Bechuda on line

Bechuda on line ……………………….. I always remember my late PA.S N Bose for making my life comfortable in Kolkata during my six years stint in BHEL, Eastern Region office starting from October,1994 to November 2000. He was like friend, philosopher and guide to me. In case of any odd requirement outside office I used to rely on him. Many times on his own initiative he would bring some interesting character to me, he knew about my diverse interest. It was he who brought renowned artists like Yogesh Dutta for mime, Lopamudra Mitra, Srikanta Acharya etc for music. He had wide network of acquaintances. It was sometimes in October 1995 just after Durga Pujas I was sitting in my chamber in Chatterjee International when Bose entered with a gentleman of 50 something in ordinary bush shirt and trousers. I was not busy at that particular moment, Bose knew that. “Sir, meet Bechuda.” Both of them walked towards the guest chairs in front of my table. I invited them to sit down and smilingly looked at Bose for further introduction. “Sir, remember 21st September?” Bose mischievously asked. “ Oh yes, how can I forget? I got a ring from my nephew Pappu that Lord Ganesh’s idol is drinking milk in the city. I asked you to check with people you know.” “Yes, I gave ring to this Bechuda and he told me it was true and he was busy in doing brisk business in milk. I brought him to you for that. He does not run regular business but when opportunity comes then he makes a business of that for a short time, rest he will tell you.” Bechuda just shrugged his shoulder and said, “ I don’t want to get stuck in any fixed business but I make enough to feed my family. The moment I heard about Ganesh drinking milk my sixth sense told it was a business opportunity. I rushed to all milk vendors and purchased their stock. I did not have that much money so I took loan. Then I ran around to purchase big idols of Ganesh. By afternoon time I had hired people who put Ganesh idols below trees at prominent places along with milk stalls, in the meanwhile all the house wives were madly searching for idol of Ganesh and milk. This news of drinking milk has spread like wild fire. Yes, I made good money then.” “Oh!That was smart!” I said. “Tell him about your new idea.” Bose nudged him. “ I have noticed that many people have purchased vacuum cleaners from Eureka Forbes with the idea that they will vacuum clean their house thoroughly. In reality it did not happen, it was used for a few month and now lying idle in most of the households, we are not like first world people where they do all cleaning extra by these type of gadgets. We get cheap maid servants to carry out mopping and cleaning.” “Yes, I too have purchased one but lying idle now.” “I have two ideas. One I will train up some unemployed youth of my area to operate these cleaners and then they would go door to door offer their services for a price in operating the idle vacuum cleaners of that household. The second idea is that I would offer to purchase those vacuum cleaners which of course I will get at a much reduced price and then offer to offices for cleaning their premises. That is the reason why I have come to you.” “Yes,why not? You send your proposal I will examine. I may advise my site offices to use your agency.” After that we talked about various subjects and left my office promising to send the proposal. 

 Many years have passed , I retired from BHEL,Bhopal and settled in Kolkata. While doing some shopping in Vijaygarh market noticed an eatery named “ Bechudar cabin”. I walked in curiously, yes it was the same Bechuda but like me had aged. He recognized me immediately, came forward and invited me to sit with him. I informed him that I have retired and stay in Golf Green. ‘Excellent, you stay nearby only.” He said. “ I noticed your name so came in thinking whether it is you or someone else. I am happy to meet you after such a long time. You must be knowing that Bose is no more.” “Yes, very unfortunate, I attended his funeral.” “By the way you said you don’t do regular business but here I find you are running a restaurant.” “Have you seen any menu board here?” I looked around, did not find any. Then I looked at the cliental and the items they were eating. The items were just anything from ordinary rice dal to biryani. Even noticed some people were having choicest sweet but there was no visible sweet displayed. I was baffled and asked him to explain. “This double storey building is my ancestral property. When the government allowed us to run business establishment from the ground floor then I got this idea of running an unique restaurant.” “Unique?” I asked. “Ok, tell me when you walked down the road then did you feel like eating item what you saw in those shabby joints?” “Yes, I was feeling like eating Moghlai from Abar Khabo, but it was so crowded inside and I was to stand on the road to eat.” He called a helping hand ,gave him some money and wrote something on a paper. That boy hurriedly went out. After 10 minutes he came back with a plate covered by another plate. Bechuda kept the plate in front of me and removed the covering plate, it was a Moghlai paratha . Bechuda signaled me to eat. I relished eating hot Moghlai in a decent environment; I was ready to pay double the price. I understood his business model. There is no kitchen in that cabin, some microwave and heating gadgets. There are clean utensils, cutleries, filtered water arrangement. Everything else is outsourced. “The street food is my menu. My clients are well off people of this area. Lot of flats has come up so the number is swelling. You can visit my webpage where the names of all the food joints which are not upmarket type around this area are listed. You can book your time and order chosen item. My people will take care of that. The cost of course will be higher than what you would have paid on direct purchase but then these people don’t much bother about that. They are happy that they are enjoying those simple foods made for ordinary folks. My cabin is antithesis of branded restaurants. I have made arrangement with those small eateries to use fresh cooking oil for my client; I pay them extra for that.” I was impressed; it was a novel idea of a business with minimum investment. “ Slowly it has become like a club, most of them fix time and menu after discussing with each other. I have also allotted time slot to each such group for a cost of course.” He said with a wink. “It means you have priority customers?” I got warmed up to the subject. “Yes, something like that. My neighbor who is my friend has offered to let out his ground floor in case if I want to expand.” “ Why don’t you contact poor household to engage the housewives to cook food in their houses which you can offer to your clients. You can purchase the ingredients so that they don’t have to invest. If the housewives are ready to cook larger quantity then you can pay for their helper, the housewife can supervise in her own house.” “Yes, it might work. Let me talk to the local counselor because he can help me to identify the needy.”

The companion

 Kaushikbabu was in slumber in front of his TV in the drawing room, his caregiver a woman from the agency had gone out. He was running temperature since two days but he was sure it was not Covid as he had no related symptoms like not able to smell, body pain etc. He was 85 years old and a widower, his wife died 6 years back, his only son who had not married was a marine biologist was in Alaska. Whenever his son would give ring via WhatsApp, he would see his laboratory in snow clad mountain and lake. He often jokingly ask Bikash his son, “How is your Ice station Zebra?” Alister Maclean was one of his favorite writers. As such, he was fond of spy thrillers, James Bond was his favorite character. While watching TV, mostly spy movies he would assume the role of the spy. While not watching TV he would construct a spy story in his mind where he would be outwitting the spy of the enemy country. He as a spy would imagine playing roulette in some casino. In real life, he first visited a casino was in Kathmandu hotel, Soaltee , those days in 60s that was the nearest Casino of course at a later stage he visited casino in Schiphol airport of Amsterdam. As he had visited most of the cities of Europe so in his imaginary incidences he either would be riding bike in Amsterdam or would chase through the narrow lanes of Paris. That day also he was daydreaming about his adventure in Red Square, Moscow when the front door opened. He was not wearing his specs, a blurred figure wrapped in white from head to toe entered. He could make out the person was not his caregiver but someone else. “Mr.Bose you have Corona and I have come to take care of you. I am in PP kit so you are not able to see my face. I have asked your caregiver to go home. I have collected her mobile number and when you become alright I will give call to her.”’ Kaushik Bose was still in half sleep condition and spy chasing mode, he lifted his right hand in a way as though he was holding a Walter PPK revolver and shot an imaginary bullet at the intruder by making a sound, “Bang”. The PP clad intruder played along and feigned to have got hit, slowly crumbled down with sound “Ah”. Kaushik Babu by this time was fully awake tried to understand the situation. As such in his house the costliest thing was a 40 inches LED TV. His son had donated all his mother’s ornaments to Ramkrishna Mission. Most of his money was tied up in various term deposits which were fetching him monthly interest enough to run his monthly expenditure including the maintenance charges of the society. So he was not perturbed with the new situation of the intruder, there was nothing to lose. “I will take care of you, I have brought fresh vegetables , fish and egg. I will be here till you become well.’’ “But I don’t have Covid !” “Yes, you have, here is the RTPCR, I have emailed a copy to the society office so that this flat could be quarantined. Tomorrow sanitary people from municipality would come for sanitizing the flat and the corridor in front. Now no one would come near the flat from this complex.’ Kaushikbabu realized that he was a captive but he was liking the situation and wanted to play along.In his imaginery situations he had been in tight corner many times and came out successfuly from such situations. It was evening already so that guy who informed that he can be called as Tinu had removed his PP kit and prepared tea for Kaushikbabu.Kaushikbabu could see that Tinu was a youngman of thirty years or so age. Tinu helped him to get up and go to bathroom for freshening up. Tinu asked him what kind of food he would like to have for dinner. Kaushikbabu generally ate one chapatti and a lightly cooked subzi with less masala. Tinu in the meanwhile informed him that he need not be scared as he was not really a care giver but wants to spend a fortnight in his house. He had no bad intention but he would do all those things what that caregiving woman was doing. For Kaushik Babu it was a change from that dull woman to this educated youth. Tinu knew his routine so put him to bed by 10 PM after allowing him to watch his favorite OTT platform Netflix. He watched a spy thriller as usual and Tinu too joined him. While watching TV Kaushikbabu kept talking about James Bond when Tinu informed him that he liked Jason Bourne. First time after a long time Kaushikbabu got a good sleep even with the unknown young man in the flat. He could hear Tinu talking to someone through his mobile , with that low volume conversation wafting from the adjoining drawing room, he fell asleep. That singsong sound acted as a lullaby to him. At midnight, he could feel Tinu entered his room to check. Next day morning Tinu helped him to bathroom and was there whenever he needed. Kaushikbabu was not interested in latest news so Tinu did not force him to watch any news channel. Kaushikbabu wanted to discuss about books and was surprised to find that Tinu was well read. Tinu’s favorite character was Sarat Chandra’s Devdas but Kaushik Babu liked Srikanta. Before James Bond appeared in 60s Kaushik Babu would imagine himself to be Srikanta who moved from place to place with an overnight sling bag. In Srikanta’s gypsy like life women played important role. In case of Devdas too women played important role. Both of them got into analyzing each of the characters. Kaushikbabu had collection of Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s books, Tinu would read loudly from those books for him.For the first ime Kaushikbabu realized the importance of mental fodder which he was not getting since his wife died and his son took the oversea assignment. Somedays they would discuss about Hitchcock movies , Hrithik Ghatak or Guru Dutt"s movies. Tinu was fond of the writings of Samaresh Majumdar and he loved Kaal Bela,Moushalkal. Kaushikbabu had read those books and slowly he was getting the idea of who Tinu was. Tinu was no criminal he deduced; his reading detective books helped him to asses Tinu. He had showed least interest about his bank balance rather he was spending money to get vegetables through Big basket. They would leave the commodity at the society gate and Dilip , the sweeper would pick those up and keep outside the flat. As such, the 80 odd occupants of the flats would rarely come out because of fear of Corona. A close group of 10 families who originally came in 1988 would keep in touch with each other. Kaushik Babu did not fall in that coterie, so he was more or less isolated. No one could know that someone had entered wearing PP kit and had not gone out. Kaushik Babu smiled to himself while analyzing the typical situation where he was virtually in captive condition but the neighbors were not aware of it. It was a typical situation in big metros where neighbors rarely keep information about others, as they were too busy in balancing their own complex life. Added to that Covid had created a situation with lock down thrown in where most of the people were scared to step out of the sanctuary of their house. Honestly, Kaushik Babu was feeling free because his mind could imagine various other things away from his imagination of him being a deadly spy with license to kill. He knew someday Tinu would leave him but until then he wanted to have more time with him. He knew it was Stockholm syndrome as hostage he had developed a special bond with the captor. Tinu also started becoming fond of the old lonely man. He scanned the net to pick up interesting facts to share with Kaushik Babu. The intelligent questions raised by Kaushik Babu forced him to brush-up his own knowledge. He knew his time was slowly getting over and had to leave for the next mission. After a fortnight Kaushik Babu found a letter on his bed in the morning. ‘Uncle, I had to leave though I wanted to spend more time with you. Your caregiver will come today. I have kept fresh vegetable, egg for her to cook. Please take care. I may come some day when everything becomes normal. Tinu Kaushik Babu heard the door open and the woman Ritu come in. He was in mental shock as though he had lost some close relative. That slice of life what Tinu gave him would not come back. He wanted Tinu to visit him regularly but didn’t know how to contact him. He wished Tinu all well in his mission which he knew would not be successful, many bright boys of Bengal dreamt for such change of society but the materialistic world has buried those idealistic thoughts.

. Note; The books mentioned Kaal Bel and Moushalkal written by Samaresh Majumdar were about Naxal movement in Bengal.

Management by magic

The subordinates go rushing to a boss who can resolve their problem. What is that extra any boss is having over his subordinates? It is the designation and that gives power over the individuals but it does not enable him with the problem resolving knowledge.
Once it becomes known that the boss does not solve the problem, rather becomes a part of the problem then subordinates stop dealing the problems. Then the problem becomes a tool for blame game. This starts the all time favourite “not me, he” syndrome in the organization. Some smart operators even pick up external agencies to pass on the blame.
This is the tale of a company which got its new CEO.
The old CEO while handing over the charge to the new CEO gave a sealed envelope to the incoming CEO with an advice to open that after he left the organization.
The new CEO without demur opened the envelope after the departure of the old CEO.He found three advises written on a slip of paper.
1. During your first year blame every failure to me.
2. In the second year comprise a committee to look into the problems.
3. If the problems still persist it is time for you to go and pass on this slip to your successor, good luck to you.
That is one way of looking at the situation in hand. My potion is to follow the basic principles of Magic ,avoid taking responsibility and enjoy life.
1. Sleight
2. Illusion
3. Escape
4. Diversion or misdirection
5. Ventriloquism
Let us examine the above from the management point of view.

SLEIGHT
This is the magic performed by two hands, like card and coin tricks, jugglery, vanishing objects of size smaller than the palm etc.
The organization consists of people, departments, office space and the facilities to juggle. The trick is now to shake all of these four ingredients in such a manner so that the participating individuals don’t know whether they are the audience or the participants. By this method every one is kept on toe. They are kept guessing about their future. Though the modern management gurus may differ as the accountability is not fixed.Dont bother about that as at the end of the day it is your ass which is on the string and you are accountable to the stakeholder and the corporate bosses.
Just imagine the fun when an individual walks in his office next day and finds someone else is occupying his seat. A situation may arise when the individuals will stop availing leave and also will leave the office late. They don’t want to loose their coveted place. Having created this uncertain situation by sleight of your hand, now use them as you like. They are now under your spell.So, your magic has worked. The problems will not travel to you; you are now free to work on your personal agenda.

ILLUSION

The illusionist plays with the mind. The illusion is all about creating diversion. Even by doing routine you can create the illusion of non existence. In Africa, the tribes make themselves invisible by standing still at one place, thus they merge with the environment.
Similarly a leader has to produce the effect of invisibility. This will create a fear psychosis in the mind of people working under you. You are omnipresent, something like ORWELLIAN situation as described in the book 1984,”The big brother is watching you”. For creating this illusion you have to play with the mind of the people. You have to closely study their body language, use of words and facial expressions. You may have to conduct some mock trials. Like drop a word with one person and wait for it to reappear from some other place. Your side kicks have to be smart as your invisibility will depend on their intelligence. Once you have set this system in motion then you will notice that the people will not know whether you are in the office or outside the office. The work will go on as you are omnipresent now. That is the ultimate illusion. Now you can relax and pursue your personal agenda.

ESCAPE

The escape artists can escape from any situation. They are handcuffed and put in a box but still they manage to escape. Houdini was the best escape magician. The secrets of escape are the special handcuffs having clasps, the boxes having sliding bottoms etc.
As explained earlier in the article you can work for a change of place the moment you are in a tight position. But that will be treated as running away. The question is to escape and reappear. One wants to escape responsibility .The best method of escaping responsibility is to feign busy. To keep oneself busy without responsibility is a difficult proposition. For this type of situation my suggestion has been to encourage holding regular meetings for all kind of subjects under the sun. These meetings are your weapon of escape, like the secret clasps in the handcuff. You calibrate the meeting in urgent or non urgent category as per the prevailing situation which you want to escape. I have found that the Indian managers are past master in this meeting methodology. Whenever a serious situation arises immediately form a committee and then ask the committee to fix up meeting. Though you may know the solution but why volunteer your neck, let the committee hold its endless meetings. Thus you escape the responsibility.
Two important decisions of the meeting will always be made by you. These are menu and venue. By using your ingenuity in these you can make the corporate life exciting. Sometimes the venue can be shifted to a hill station as well. The people will love you. When the meeting is on then pose as though you have received an important call on your cell phone and then excuse yourself out to your chamber. Now the situation is like this, for rest of the world you are in a serious meeting, for those attending the meeting you are attending an urgent call. So you have neatly escaped and now you are free to follow your own personal agenda.

Diversion or misdirection

Magicians keep on chattering endlessly and do lot of hand movements. They are also constantly moving on the stage. The attention of the audience is riveted to the talk and movement but assistants are not watched closely. In most of the tricks the assistants play active role. If there is fire on the stage or sudden illumination then attentions will be diverted towards that.
Let us say that a customer has been dumped on you, you have to now come out of this ticklish situation. As you are a modern manager so you must have read “The seven Habits of highly effective people” by Steffen Covey. Your customer is a modern guy so he must have also read the same book. Now the trick will be how to put him in your shoes (reverse of 7 habits), you start diversion by talking about your woes and he will walk into the trap and will start sympathizing with you and thus he will try to put himself in your shoes as per the book. You have successfully reversed the situation and go on talking about your problem so that there will be hardly any time left for him to talk about his problem. This diversion trick is useful for one to one situation.
Now if there is a generic kind of administrative problem then how to deal. Again use misdirection. Engage one of those high flying management companies (preferably MNC) to examine the organizational problem and give recommendation. This is my personal favorite as this gives you a chance to hone your management technique and at the same time the subordinates are awed. Those boys in black with matching tie, lap top talking gibberish in clipped voice known as management jargon will make your people scurry for cover. Hold regular communication meetings and unleash these men in black on your unsuspecting subordinates. So the game of “catch me if you can” start, you are now free to pursue your own agenda.

Ventriloquism

This is a science of throwing sound. A magician holds a doll and the doll talks. You see the doll, the lip of the magician does not move but you get the impression that as though the doll is talking. As you are watching the doll so you don’t see the movement of the vocal cord of the magician.
This is a very useful method for you to use. You form a close coterie, they become you. Now these side kicks of yours will do all dirty job in order to remain close to you. Sometimes they are known as “his master’s voice”, so you have now multiple puppets to disseminate your thoughts. As each member of the coterie will try to prove that they are influential so now rest of the people will be watching them and not you. So you have used ventriloquism effectively and isolated yourself apparently though you are in absolute control like a puppeteer.
As per the Indian philosophy everything is MAYA, you simply spread the Mayajal.Indian philosophy believes in the theory of moment, every moment it is changing, no two moments are same. The past is a memory and the future is imagination, so the life is in reality an illusion. What you are doing is just trying to be a true Indian by shedding all responsibilities and striving to achieve Moksha.
Many of the senior officials have been switching their role successfully between Yogi and Bhogi by following my potion. My good friend NRY has successfully used Sleight of hand and mesmerized all his subordinates, Tipu uses the Escape potion for shifting responsibility and I know of a director who used to use Diversion or misdirection in order to avoid taking any decision. The readers are free to use my suggested magic formulae by acknowledging the source.

NOte: This article i wrote by observing some of the dodgy managers in Public and Private sectors. My advise is to take responsibility and imbibe trust .

Thus a Sadhu was born

Thus a sadhu was born ………………….. Baren was returning from his work in the evening. The dark cloud was hanging on the rice field, the zig zag lightning often was flashing. Baren could feel the static in the air. His body hair was charged, he was feeling as though he is a human battery carrying charge with him. He was wearing a rubber sole shoe so the charge was not discharging to the ground. The feeling was funny, as per science, he was full of electron on his synthetic cloth and hair. He was hesitating with his cycle to go any further towards his house in the village because of that eerie atmosphere. He had heard many stories during his childhood about ghosts coming out in such weather. Lucky that it was not raining yet, he was not carrying his umbrella. The blinding flashes of the lightning was scary, he could see lightning strikes on the field. As a precaution, he avoided standing below any tree, as a science graduate he knew that lightning would strike the tallest structure or tree. He was keeping a safe distance from the trees as if the lightning strikes a tree then the heavy current will fan out in the ground, if he stood near such lightning struck tree then he would get shock from the ground because of the rush of that current.He was transfixed by that celestial show. Suddenly he heard an ear splitting sound when a big ball of dazzling light fell on a mound, which was within his visibility range. He was scared , like a magic the dark cloud cleared and the thunder stopped. He could see the reddish sky to the west where sun was setting. The refracted light of the setting sun created a magical atmosphere around him; he heaved a sigh of relief. He cautiously approached the mound where the fireball had fallen. To his surprise, he discovered that it was no lightning strike as there was no sign of any burn instead there was a round object which had impacted the ground with such a force that it had formed a cavity in the earth. The object was lying in the ditch; it was of a size of football. Some invisible force was pulling him towards the round object. The handle of the cycle turned toward the object and started taking him towards the object. First he was scared as he thought some demonic force is pulling him but then he thought that there is no such thing as ghost or demon. He did not resist and reached the object by getting down from the cycle. His cycle flew towards the object, and got stuck on it. But as he was going nearer to the object he was feeling a repulsive force, still he kept on walking towards object as he had to retrieve his cycle . Suddenly he felt himself levitating. He spread his hands to balance so that he can stay vertical.

A group of people who were passing by watched with awe the miracle of a person levitating in the air in that diffused sun light of setting sun. They all ran towards Baren ,who was still suspended in the air. He acted nonchalant as though it’s nothing. Those villagers took him to be a yogi with supernatural power. They ran to the nearest village, a big crowd gathered around to witness the miracle. Baren with a beatific smile started blessing the crowd and thought to himself that it was time for him to leave that shitty work in the shop and cash on this godsend chance to become a spiritual guru. He addressed the people, “ I am happy that I could demonstrate my yogic power to you all. ‘’ The crowd was spellbound by the show of supernatural power , they requested ,”Sir you please climb down and come to our Kali temple, there is a guest room where you can stay as long as you want.” Baren replied, “I will come back after a week and spend some time with you all.”’ Somehow he managed to climb down. In the dark, the villagers could not make out that while getting down he had to more or less eject himself from that invisible force. He decided to sharpen his knowledge of magic mostly sleight of hand and study some medicine book for easy remedy. Also he would have to brush up Ramayana and Mahabharata for discourses. He had French cut beard but now it had to grow full. But first within those 7 days he had to make arrangement of a spherical container for that diamagnetic object. After getting down he removed his rubber sole shoes and thus literarily grounded himself, all accumulated negative charge in his body got discharged. Then how come the cycle is positively charged! He had been negatively charged peddling the cycle so the cycle must have got opposite charge,that was what he derived. That extraterrestrial object was negative diamagnetic he reasoned.Baren thought that his first priority would be to get in touch with Babulal so that he could garner help from Samaranand for his journey to Sadhudom or may be Samaranad himself would be interested to seize the oppertunity to become Sadhu. The crowd in the dark could not see his face so he can switch place with Samaranad and he could be the side kick like Babulal. Note: Though Baren used his knowledge of Physics to explain the invisible force as magnetic but can the repulsive magnetic force be strong enough to hold his weight? Chances are it to be some antigravity phenomena associated with that strange globe. I am Samaranand and heard the above story from Babulal. I could have made the journey to find out more about the terresterial object but because of Lockdown could not go. In the meanwhile I have to organize a Geiger Counter to make certain that strange object is not radioactive!