happy birthday! happy birthday!! Happy birthday!!!!

Hello! Welcome!!! The date is here again. Twelveth of March. Some of you I have had as my constant companions, reading, commenting or just reading and not commenting, since my first post; for the newer readers, today is the birthday of Bhoomi Crop. Five years!! Its just unbelievable. My daughter, who turned five years a few months ago, was a just a few weeks old when I left her in Bombay and landed in a god forsaken corner of this earth, in the middle of nowhere, 200 kilometers away from Calcutta, dreaming about a farm, a new life, a new way of living for not only myself, like never before. Those moments, those precious moments are dancing in front of my eyes now as I am furiously stroking the key board. Crickets and their chorus; snakes crawling under my charpai; women workers at the farm and their demand for sweets; the first crop of watermelon; the arrival of my daughter at the farm after almost 9 months; the sheer energy of every body working and the fantastic feeling of putting up a farm from nothing, just nothing! Dear reader, pause for a moment. Pause. Imagine you are standing in the centre of a land that is barren, rejected and never ever loved. Imagine you are dreaming of converting it into the most pretty farm you ever saw. Now imagine that you are actually doing it. Step by big step. When you dont want the sun to set so that you can work some more. When you dont sleep at night and look up at the stars from your charpai and whistle and hum a tune. A small gesture of thank you to God. Or to your friends. Just a few moments of my life I shared with you, when we began this journey... Cheers

what's happening...

...on the face of it, nothing...
...but if you ask me, I would say, many things are happening.

They are happening silently, though.

And a few, not so silently.

I returned to Calcutta 33 hours ago. My little daughter refused to stay away and insisted on living with me in the green "house", which is the proposed greenhouse at the new farm, whenever ti is ready. I had to spin a long tale to buy time and promised to get the green-"house" ready soon!?!

The proposed new farm is like a dancing of the shadows; now here, now there, suddenly no where and suddenly there again! Between a mirage of an impending panchayat election and the irritating changes in demand of the land owners, we are swinging. Just like a kite on a string and I wonder who is holding the string...

Any way, our banking friends are a bunch of wonderful guys. They have never refused to see us, talk to us, give us a hot cup of tea and a warm shake-hand. Often I wonder, are they not the real Bhoomi fans, the real believers?!

Oh! Before I sign out today, here is a piece of news for you...TOMATO IS RETAILING AT 150 A KILO TODAY IN CALCUTTA; BRINJAL TOUCHED 180 A KILO LAST WEEK, GREEN CAPSICUM IS 140 A KILO.Green Chilly is at 120 a kilo in retail.

All I can say is, our pre-paid food plan is just so right...just wait and see what it can do.

Cheers!

midnight, 12th March, once again...

I have been eyeing the clock since the last thirty minutes...

...wondering when I should begin writing this "post"...after all, it is Bhoomi Crop's birthday!!

2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 & NOW 2013.

Born on 12th March, today the baby is 4 years old. 

I remember, when I came to Calcutta to chase this dream, my daughter was 90 days old. Today, while I am writing this, I can clearly recall the fears, the hopes, the excitement that was so thick among all of us, when we began. 

I recall those early days and nights in Kharagpur when I lived under a plastic canopy and a string bed was my only possession. Plus this laptop.

To a few people, this day means many things - dreams, hopes, failures & faith. You would find it surprising, but as luck would have it, I came across a quote today which is so apt for the occasion, "to succeed, you must be ready to fail."

I admit it is contrary to the work culture in which I grew up, where failure was like the "f" word and was never appreciated. Bhoomi Crop had its more than fair share of failures. But what pulled us through, till today, is the sheer gut to breathe hard & rise again. 

After all, you live only once. 

You have only one life to live and perhaps one real dream to dream. 

How could we not live it and dream it and live it? 

Cheeeers!

hello 2013. The year of Bhoomi Crop! Amen.

Hello! Its been a long time since my last post. Come to think of it, time just disappears & before I could look around and take a long breath, it is another new year. Our efforts have even more increased to put to shape the next stage of the farm. We have homed down on four core products in the the greenhouses and four more in the open field. The battle now shifts in the identification of an (honest) greenhouse vendor. The Indian reality of protected farming is as strange as strange could be. On one hand you have the really needy & honest farmers who cant put a greenhouse together because they don't have the bare minimum money to pay for the subsidised structure; on the other hand, you have smart businessmen, not necessarily farmers, who use the subsidies and schemes to to their advantage and the government loses the money which never reaches the desired objective. Well meaning farmers who are inclined to modern farming are few. As in other industries, in greenhouses too, you have a bunch of foreign players, largely from Israel and Holland, few from China, who have agents in India. These firms will quote you unimaginable prices for a structure that defies logic. Either you take it or you leave it. I cant imagine why our research centres, be it the agricultural engineering schools or the famed IITs, or the different nodes of the government bunk this racket. In fact, while the high priced structures are obnoxiously priced, the same are being designed & commissioned of bamboo. They cost a fraction. But again, who is going to bell the cat? The existing agents representing large international firms will keep claiming that bamboo greenhouses are bad and useless and have no longevity. And we will keep on trusting them and pay millions more. Who thinks for the Indian farmer? Anybody? Somebody???

Grow vegetables in air. Seriously!

7 minutes past 2 in the night, is the time on my laptop clock. The world is sleeping. Some are dreaming. Some are dreaming but not sleeping. Like me... Tonight, I feel very energised. I feel we are almost on the verge of breaking the shackles that has been holding us back. The week is critical for a few big decisions. By the way, you would have always known that plants grow in soil; some of you may be aware that plants can be grown in just water, called hydroponics. Here is a brain twister for you - plants can be grown in just air too! Yes, I am not bullshitting! It is called aeroponics. New Age Farms in north America has demonstrated the reality of it. Google it and you will see them. NASA has already tested the entire process of growing beans in just air, without gravity, inside the Mir space station and it is critical if man has to settle in Moon or Mars, as none of these places have soil. Think about it. Read about it. Dream of it,if you will. Good morning folks!

Is Bhoomi Crop the biggest distributor of mangoes in Calcutta?

The title is scary!

If you run the crazy run that we have been running since the opening of the mango season, from Andhra Pradesh to Malda, via Tuni district and Poranpur, you would either brand us as completely mad or love us forever.

So much so, my daughter, all of three years and seven months, is always packing her bag and claims to be going to Malda to get mangoes!

The story is wierd; here it is...

...Malda, in the upper layers of Bengal, 385 kilometres from Calcutta has always been known by its prodigal politician Ghani Khan Choudhury and the unending orchards of mangoes all around.

When we began the weekly run of trucks from handpicked orchards, to Calcutta, we did not anticipate the eventuality. Today, when we are on the last mile of the mango-run, we realised, we could be, perhaps, the biggest distributor of mangoes in the wholesale market of Bablu Kolay, popularly known as Kolay market in Calcutta.

More importantly, I am informed, we have been branded as the best quality supplier by many traders, who have been our regular customers either from our depot or at the wholesale market.

The tragedy is, I am sad to say this, people love chemically ripened mangoes and most traders do not want to sell naturally ripened mangoes because they are not so pretty to look at!

Just think, how crazy this sounds!

In fact, one of our customers is a large format retail chain which goes around selling "affordable life style" as its brand-promise and this retailer did not push far healthier, far-better-tasting naturally ripened mangoes, beyond the free box that we gave them as a sample.

The badge of the highest-distributor makes me worried because the volume, if you ask me, is next-to-nothing! It only goes to show how the wholesale market in Sealdah is shrinking in size and the imminent danger of its closure.

A heartfelt gratitude is essential here; a 63 year old man, Komol Dey by name, President of the 75 vendors' associations across Bengal and the P.R.O. of Kolay market stood by us, like a rock all this while. The more I spent time with this extremely knowlegable man, the more I thanked him for his guidance, vision and energy. Thank you Komol-babu for everything! I hope we have a wonderful innings together.

The story of Haroon Rashid & Sohael Azam

Haroon Rashid & Sohail Azam worked for Rs.400 per month once upon a time. Soon, they became tired working for somebody and began to trade themselves. The partnership between these two friends was not registered on any document. The partnership was in their heart. Today, after thirty five years, this famous duo of two old men, touching sixty years each, is a landmark by itself in the fruits wholesale market of Calcutta. The next generation of Adil and Tinku are already in the firm; but the fathers dont want that! The old man, Haroon Rashid told me that he does not want the children to continue because there is no "izzat" any more in this business. Mind you he reads the Quran five times a day & smokes twenty sticks daily. When I asked Javed, the oldest employee in the firm what he dislikes about the big boss, Javed smiled and said, "I wish Haroon bhai would not take deciscions as quickly as he does because many a times we have been hit hard." I asked him how many times would the deciscion be wrong? "ten percent", was Javed's answer! This tells me that the two old men are magicians! If you can get 9 out of 10 odds in your favour, I guess you deserve a standing ovation! Tinku, the son of Sohael Azam is 29. He joined the firm while his brother chose to work in the information technology domain. When I asked him what would be his one grudge against his father and uncle, he said very quietly, but firmly, "I wish I had more freedom...". I asked him what would be his three most important actions if he had the control on the deciscion making of the firm and I was quietly pleased with what he said: 1) "I want to build on the HRS brand" 2) "I want to increase our distribution network in the country" 3) "I want to see ourselves in the overseas markets". Let me sum this up for you: two men, with full faith in each other, get into business; after 35 years, they are as good as the first day! I salute their friendship, their trust in each other, their inhuman ability to accept each other's errors and never give up. Haroon gave me an advice; he said, "...if you want a relationship to succeed, you must compromise and never look at the money". Their children are brimming with ideas. They are desperate to win on a bigger platform. That, to me, is a statement by itself. That means this fantastic story of friendship, business success and spirit will carry forward for another sixty years in the two boys of the two (old) men. "Yeh dosti, hum nahi toregne, torenge dum magar, tera saath na chorenge..." Well done Haroon bhai; well done Sohael bhai!!