire organization 'rigid' (if not frigid) 'air-tight' and 'water-proof' -- nothing can touch them, no secret can ever dream to escape, no employee can ever think of anything else but work, work and work...etc. They called it a 'system'.

With the system in place these grand old people heaved a sigh of relief. Half the job is done. Now we need some 'dedicated', 'loyal', 'trusted' servants (whoops! employees) to work their grand design called the system to their heart's content to churn out money. The model was no different to the 'factory model'. Pop in something and out pops something else from the other side of the machine.

Same was in business. So they carefully selected the 'servants' to work for them and just like selecting good machines they looked hard for the desired attributes for doing the back breaking jobs -- is he/she strong, healthy, good looking, has the right attitude??? (still couldn't figure out how they measure that), background, education blah blah blah... . They would take all pains just the way they would to pick the best variety of apples from the marketplace. It had to be rigorous since the 'chosen ones' like gladiators, would have to sweat it out for them in the next 2 to 3 decades.

But soon they found out that attributes of people change over time. They were not "behaving" like the machines they thought they got with so much rigor and patience. They started asking for things that weren't promised when they got in. That was something to worry about. What made them most worried was when they started thinking and suggesting and voicing their opinions on how to go about their jobs and perhaps how to do them better.

That wasn't good news to their old hardened ears. They have to stop them thinking. They are to be aligned to the goal of the organization. They are to be kept in line and on their toes. And they are to be occasionally whipped when they break rules or ranks to show who is the master and the lord that provides them their humble bread.

In comes the Human Resource Department, a sobriquet for the old fashioned Time Office and Personnel Department, whose only job was to keep employee behavior in check. Keep them in line. Indoctrinate them. Inject them with the lovely tunes of loyalty, feel good factor with a good day's job. Give them some butter if they do too well..... Spend time to correct the behavior of people not to say that a good amount of time, energy and resources went into managing work that consumed a large extent of people's productive time.

And what might happen when strategy, systems and behavior of people are all lined up? It would create work that produced goods and services of some value to thousands of customers. So a classic division was formed -- a small group of producers and an ever increasing group of consumers. More the consumers merrier the game became. All that  management had to do was to ensnare more and more consumers in their net and keep looking for more. The word was 'marketing'. 

This way of operating could be done for a pretty long time. All that was needed to keep this well structured machinery running was a pot of gold. Deeper the pockets better was the show which people thought would be perpetual in nature. At last management was able to create a perpetual machine that defied all known natural laws.

Did they? No. By 2008 everything that was so sacrosanct and held in high esteem started to disintegrate with the coming of the great recession. Big and seemingly invincible companies folded up. Unemployment kept rising. No new jobs could be created. Businesses faltered. And those that existed counted their days to doom.

The old way of functioning was definitely clumsy, complex, rigid and unmanageable that not only provided very little value to customers but also wasted a lot of energy in managing and keeping the system in order.

What traditional businesses failed to notice were the slow changes happening all around them in other spheres of human activities (Post Offices to #SM). Things were changing. And so did the nature of work. The fundamental change was consumers became producers and were blurring the line between producers and consumers. It happened to Post Offices, Schools, Publishing business, Consulting, Telephones, and was quickly spreading to all human activities in ways people would  have never imagined even a few years back.

The consumers created their own value independently and interacted and shared it with their network to create more value and consume it themselves at a price much less than the prevailing market price. The days of grand old institutions, middle men, dealers, publishers, advertisers were all but over.

In comes a new thinking and a new way to create and manage businesses and a lot of value  -- the answer to Rahul's nightmare.

The earlier model, basically static in nature and greatly determined by financial capital, was Strategy -- Systems -- Behavior -- Work -- Value.

In this model, Strategy informed the nature of work and the value that was created for the customer.

The new model is just the reverse of what we knew for so long. What happens when we reverse it? It becomes Value -- Work -- Behavior -- Systems -- Strategy. 

In this new model, 'Value' and 'Work' inform Strategy not the other way around. Therefore, it is more dependent on people including customers to participate, share and contribute their learning and knowledge in the economic process than being exclusively dependent on the strength of financial capital.

So, what might be the challenges for organizations to embrace the new way of working?

Some of these are:

1. How do we involve and engage customers and employees to participate in the 'value' creation process to create 'multiple values' instead of only focusing on the goal of generating profits (single value)?

2. How do we make 'work' observable and tractable from which everything else emerges?

3. How do we create a platform of emergent learning that spontaneously creates 'leaders' who co-produce wealth not spawn 'servants', 'managers' and 'bosses' who run the systems like mere cogs in the wheel?

Now that we have found the answer to Rahul's nightmare answers to these challenges would help him create simple yet intelligently superior and greatly adaptable organization that creates multiple values for the collective.

For Rahul his ghastly nightmares would be over. But he would now have more things to challenge his mind, which would surely be fun since he may now keep thinking while doing the new thing, learning and improvising as he goes along in his new journey.

He is well on his way creating history.

Wish him well!

But do ask me how history is being created.

 

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

The Sun Still Shines

While returning from the Sunday church services, Karan Hasda Francis passionately sees his plot of red soil land by the side of the national highway. Francis patiently waits for the monsoon to arrive. He has followed the newspaper. It has already arrived in Kerala and within a month it will reach here.

 Karan Hasda Francis’s forefathers came from a place near Ranchi, Jharkhand. Now they have 17 acres of land at Raghunathpur in Purulia district of West Bengal. For irrigation they have to depend upon the monsoons and the ground water which is depleting every year.

 They are converted Christians. Though the education of his four sons and one daughter had been taken care of by the church, his second son has mostly run away from schools. Eldest son is a local school teacher; second one does odd jobs; the third one has passed ITI examinations (skilled labour) and is looking for a job; the youngest one is still studying in seventh standard; his daughter has eloped with her love to Delhi.

Its very hard times for Karan Hasda Francis wife to make both ends meet. She had been struggling to feed her family. Whatever crops they have from their land is equally divided between them and the tillers. Added to this are the numerous crops failure, wild elephants coming out from the forests and smashing the crops, erratic rainfall and low quality of seeds.

Karan Hasda Francis was toiling in the July sun trying to grow some vegetables in his backyard.  A cavalcade stops near his house. People in designer suits come out from the cars. Maps were spread across the bonnet. Karan was curious. What was the motive of these people?

He runs to the church. He looks out for the father. He is the only person in the whole village who has some knowledge. A fear gripped him as he came to realize the real motive of the people who came from the big city. Is he going to loose his land again. Once his forefathers were driven out from the village by the upper caste community as they failed to pay their debts. Lands were taken away forcibly and houses were torched. The Hasda family was shattered. They crossed over to Bengal. They were given shelter by the church. They got back the will to live in this world.

A car manufacturing unit is going to come up at his village. Karan Hasda Francis heaved a sigh of relief as his land is not among the 400 acres of land as requisitioned by the car manufacturers. Though other land owners got huge compensation, Francis was thinking of other ideas. Political parties held rallies. They demanded more jobs for the locals. Seven Hundred jobs in a car making factory is just too few for them.

One and half years went by. The factory took its shape. It looked monstrous yet beautiful. Electricity came to Raghunathpur. The roads were widened. Potable drinking water was available. Satellite T.V made its entry. The Banks were desperate to open its branches at Raghunathpur. More ancillary industries came up in its surroundings. Prices of land shot up. People came from outside to work here.  The population of Raghunathpur rose by thirty percent.

Money was flowing. Raghunathpur, once a dead village came back to life. Karan Hasda Francis wife was busy making food for the workers in the factory canteen. His eldest son is busy giving private tuitions. Second son of Francis now days drive a three wheeler through out the day ferrying people from railway station and bus stand to the factory. His third son has got a job in the factory. Francis has opened up a motel by converting a part of his house. All the rooms remains booked throughout the year.   

The Francis family now days go to the church every Sunday morning in their new car.

 

Sitendu De is the author of this post.

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The Power of 3 - Changes in Management Thinking.

This great story demonstrates a fundamental emergence in our lives. The old ways of thinking and managing simply wouldn't work any longer.

The 'science' and practice' of management as we know of it today were originally invented to solve two very important problems, which were:

a) How do we get ordinary folks do complicated and repetitive tasks to achieve a standard of efficiency and standardization to optimize profits?

b) How do we make our way through a complex web of processes to deliver goods and services to our clients? The complexity arose from scaling up of operations meant to generate ever increasing volume of goods and services that could provide more profits and subdue competitors.

In order to do that we created lot many logical rules and regulations. The number of rules increased with the degree of operational complexity. Then we trained and made people follow those rules to achieve the magic numbers that could produce more profits that are constantly under squeeze. 

With our present thinking we understand that such management thinking does not work well beyond a certain degree of complexity. Why is that?

So far we focused on objects that played any role within business cycles of production and consumption. Sometimes we focused on machines while at other times we focused on people or customers. And yet on some other occasion we forced our attention onto suppliers and quality or we looked at increasing inventory levels. We never quite saw the whole in one breath. What we clearly missed out was to observe the relationships between objects in a given context. What we chose to do instead was to focus wholeheartedly on objects and their functions and properties without taking into consideration the context in which they operated. We failed to realize the importance of interdependent relationships between all things that simultanteously arise and abate in the system in a "wholistic" manner.

What happens when we fail to see relationships?

Let us take two objects that are related to each other. Then the possible relationships that can exist between them are four [2 to the power 2 gives us 4]. As we keep increasing the number of related objects it keeps following the same power law [2 to the power of n, where n = the number of related objects].

It is then easy to imagine the exponential rise in the number of possible relationships as the system becomes more and more complex. How can such exponential behavior be controlled and regulated by a set of linear rules and regulations? Since that is clearly not possible to do so it exposes the unscientific nature of our so called 'scientific' management thinking.  

This flaw is clearly depicted in the video. As the number of cars increased along with the rise in the number of pedestrians and cyclists the system soon reached a critical point of complexity beyond which it was not possible to regulate the traffic flow, reduce the number of traffic jams and keep accidents in check. Even the logic of operating traffic lights represents a part of the growing rules and regulations to contain the menace of slowing traffic, snarling jams and terrible accidents without much success ofcourse.

So, what did the new management thinking do? They drastically reduced the number of rules and regulations to one simple rule - "give way to pedestrians and cyclists first". The result of such a brilliant move is amply demonstrated in the video.

What lessons management can learn from this? Probably these:

1. As the system becomes more and more complex reduce the complexity of the jobs ordinary folks are called on to do in all possible ways. One of the simplest way to do that is to reduce the number of irrelevant rules and regulations that bind and blind people from performing better. Forcing people to keep their eyes on so many rules is enough to make anyone crazy and make mistakes. For example, by simply enabling drivers not to pay any attention to the traffic signals and policemen but to keep in mind one simple rule greatly simplified their job of driving safely. This then left the drivers free to focus on their goals without getting distracted by a host of unrelated issues. Ease of traffic flow, reduction of jams and elimination of accidents are few of the by-products of making jobs easier and free of unnecessary clutter. 

2. Redesign the system so as to reduce the number of relationships one has to negotiate in order to achieve the desired results. This was done by redesigning the roads at critical traffic intersections.  By reducing the total number of relationships within a system we can easily convert complex processes to much simpler ones. 

3. Managers are then left to keep healthy communications going within the system and focus their attention to fine tune the existing relationships and also think of simplifying the processes further through redesign.

Aren't these three universal management lessons simple enough?

Let me know what you think.

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

7:06

Sheila catches the 7.06 train every morning to Kolkata from Krishnanagar --- a small town in Nadia district of West Bengal. Her father was a jute mill worker. He has been retrenched. Now days jute selling is not a good business proposition. The mill owners have closed their unit. They have started to produce mobile phones instead.

Sending his only grown up daughter to earn some money was not to his liking. He wanted to marry off his daughter.  Marrying off would mean they would die in poverty. Marriage proposals were coming for Shiela. Why not? Shiela is educated, fair skinned, strikingly attractive though poverty has taken away the sheen.

Sheila was good at sewing clothes. She used to fashion her own “salwar suits” and also used to stitch clothes for other neighborhood girls. But of course at a price. Her earnings used to rise during the festive seasons. Sheila once had a dream of going for a fashion designing course. But it remained a dream.  Now she only dreams of owning a boutique. Her family will not be able to afford the fees. To supplement their family income Sheila started to stitch shopping jute bags which the shop owners give it to their customers on “heavy purchases”. Every morning she goes to the different shopping malls and collects orders for the number of bags to be stitched.

Today also she rushed to catch the 7.06 train. She had a bundle of jute bags with her, ready to be delivered to the different shops. As the local train gathered its momentum Sheila got lost in her thoughts. How much she owed and the amount she has to give to her raw material supplier. She was woken up from her make believe dream world by the sound of a crying baby. She saw a woman trying to pacify her one year old child. The compartment was packed and the weather was hot and humid. Everything was so discomforting. Sheila saw the baby crying profusely. The baby was wearing diapers and a hooded jacket. She smiled and thought --- “the woman is so stupid to dress the baby in a hooded jacket and put on a diaper--- just imitating from the western world. “ The hot humid weather in India which last for eight months in a year makes life miserable for grown ups leave alone the babies. She got her next business idea.

She started stitching triangular shaped cotton diapers for babies. These cotton made diapers could be locked by strings or by Velcro tapes. This became an instant hit. Sheila was flooded with orders. Bulk orders came around from hospitals, nursing homes, maternity centres, individual young mothers and shop owners selling infant garments.

Sheila now has two bank accounts. Her father is now free from depression. Her mother now wears silk sarees. They have fish everyday for lunch. Sheila got back her sheen but she still wants to complete a course on fashion designing.

 

Sitendu De is the author of this post.

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Celebrating Knowledge - The Music of the River

Today everything would be closed in the state. The streets would wear a deserted look. Schools, shops, offices and even Government offices would be closed.

Why? Are people protesting or rising in revolt like the Middle East and elsewhere?

No, not exactly. It is a day of celebration and happiness.  Today is a Public Holiday. India as a nation celebrates this day as a "Day of Knowledge".

This is more popularly known as Saraswati Puja (Puja means offering of love and deep respect). Saraswati is the Goddess of Knowledge representing speech and creative expression of science and arts. Most things in India are symbolic and the image of Goddess Saraswati is not exception to this fact. The image is therefore a metaphor or representation of what knowledge is all about.

Want to know the story of how it all came about?

Well, as most things in India, the story goes back thousands of years to the era of the Vedas, which most historians agree was around 5000 years ago.

A group of wise sages were travelling all night. Just as the day was about to break they reached a river. The river was gently and rhythmically making its way down the snow clad Himalayas. The water was pure and sparkling. As it gushed over the numerous pebbles it encountered in its way, a sweet tinkling noise emanated. They could see the bottom of the river clearly and were fascinated by the numerous ripples that danced around merrily occasionally catching the glitter of the sun rays as the sun peeped over the distant hills.

They were mesmerized by the whole experience! It suddenly struck them that knowledge had the exact characteristics of what they just experienced. How was that?

They realized that knowledge is dynamic and always changing and flowing like the river. One can't capture it. It can't be imprisoned. If held it soon loses its freshness and flow

They understood that knowledge is a product of numerous ongoing interactions that produced music. The music is only produced by the flow going against the resistance offered by the pebbles. More the obstacles (pebbles) more subtle and more varied is the music. The deep experience provided them the insight that knowledge develops through repeated movements of passing over the numerous pebbles and emerges in a chaotic fashion in the form of waves.

It was also clear to them that the primary source of knowledge was through transparent observable (through all our senses) work that flows -- an understanding gleaned from the transparent flowing waters. Everything was observable but transient.

They likened the occasional glitter of the sunrays ricocheting off the waves to the sudden flashes of insights that create new knowledge. 

Such a splendid metaphor remained with them for years before they decided to give some physical form to it so that people recognize the importance of knowledge in their lives and live with a vision or mental image to go for it and develop it for themselves. With this in mind they came up with the splendid image of the Saraswati.

The image of the beautiful lady represents the creative nature of knowledge, the force behind all human activities. .

The swan reminds us of the river and also the sharp discriminating characteristic of knowledge. This is because a swan has a strange ability. If offered a drink of milk with water a swan drinks the milk without taking in a drop of water. It can separate the two. In other words knowledge helps us to discriminate between the real and the unreal.

The musical instrument called the vina (a much older form of the present day sitar) reminds us of the music of knowledge as it flows over pebbles and obstacles.

The symbol of the white lotus is significant. While the whiteness of the lotus stands for stainless purity of knowledge the lotus informs us that knowledge is rooted to reality which might be full of dirt, muck and darkness from which the purity emerges. It depicts the journey called knowledge from the unconscious or unseen or unknown to the consciousness of reality or the known.

It is also interesting to note that the image tells us how knowledge is created. This is shown by the four hands of Saraswati. Her two hands are engaged in playing the vina (Playing and Hearing). It means that the fundamental way knowledge is created is through transparent observable work that flows (remember how the sages could clearly see even the bottom of the river and sense everything around them). The image of the rosary that she holds in one of her hands depicts the need for deep mental reflection and repetition to gain real knowledge. The fourth hand shows a slim volume of documents representing that only a small part of the knowledge can be really documented and read.

The scattering and reflection of the golden sunrays on the waves representing intuitive insights are shown in the form of the golden crown that adorns her head meaning that all intuitive insights come from the mind. And the halo behind her head represents the energy and brightness that emanates from ever increasing wisdom.

So, to summarize:

1. Knowledge is rooted in reality. It then moves from the physical reality to the energy field of playing, listening and engaging in our chosen domain from where it moves to the mental plane which then makes its way to the planes wisdom and enlightenment.

2. Like the flowing river, knowledge can't be captured (it is not an object but waves and a field) since it an on-going phenomenon of the numerous interactions, always changing course and fleeting in nature. Such movement of knowledge is only possible through facing resistance and overcoming obstacles encountered in its path generating the necessary music.

3. A very small part of knowledge can be really documented. That represents the explicit part of knowledge.

4. Major part of knowledge is implicit in nature that is created by constantly playing in a chosen domain, improvisations, repeated practice, deep reflections and sudden insights.

5. True knowledge in any field can be obtained through discrimination between the real and the unreal, between the meaningful and the worthless. 

6. Knowledge leads to enlightenment and is the creative force behind all that we do.

7. And above all knowledge must be free and shared to maintain its flow that benefits all. This is the only thing in the world, other than love, that keeps growing and developing in strength and character when shared. It is unending and beautiful but can't be precisely defined or described. The more we try the more incomplete it seems.

Today we usher the coming of spring signifying the blooming of the hidden, the latent and the unknown into conscious reality just like the first baby leaves that spring to life after winter. Isn't that what we understand by knowledge?

It is therefore not surprizing for Indians to believe River Saraswati to be an underground river hidden from view only to meet the great rivers Ganga and Yamuna at Kumbh. Another great symbolic abstraction underlying the fact that Knowledge plays between our actions and emotions to elevate us to our true human potential. Those who use it rise to meet their potential. Those who don't are unfortunate.

So do we listen to the music of the spheres and celebrate the joy that is knowledge?

 

Notes:

1. The video is there to highten the visual experience of this rather deep and 5000 years old philosophy on knowledge.

2. India is probably the only country in the world to celebrate a special day in honor of Knowledge. What a country!

 

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The Chrysalis

The sight of the Himalayan mountain range from his bedroom window had never been so dull and frightening for the twenty one year old Akash Gupta. The family was mourning. Akash’s father lost his job. He was working in a garment manufacturing company in Bhadarpur, Nepal----a small sleepy bordering town in the India-Nepal border.  The great recession had its toll on one of the outsourced American garment manufacturing company at a small town in Nepal.

Akash’s father was given some money and send off home. The amount he got was not much to take care of his family for even a month. The family asked each member ---“Now what”? Akash’s father decided to open up an eatery in front of the Bhadarpur College. At least this would somehow steady the rocking financial boat.

A month after, Akash graduated in commerce and got the desired certificate. He wanted to pursue his career by joining a management course. But that meant a lot of money. Akash restricted all his expenditure. He stopped going to the local gymnasium. He even restricted buying clothes. All the austerity measures could not bring the financial happiness in the family. In her spare time Akash’s mother started making woolen garments in her knitting machine so as to supplement their family income. Akash started applying for different jobs but couldn’t succeed.

“Why don’t you join our type of work, you would be paid quite handsomely, for every trip you undertake”. Akash was offered the job of a “carrier” by the local smuggling cartels operating in the India- Nepal borders. Akash readily agreed. After all he has to just carry those cheap Chinese electronic goods from Nepal and cross the Mechi River which separates Nepal from India and deliver it to the Indian smugglers. These Chinese goods are in great demand in the major cities of India, especially Kolkata, Delhi and “B” grade cities. He informed his parents of his “new job” assignment in an “export-import” company. His parents were happy.

Akash father was overjoyed and blessed his son when he handed him twenty thousand rupees as his first “pay”. This would make us live a little bit comfortably.

Akash’s trip to India continued. He was successful in evading the eyes of the Indian border guards. Akash graduated from smuggling cheap Chinese toys to animal skins. Akash’s smuggling employers were very happy with his work. What a success rate? No arrest and no loss of goods in Akash hundred and ten trips to India so far.  

Avinash Mathur an inspector in the Customs department in India had been following Akash’s activities for quite some time. He waited for an opportune moment to strike Akash. The day arrived when he caught Akash with a large consignment of contraband goods. Avinash made a deal with Akash. Either you work for us as a “source” or be ready to spend the rest of your life at jail. Akash thought it’s wise to listen to Avinash.

Akash’s many tips to Avinash had been useful. Avinash made large seizures. His name was recommended for a promotion. But poor Akash, he had no place to hide. His smuggling bosses were after his blood.  A sudden fear gripped him. He could be killed any day. He pleaded with Avinash to find him a respectable job. He wanted to leave this dirty job. Avinash didn’t want to loose his golden goose. He made false promises to Akash so that he continues with his supply of information. Akash thought he is being used like a condom only to be thrown away when the purpose is over.

Akash went to Siliguri to find a respectable job. He found none. Not knowing what to do he sits at a tea stall. He ordered for a tea. A group of youths were discussing some recruitment in the Indian army. He approached them to know what type of recruitment was going on. It was the “Short Service Commission” officers’ examinations. 

Akash Gupta is now days known as Captain Akash Gupta.

 

Sitendu De is the author of this post

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