Moong Over Microchips

by Venkat Iyer

  I discussed this with many of my colleagues and friends. I was pleasantly surprised at their reactions. There was not a single person I spoke to who thought it was a crazy or silly idea. They were unanimous in their view that this was an excellent idea and they all wished they could do the same thing. However, each one had a very good reason why he or she could not do something like this. It was either their children or their parents or a car loan or a housing loan that was stopping them. Every person I spoke to seemed to feel that they needed to get out of the system. It reflected the levels of frustration and stress in the city.

  I asked all of them that if the desire to do something different was so strong and the stress levels so high, then why was it that they did not do something about it? The replies were downright silly or materialistic. I realized that it was insecurity and fear that prevented people from looking at things differently.

  Besides, money played a major role in most replies. People were frightened that there would be no money and they would be left high and dry. I recalled my early days at Rallis India (my first job in 1989) when I got Rs 750 per month of which I gave Rs 200 to my mother for household expenses. In those days, too, at the end of the month I would be short of money. Things had not changed much over the years. My salary was in six figures but yet I was in the same predicament at the end of the month. It was only that now we had plastic money to bail us out.

  I realized that money was never enough. As your income grew so did your needs. You travelled by bus and when you had more money you bought yourself a car. When you got some more money, you thought of a newer or a bigger car. It dawned upon me that the road you travelled to reach office was the same and the time of travel remained unchanged. It was immaterial whether you were in a Maruti 800 or a Honda City. It took the same time to reach office. It was more of a status symbol to have the latest gadgets and equipment when in reality you had lesser and lesser time to enjoy them.

  To save time and keep you ‘connected’, you had more expensive gadgets that brought you closer to work at all times. Where was this leading? The more I thought on these lines the more I was convinced that I had to break out of this cycle. It was not that I was not fond of money or had no fear of the future. I reckoned that if you had to do something that had an element of risk in it then it was better to do it when you were young. You had more energy and the chances of retracing your steps were better. Some people I spoke to felt this was a retirement plan and they wondered why I was thinking of it at such a young age. I reasoned that one could never do this kind of work on a farm and take such a huge risk after retirement. It just would not be possible physically and financially. Besides I was not looking for retirement, I was looking for a new lifestyle.

  Rajesh, my colleague at IBM with whom I had discussed this hundreds of times, advised me to check my financials before jumping into a venture of this magnitude. I took his advice and started working on my financial spreadsheet. I calculated all my liabilities and listed down our assets. I called up my head office and figured out how much money I would get from IBM if I quit. In true project-management style, I listed down our risks and the mitigation factors for each one if we did decide to take on this change. We spoke to some friends who had made the transition to living in villages and tried to figure out what monthly income was considered optimal to live in the village. I set myself a series of tasks that I would have to undertake before actually plunging into the operation.

  Once I had done my homework, I shared it with Meena and some select colleagues in IBM and asked them to look at it critically. They all made some valid suggestions and changes to the structure and by the beginning of 2003, I had done a clear financial analysis with risks and had a mitigation plan ready. All I had to do was quit IBM and I would be ready with the money to start my new venture.

  The plan was simple. With the money we got from IBM we would buy some land and build a small house to live in. We would then till the land and live off it. We planned to grow all the items that we needed to survive. Maybe keep some poultry and cattle for milk, eggs and meat. On paper it all seemed great and possible to accomplish. At this stage I was raring to have a go at the idea. It was always the case with me that when I started on a new assignment or project, I jumped into it with total enthusiasm and energy. Meena was a bit cautious about the whole thing. She felt that I should quit IBM only after we had at least identified the land we intended to buy. That way we would be sure that our plan was in place and rolling before I quit.

  The first step in our plan was to clear our outstanding liabilities. I closed my car loan and housing loan. I told my mother about my decision and also that I would not be able to send her any money, at least for some time. At first she seemed a little perturbed by my decision. After all, who in his right frame of mind would leave a cushy six-figure salary and venture into a life full of uncertainty and risks. In spite of her apprehensions, she was most understanding and assured me that she would manage without the contribution from me.

  We made a list of expenses that we thought we would incur on a monthly basis at the farm. After considerable research and discussion, we figured that around Rs 6000 per month would be sufficient to stay in a village in reasonable comfort. We earmarked a portion of our savings to be put into a monthly income scheme. There was a small sum we set aside for our emergencies and the balance was what we had as capital to start our farm. We had no intentions of borrowing to set up the farm. Frankly, we were not sure if we could manage the repayment if we did that.

  All the groundwork and the planning had been done. The whole project looked good on paper and I was convinced that I could swing it. The con call was a jolt. It posed a fresh dilemma as I was selected to head a prestigious project. To take it or not, that was the question. Suddenly my confidence waned. I was not sure where I was headed.

  2

  Search for an Alternative

  It was around the early 2000s that the Indian economy started booming. The newly established outsourcing industry mushroomed and an entire swamp near our house was filled in and converted into a huge business place with towers full of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies. Anyone with a slight English speaking skill could land a job in the ‘call centres’, as they were called, and would get a five-figure salary to start with. The automobile industry was opened up and every well-known brand from around the world was available. The financial sector was flush with surplus money and was doling out loans at astonishingly low rates to anyone who desired to buy a vehicle. Suddenly the roads seemed to have grown smaller and we had traffic snarls right in front of our home.

  The suburbs were suddenly growing out of proportion and the city was becoming unbearable to live in. Our quiet leafy suburb at Goregaon in Mumbai was suddenly home to a large number of malls and multiplexes. Every morning, it was a torture to drive to work with the traffic snarls and one had to leave early to reach office on time. The pollution, the noise and the crowd was getting to us. We had to get out of the city like many others to breathe easy.

  To try and get away from the chaos, often on weekends, we would visit Karjat (100 kilometres from Mumbai), where one of Meena’s friends, Ghulu, had bought some land. It was located at the base of a mountain, an hour’s drive from Karjat station. There was nothing around except a forest and a small village nearby. It was the most unbelievable place we had seen. Ghulu intended to build a small house on her plot of land and live there. We saw the place and decided that this was what we wanted: our own space outside the city, where we could go whenever we liked and breathe some fresh air in peace and solitude.

  The place was close to the Bhimashankar range and it brought back pleasant memories of our trek there long ago when we were in college. We met up with the promoters and identified a plot we wished to buy. As a precautionary measure, Meena called up the forest department to check the authenticity of the documents. We were told that some of the land could actually belong to the forest department, but the settlement of these places had not
yet been done. This made it a risky venture and no one could predict when the government would crack the whip and reclaim the land.

  Though the deal did not work out, the seed had been planted in our heads. We now decided to go all out and find a place similar to the one we had seen in Karjat. Almost every weekend we would take the car and drive to the outskirts of the city looking for places to buy. As we went about our search we learnt quite a few things that we had to be careful about while buying land. There were numerous rules and regulations that had to be followed before one could own land in Maharashtra.

  We searched for almost two years and were nowhere near getting the land we liked. Every time we would have a reason for not liking the land. Either the road was too far away or there was no view or there was no water. Our search for land had a keen following within IBM and every Monday, my colleagues would gather around and ask if we had found anything. They were all keen on buying some land and liked our idea of a weekend getaway.

  My colleague Shrikant once commented, ‘You will never buy land. It is the thrill of searching that keeps you going.’ Maybe he was right; there was a certain thrill and excitement in just going out of the city every weekend looking for land. By the end of 2000, we had covered almost the whole of Karjat and the neighbouring areas. There was not a single broker or agent who did not know us.

  It was not until a year later, the end of 2001, that we found a piece of land that seemed to satisfy all the criteria that we had in mind. It was a small hillock close to the road and there were indications of water close by. It was just on the outskirts of a small village and had lots of trees on it. The price was right and the papers seemed to be in order. We paid a small advance and started work on the survey. We thought we had found our dream land but a few days later we realized that we had been cheated. The owner called back and increased the price twofold. We could not afford the price and the land was not worth so much.

  It was after a couple of trips that we got wind of the modus operandi. The area was well known for these kinds of deals. Once the advance was paid, the owners usually backtracked and never returned the money. They were scamsters who had no intention of selling the land and survived on looting unsuspecting city dwellers like us. We decided to move out of the area and put our search for land on hold in Karjat area. We had an unpleasant time getting the money back but we did manage after almost six months and several trips to the village.

  First Interest in Farming

  In 2002, Meena took up a research project as part of her freelance work to study organic cotton farming and make a compilation. She was to write a report on the subject which would later be published as a book. During the course of her research, she travelled to four states in the country and visited numerous farmers and agriculturists who were into organic farming with a focus on cotton. She often stayed with the farmers while she went about her research. Every time she returned from a trip to the rural areas, she would give graphic descriptions of their lives there. I would grill Meena after every trip to get as much detail as possible. It seemed like they lived a hard life but somehow they sounded happy and to me they seemed better off.

  She would give clear descriptions of their houses, the clean air they breathed and their hard work, often at the mercy of nature. The food they cooked from the produce of their land and farm was simple but delicious. In this age where everyone was inundated with information on mono saturated fats, cholesterol, lipids, High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) and Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL), the villagers had their daily food with dollops of home-made ghee. Every time she returned she would curse the food we ate in the city, citing examples of the wonderful meals she had eaten in some far-off village.

  At home there were intense debates with Meena on the rural and urban divide. I remember her coming back all excited from one of her trips to Gujarat. She had stayed there for nearly a month with various farmers. I made her repeat in minute detail everything she had experienced in these villages. I think she too was a bit surprised at my hunger for detail. I started thinking about this a lot. Why shouldn’t we live a life where we could grow our own food and live closer to nature? We could shift to a village, build a small house and live off the land. The idea was forming in my mind and to be sure I kept discussing it often with Meena.

  I remember one evening when, after a long conversation, I kept replaying her stories in my mind. I sat crouched on the low seating in my living room as the light of the cane lamp formed delicate patterns on the walls. It was a mellow moment, yet a decisive one and it was to change my life. Yes, that was it. For long we had toyed with the idea of a weekend getaway. All those searches in Karjat and even in Lonavla—that frantic hunt for a bungalow plot—were over now. The idea of living in a village, with a small house and a bit of land around it, appealed to me very much. Let me dispel the idea that it was an easy decision. But it came to me all of a sudden.

  I was amazed at the stories of the lifestyle of these farmers though I had not actually seen any of them closely. The lives of the farmers, and not all of them were big landowners, seemed tough but it did have, for me, a certain charm and purpose compared to our fast, stressful city life. They worked hard but at the end of it, they were proud owners of produce that they could eat and relish for the rest of the year. Their lives seemed to move at a steady but slow pace and it was obvious, at a superficial level, that their stress levels were low, though low prices, agrarian distress and suicide were an ugly reality and formed a dismal backdrop to their lives. The pictures she had shot as part of her research were vivid in my mind and I dreamt of owning and living in a house that was similar to the ones in the village. Suddenly, our tiny 530 square feet flat in Mumbai became claustrophobic.

  I also liked the concept of organic farming and the whole idea of growing food without using harmful chemicals and other inputs. I seemed to be convinced that villagers were healthier than us due to the clean and natural food they consumed. I read Meena’s research and tried to understand the ill effects of chemicals and the need to stop using them. I studied about the presence of chemicals and toxins in our daily food and how they impacted our lives and health.

  While Meena was totally in agreement and felt that it would be a wonderful change from the city life, she felt my decision was too sudden and based on hearsay. She too was not exactly thrilled with the city and hated the local travel, the pollution and the crowds. She agreed that it would be a welcome change from the city but she was a bit apprehensive about the financial part.

  I had my own share of health problems to keep me worried. I always used to get nagging headaches, especially when we trekked. It usually vanished after a good rest and we attributed it to the sun. During a medical check-up, the doctors identified that I had slightly high blood pressure. There could be a heredity factor since both my parents had the same problem. During these tests, I was also diagnosed with diabetes and high cholesterol.

  The doctors assured me that there was nothing to worry about and I needed to have a few medicines regularly to keep these under control. So here I was, barely into my thirties and already popping pills of various colours. I switched over to coffee and tea without sugar. Desserts were passed over and I adopted a strict lifestyle. Daily morning walks were a norm and visits to restaurants and bars were down to a bare minimum. Although things were under control, we did not have much faith in allopathic drugs and their long-term effects. I had seen how my parents had started on pills and finally were on insulin injections in a few years. We decided to look for alternative cures.

  A good friend told us about Tibetan medicine and I decided to give it a shot. There was a Tibetan doctor who visited Mumbai every two months and I decided to pay her a visit. Within a couple of months, she had managed to control my blood pressure and bring it within reasonable limits. Despite my strict regimen, it was only the diabetes that she just could not bring down. She seemed perplexed that her medicines, which were renowned for reducing blood sugar, did not seem to have any effect on me. She
kept telling me that this had to be because of stress.

  The more I read the more I was convinced that the main cause of my illness was the food I consumed. I was shocked at the amount of chemicals that was used in growing vegetables and cereals, which constituted a large part of our diet. It was also evident that stress and the fast lifestyle that we followed were contributing to our general ill health. It was no wonder that the Tibetan medicines did not have any effect on me.

  I was sure that if all of us changed our lifestyles and ate good food all our ailments and modern sicknesses would vanish from the earth. Many of my colleagues at IBM were already afflicted with diabetes, high blood pressure and chronic back problems. I realized that the stress of corporate life was taking a toll on everyone and was the cause of so much illness around us. It seemed like the best option left was to return to our roots and do what our ancestors did long ago. Grow our own food and live a stress-free, happy life in the village.

  This may have seemed romantic and foolhardy at a time when the country was going through its worst agrarian crisis. Many justify the Green Revolution and its intensive use of chemicals and say that our country was saved from starvation and famine. However, I still read reports of malnutrition and starvation, which somehow has not vanished after the great Green Revolution. In addition there is another major problem—the terrifying impact of chemicals on nature and human beings.

  Since the last decade, hundreds of farmers have been killing themselves, unable to repay their mounting debts. The government’s pricing policy, lack of proper rural credit and poor minimum support prices were creating havoc. It was a vicious debt cycle ending in tragedy for the farmers. There was no end to it. For me there were lessons to be learnt from this. I realized that being debt-free and using zero inputs could help in cutting costs of production. Many farmers who had turned ‘organic’ were realizing the benefits of this policy. This would mean a major shift to self-reliance which somehow had slipped from the farmers’ grasp, thanks to hybrid seeds, numerous subsidies and sops in the forms of pesticides and chemicals, while keeping prices of produce low. When I later visited organic farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu this was confirmed. I was inspired by their pioneering efforts and felt vindicated that eventually I had decided not to use chemicals.