A Ball of Wool

Some say there are no random events in the universe. It follows then that there are no random thoughts either. All thoughts have an origin, a place where they come from and a reason they are born. Now, I may not know why I have this gnat-of-a-thought buzzing over me like I’m its gnu, but it’s there. This thought. By talking about it I want to share its buzz. 

Let’s consider our Self as a ball of wool. Soft, bright and snugly wool. Over the years this ball of wool uncoils itself in all eight directions, and then eight more, and more, and so on. By uncoils I mean this self ‘lives’ life. It um ... gives, takes, talks, keeps silent, does, doesn’t do, learns, unlearns, writes, erases, wants, rejects, makes, breaks, grows, plucks, cooks, burns, works, shirks, smiles, keeps smiling, runs, sits still, opens up, closes in, uses mascara, rubs the lipstick, falls, gets up, makes friends, manages friends, switches on, or off, carries on, and on. 

Your Self as you knew it long back when you learnt what self means constantly becomes and unbecomes. But ‘unbecomes’ is no word so let’s just say our Self constantly becomes. It sounds more positive anyway! So when we do all those things (separated above with tiny commas) over our lifetimes our Self becomes. Some would say evolves and grows. Okay. Good. But then what is left of that ball of wool – the soft, bright and snugly wool we began with, after all the slow uncoiling and fast uncoiling and mediocre uncoiling happens and happens and maybe on a very cold, contemplative morning it begs to be noticed? What does it become, really? 

Tiny.

Perhaps the size of the zygote where it all begins. Perhaps tinier. 

Over the years, while the thread of wool spreads around forming a messy maze which may have its own method and past motivations, the ball of wool constantly spins to finally become minuscule at the end of the day. Somehow, without you noticing, you’ve made your Self out of sight! Or to obsess over the metaphor (winters!) uncoiled so much that you’ve forgotten what the ball of wool was about in the first place. It’s barely there now. No magnifying glass, no microscope will make you see what’s left of what was once so … different!

It is a terrifying thought, of this sense of vanishing Self, despite the knowledge that you remember close to nothing of what you once were or wanted to be. This thought shakes the chair you sit on, makes its legs jelly and you sink, heavy with gravitas. All you see are the endless loops and hoops of the thread all around you. So much of it that it doesn’t even seem to be yours! Did it really come from you? Is it you? Was it? Who is you?

Oh boy! I did that? Why would I say that? Oh no that was loony of me. Sheesh! Magenta? No. No. That idea could never have been mine. Are you sure? Positive? Really? It’s okay to not know. Wow, I didn’t know? But I never supported such differences. Oh. I did? Of course I believe in my opinions! I said yes! I said no? Ho! Organic food sucks! I hate that woman. I really hated that woman? Why? Oops! I got drunk? But that’s so not me! Seriously? Why would I close my door on their face? I made a face at her? You’ve got to be mistaken! No? Oh!   

Ahem. Phew. So much.

So on a certain day, the age and stage of which may strike you by surprise, you decide to start coiling the thread back into a ball. Give it some pattern, some semblance of order. Like a ‘this is me!’ moment where the said 'me' may be as unchanging as the sea, but still. Order order. You don’t have to be old and wise. You can be young and wiser and just start pulling back your threads - slowly, sneakily, sassily or sagely. Knit it back. Or just yank it into a hank like our grandmothers used to do using their knees, perhaps never otherwise sitting with their legs so apart but their hands as ever dexterous. I wonder now if by some Jungian connection they had originally thought of this "Self= ball of wool", much before I claim copyright to it some generations down. Would this metaphorical connect explain the passion with which they knit and undid sweaters and mittens and shrugs and shawls with their bony, wrinkled fingers? What were they thinking when they did that? What were their thoughts?  

Winding up our Self into a whole. 

Sounds oxymoronic! Could it mean anything, though? 

Well, you could be honest and straight more often than not. Forget politeness and remember to call a faded sweater a silly, raggedy, useless blot in the name of all sweaters of the world! Choices of yore which now seem compromises to the core can be picked and thrown away like lint on your old fleece. Give in that resignation! If your anxiety has been reduced to a ‘usual habit’ make sure you don’t invite the nitpickers when the next prickly party in the head-heart region strikes. If the tray of sweets was slipped away from right under your nose, don’t bother to serve that gajar ka halwa when your door bell rings next. If your heart says sleep you tell the imp to go fly a kite (but keep away from the boundary wall and wear your sneakers will you!) and you sleep. If they read you to shred you, you make sure you make mental noodles of their books! If they think you talk too much stop talking to them entirely. If they mock those you love then rip open the new set of knives. If someone else wants peace and not your dissent, give them a piece of your mind and then the peace. If another your pound of flesh, take it instead. If they think your hair...  

Lord! I sound mutinous… but I guess what I’m saying is, when you wind up the many loops you’ve surrounded yourself with, knowingly or otherwise, you start seeing yourself better. You recognize what you feel and you give priority to the sounds of your own silent sighs behind the smiles. Because you hear them now. Because maybe sometimes only you will hear them and understand them. 

Of course, you can’t really become a zygote in a fallow tube or some such, so you leave just enough thread out there to know and be known for who you choose to be at that point. Just enough thread to roll back. Just enough to be an extended hand. Never enough to be tugged away. Gradually, you find that lost Self shaping up. May not be a perfect round figure anymore. Nope. But a sphere’s not so bad either.  

And while you wind up your Self into a whole, if you feel like rambling publicly about it in one thousand words without a second look, well, you go ahead and do that too. Self-help, you know!

The Nude Figure in Anurag Tripathi’s ‘Kalayug’

The golden spine of Anurag Tripathi’s ‘Kalayug’ catches the eye instantly. It glitters on the shelf, till you pick it up and notice the dark silhouette of a man against the headlights of cars. The contrast of gold and black is palpable. The juxtaposition even more significant when you read the book. For what lies within is a story that takes you deep into the labyrinth that the art industry is according to the author – glam and gloss on the outside but with a murky underbelly behind the sheen. 

‘Kalayug’ enjoys a great plot, with only a handful of characters and a deceptively simple story line. There is no visible effort to complicate things or confuse the readers, and yet there are wheels within wheels; or to put it differently, paintings within paintings. Intrigue is a constant, with the first chapter itself setting the pace, the tone and the characters for what is to follow. And what does follow?

‘The global art world was transforming…this transformation had replaced aesthetics...with economic considerations of value and marketability…’

Jay Malhotra, a sharp and astute banker, enters the unregulated art market of the Navaratnas, hopeful of turning his fortunes around with the help of his personality and unflinching ambition. He knows that ‘the Navaratnas could be the next big trend in the art industry.’ But what he doesn’t is that ‘the purchase of the Navaratnas was so out of the ordinary, it had the potential to spoil the harmony in the art fraternity.’ So many unexpected colours mix on his palate; those events which surprise him, make him soar, make him struggle and finally shock him! As he makes his way from one art gallery to the next dealer, one warehouse to the next businessman and finally to the courtroom, Jay meets an array of characters who make or break his deals and add both style and suspense to this novel. There’s Patty, a savagely competitive art dealer and owner of two of the biggest art galleries. ‘There is no dearth of people, but there is only one Patty’, as she believes and the book later confirms. There’s Arun, a disillusioned artist. Deepak, the first-generation entrepreneur desperate for social acceptance. There are art collectors ‘hoping to ride the wave of increasing prices in the future’. And then there is Biswas, the academician who hopes for the ideal in the art world…

Every character in this book is manipulative. And so everything is manipulated. There are no free lunches and few relationships to trust. Which makes the book a page-turner, more so towards the end. Which makes the characters risk-takers. Which is also why every partnership – in bed or business – sets the reader wondering about ulterior motives and agendas. The guessing-ahead never really abates! 

Consider Jay and Patty, both representatives of the contemporary, urban, educated world of business and art. Their ‘passionate battle for dominance’ in a world where ‘a bank balance is more tangible than goodwill’ is a constant note that drives them to turn the art tide their way. To even buy peace by selling their souls! How an outsider tries to succeed on a project that 'the queen of the market' herself had failed at is the exhilarating journey the book takes us on. Does he? Can he? That remains to be found out.

‘Kalayug’ not just makes for an entertaining story imagined well. It is created well too, the primary reason for which is Anurag Tripathi’s scholarship. Anurag knows the world of art - totally unregulated, fragmented and growing - like an insider would. His book is based in a context which is actual. Like Dan Browns’ books, ‘Kalayug’ is full of facts and analyses of artworks, artists and eras. From the calculated seating arrangement at complex auctions to the psychology of bidders. From the development of Tagore as a painter to the lack of documentation plaguing his paintings. From scientific methods of authentication to the underground forgery market often run by the painters’ families themselves. And from motives behind buying art as an alternate asset class to master painters languishing in penury on the roads. There’s much that is told to the readers, often in slightly repetitive chapters dedicated to information. Some may feel it slows the pace of the novel, but may change their minds when they realize how everything that is told is significant to the story unfolding with every turn of the page. 

The author’s voice comes through the narrator’s - acutely observant, subtly satirical and with a tinge of regret that ‘all was fair in the unregulated art industry.’ Anurag’s social commentary is unmistakable. People who received fancy invitations made sure everyone knew about it. Perhaps, the applause wasn’t for the paintings but for the amount they sold for? ‘People without experience, expertise, reading or aesthetic exposure became art dealers.’ And the one question - ‘Were people buying art for its aesthetic beauty or merely paying for the signature of the Grand Master’? So many times you hear the narrator but you listen to the voice of the lesser sold artist that Anurag Tripathi is standing up for. Almost creating this story for. Even a forger is but ‘an artist…used his knowledge, talent and imagination to interpret’ because these days ‘being talented was not good enough’. It was Kalayug, after all. The world of art. The age of downfall. Or… both. 

The only let-down in ‘Kalayug’ was, perhaps, the character of Patty. The blurb introduces her as a ‘fiercely competitive art dealer who will defend her turf at all costs’ and raises expectations for a great female character. However, the more you get to know her successes the more you realize – Patty is a stereotype speaking a typical script. She is smart and ambitious but ‘she did what was required to survive in an unforgiving world, exploiting her beauty and sexuality to her advantage…a go-getter, known to play dirty.’ Why? Does a female survivor of misfortune have no other way to success, except using and abusing those around her, much in the language of the abuse she may have faced? Plus, her dialogues lack charm, her retorts spunk. Even in her final gesture towards Jay, Patty befuddles rather than attracts. 

One cannot consider ‘Kalayug’ as solely a thriller. It is a convincing exposé of the fickle and impulsive art industry, where money speaks and relationships go from symbiotic to parasitic in one stroke of the brush. This in turn makes the book a reflection of human nature itself, with adult ego, ambition and opportunity driving the characters to possess ‘institutionalised and objectified cultural capital’. The portrait of the art world in this gripping thriller is a nude figure of ‘the commercialization and degeneration' of this very world. 

‘No one knows for certain the extent of these (forged) works currently afloat in the art market.

Biswas smiled as he read the last sentence and wondered if it should have read ‘no one wanted to know’ rather than ‘no one knew’.

The final twist to the tale ends it on a hopeful note. Utopic. Idyllic. (Naïve?) But hopeful, nonetheless, of ‘a new beginning.’ This is a book with a spine, which says it as it actually is. 

Must read!  

'Kalayug' by Anurag Tripathi is a Rupa Publication, 2017.

[Review was commissioned by the PR agency. Views are my own.]

Bringing the Rainbow; The Hindware Story by RK Somany

Once, while driving along a rutted mud road to Bahadurgarh in a bouncing old Morris Minor, RK Somany saw a rainbow suddenly appear. The heat, the dust and the fretful uncertainty of getting land for his plant was forgotten, and ‘a chore became exciting. Ever since, the rainbow became my guiding mantra. In whatever I do, as a businessperson, a father, a husband, a friend and a family man, I ask myself: ‘Am I bringing the rainbow to this? The passion, the excitement, the colour?’

No wonder then that RK Somany titled his autobiography ‘Bringing the Rainbow; The Hindware Story’. And no doubt he tried to bring the rainbow into this book too. The story is about how Hindware went from a newbie to a market leader, surpassing the country’s economic handicaps, everyday business challenges and even personal impediments from within the Somany family. 

Autobiographies create a glorious canvas of context – historical, political and cultural. The story of a person comes riddled with important events from which he, and thus the reader, draws valuable lessons. They provide us with a deeper understanding of the subject they are written around. And they make for interesting literary reading in that the reader looks for omissions in the narration and hesitant gaps in the narratorial voice; those moments which make you wonder – is this his recollection as an adult or an uncoloured version from his childhood? 

The telling of the tale. The home and the world.

RK Somany tells the story as if it is being meticulously recalled for a live audience. So while sometimes the narration is linear at others he shifts between the past and the present. While he does that, a panoramic picture of not just his life’s events but those happenings which beset the times also gets painted. What comes through is a visual of both how the businesses were run and how families were too. 

RK Somany was the ninth among eleven children, brought up by his eldest brother, Hiralall, after his father’s death when he was seven. Those were times of ‘centrality of morals’ and when older brothers were near-bosses, who set standards and conditions! But who also patrolled the house with a rifle during crises like the Great Calcutta Killings. Good words carried worth, good families even more. School admissions and membership of Exchanges and Clubs happened based on reputation. And yet, under the same strong family umbrella came a scheming sibling, two mysterious deaths and some more “bad blood”. 

Business was never usual in times of historical flux and ‘life wasn’t all glamour and fun.’ Red tape, black markets, ‘blinkered government policies’ and socialism made private industry seem suspicious. There was very little market intelligence and data to base decisions on. Add to that infrastructural woes like power cuts and ‘inspector raj’ in a place like UP, and later the Emergency with the ‘draconian MISA used to intimidate businessmen’ and the financial crisis of 1991. Hindware had many tides to overcome, and ‘Bringing the Rainbow’ shows how RK Somany did just that.  

As one reads what comes across as a ‘business saga’, one notices significant events, professional and personal, which made Hindware a household name. And which made RK Somany the man who is speaking to us through this book. 

Important events for him. Lessons for all.

‘In retrospect, I am really grateful to my family for its decision to move me out of Calcutta more than half a century ago. I wouldn’t have become who I am had I remained there.’

In ‘Bringing the Rainbow’, as with all autobiographies, we sense a bildungsroman. From boyhood to his businessmen years, the book clearly chronicles RK Somany’s growth. But if you pay attention to the teller, the tale makes you privy to pivotal points of time in his life which stand out as peaks. His early days reveal how the psychology of this second youngest sibling evolved, as a ‘fierce determination’ was born over fighting for a mere chance to play. Private tutors would teach his siblings and he would sit around, listening.  Learning. A ‘template for my behavioral responses to adversity’ was created as violent and economically stressed historical eras unfolded. In him also developed a streak of individuality away from his brothers’ footsteps - to become a graduate even as he helped his family in business! 

It was the physically taxing days spent in England which helped him learn the ropes of the ceramic industry. The discomfort and ‘enforced thrift’ of those times led to a success which comes when one is ‘in the thick of action’.  The aim always remained to provide world class products at Indian consumer prices, and not compromise on customer goodwill because of the more profitable black-marketing. Trysts with Jaycees and the Rotary Club brought out the public leader in him. Exposure to the differences between workers in England and India made him understand and deal with labour strikes too. 

An eye-opening event was that of buying back his own brand at a high price from a Chinese company, which was using it. Hindware’s wings had spread and problems were fast increasing. ‘The big boys of the global sanitaryware industry soon entered the Indian market.’ Often, the obstacles were political, like he found out when the sales tax department of Govt of Haryana raided his plant. Countless such important events in his life left him learning and unlearning, and leave us doing the same too.

‘I am humble enough to know that I do not have all the answers. The HSIL board comprises men of rare distinctions. It would be foolish not to leverage and take advantage of their combined wisdom. This is simple common sense…’    

The voice.  The person.  

‘I wasn’t certain that the familial ties and the strict Marwari culture that had kept us brothers closely bonded would endure into the third generation…maybe the time had come to divide…’

The straightforwardness with which the story is told makes RK Somany seem a friend by the time we finish reading. And we his confidants! No, there are no sensational revelations eager to please the reader. But there are many moments where the already-thin guard of autobiographies is down, and where the narrator truly shows himself in flesh and blood. 

You sense relief when he says his family was ‘without any choking orthodoxy’, and gratitude and admiration for his brother when he says ‘it takes a rare human being to put his own education and possible future on the line to bring up his siblings.’ There is honest admittance of being well-off from the time he was conscious to the time he first signed a cheque for one crore of rupees. No mincing that, because ‘in the tradition of all the great Marwari businessmen I admire, I believe cash is king.’ No mincing either the candid revelations of ‘strains (that) had begun to surface in this united and happy family image we portrayed to the outside world.’ Forgiveness shows when he speaks about his estranged brother Chandra Kumar. ‘I’m sure he has his reasons’ is what Somany leaves it at. 

‘To find smuggled products in a government-owned facility in the Pakistan capital was both a cause for shock and delight’, he admits. Regret is visible when he notices that ‘the quality of trade and the people involved in it has deteriorated’ and anger when he says ‘what really gets my goat is the unrestricted import of cheap Chinese sanitaryware.’ 

There are gaps in the narration too. Hesitance. A mechanical telling not suiting the events. Spaces where there’s less revealed and much concealed and absence of it is conspicuous. For instance, while we know meticulous details of how the business progressed, we barely know anything about the wives, how they felt about his ‘huge personal sacrifices’ of mostly working through the days, or their mysterious deaths. Did he try finding out what happened? Why aren’t we told? Is it because it has no direct bearing on the Hindware story? Is that the reason why his children also occupy a marginal place in this account? What I also missed reading about were the trusted hands like managers  and workers and clerks and guards who probably were an important part of this journey but who have not found space in the book.     

Interesting business talk.

‘Being the youngest of the four surviving brothers, my claims were often overridden by the others in favour of their own plans for the companies they ran. It may surprise many readers but this is the way Indian business families operate.’

There’s much that readers will learn about businesses in general and sanitaryware manufacturing, designing and trade in particular from ‘Bringing the Rainbow’. How, first, the idea of sanitaryware needed to be introduced to Indian consumers. How vitreous china which ‘didn’t absorb water even if the product was chipped’ could be marketed. How when competition heated up superior technologies and designs had to be introduced. Why HSIL wasn’t comfortable in giving dealers sole selling agencies, while also visiting dealers of rivals to understand ‘market trends’.  Why a close watch had to be kept on allied sectors. And ‘the one clause that has remained unchanged for 52 years is the one on not allowing dealers to charge more than the MRP – a clause we introduced decades before it became mandatory.’

The book also contains nuggets of information on hunter and sportsmen rifles, the structure of ammunition strong rooms, motors of submersible pumps and goes into angry details of some ‘bizarre laws’! 

The book ends in the present, where RK Somany sits talking to us, confessing that ‘I try to teach myself something new every few days.’

His rise, in many ways, signifies India’s post-Independence industrialization drive. ‘Goodwill takes decades to build’ and this book is a glimpse into how it can be. HSIL’s rise, made possible with ‘close supervision, constant innovation, investment in the best technology and strong systems’ is also the journey of a man whose goal ‘was, and remains, to stay ahead of the curve’. This man intends to retire when ‘God retires me.’ But for now ‘I intend to lead HSIL into some new areas.’ 

A good book for those interested in the Indian business history as well as those who love a good story well told! 

'Bringing the Rainbow' by RK Somany is a Maven Rupa Publication, 2016

[Review was commissioned by the PR Agency. Views are my own.]