WE: Winning Enterprise (Short Story)

“Hi, Harish! Namaskaar Mausi! It’s really a pleasant surprise to see you help Harish in the shop.” Manoj announced his ritual morning visit to his friend Harish, his childhood friend. Manoj was a young horticulturist working in the district horticulture office. Every morning, on his way to his workplace, he would visit Harish’s hardware store, situated near the bus stop. Harish, would wait for Manoj to have the morning cup of tea together.

Rohini, Harish’s mother was a housewife in her late fifties. She would wake up at cock’s crow in the morning and would complete all the household work before she would serve the breakfast to Harish and a flask full of morning tea for him and Manoj. Harish was the eldest of Rohini’s three sons. Due to genetic complications, two of her younger sons were physically challenged and she would take care of them without complaining to her almighty Lord Shiva for her fate. She was only sixteen years of age when she married Virupaksha Garavalli and entered the household of one of the oldest families of Balendi village. She worked round the clock and called it a day only after serving the family their dinner and ensuring that everyone had comfortably retired to bed to rest for the night. She was ‘Rohini Mausi’ to her son’s friends and invariably to all the youngsters in the village. This morning, she was helping Harish to set a rack in his shop for the spices she ground and packed to sell from the shop. She looked at Manoj while neatly laying out the packets of spice on the rack and replied, ‘Manoj beta, how are your Amma and Appa? I did not see them at the temple on the occasion of Sankranti Utsav? I hope your Ajji is in good health too? Here, first, have your cup of tea before it is too cold to be refreshing enough in the morning!” Rohini Mausi laughed while handing over the cups of tea to Manoj and Harish.

Manoj and Harish gladly accepted their cups of tea and settled down on the wooden bench in front of the shop. Manoj took a deep long sip of the hot tea and replied, “Thank you Mausi, for the tea, it really keeps me active for the rest of the day. Amma and Appa are fine. They are visiting Chinni Akka to help her arrange my cousin sister’s wedding. By the way, what brought you to Harish’s shop early in the morning?” Before Rohini Mausi could reply to his question, Harish laughed and picked up a packet of red chilli powder and placed it in front of Manoj and replied, ‘for this!” Manoj exclaimed, “You oaf! Why Mausi has to visit your shop for a packet of red chilli powder? Can’t you send it to her?’ to this, both Harish and Rohini Mausi laughed and Harish replied, “Your Rohini Mausi has set up this Masala rack in my shop to sell home ground spices. She is going to supply the picked spices and I am going to sell them for her from this shop.” With sheer amazement, Harish looked at Rohini Mausi and said, “Congratulations Mausi! But what made you do this?” Rohini Mausi, quite unfazed by the remark continued to set the packets of spice on the rack and said, “It’s Rasheed’s mother’s brainchild. The money Rasheed earns by helping Harish in his shop is not enough to pay his high school fees. So, his mother asked me if she could grind a few basic spices like red chillies, turmeric, coriander, cumin seeds. Pack them and sell them through Harish shop to earn the money needed for Rasheed’s school fees.” Manoj remained silent for a while, then looked at Harish and said, “Buddy, what about all your young and old friends from the neighbourhood, who throng your place every evening for a heated complaint and grievance session on pension and retirement benefit anomalies. What the government has to do and has not done for them? What they have to say about this?” In reply to Manoj’s query, Harish laughed a hearty laugh and replied, “Manoj, old chap, Raghu will be here this evening, yes, our old school pal, Raghu with a running nose, who is now a lawyer is visiting me this evening, why don’t you too make it point to be here in the evening, on your way back home?” Harish saw Manoj deep in his thoughts tapping his fingers on the empty teacup in his hand. He broke out of reverie, placed the teacup on the shop’s counter and said, “Will I miss the chance to meet Raghu, you can count me in, Harish. Oh! It’s 8:30 am already, let me rush to the bus stop for the 8:45 bus. Thanks for the refreshing cup of tea, Mausi!” Manoj made a beeline for the bus stop while Harish and Rohini Mausi got busy with their day’s work.

“Most of the residents of the village are retired defence personnel and war widows?” asked Raghu. “Yes, it is,” replied Basappa, a retired army officer, who lived in the village with his wife and two daughters of marriageable age. “Since most of you live in your own and not a rented house, then what problems do you face here?” mused Raghu. Before he could finish his query, he had to face a barrage of heated response: “Don’t you know Raghu, your father is also from the Army, is his pension money enough to take care of the household expenses?.... Don’t you know, we don’t get our retirement benefits on time?... I don’t get my disability allowance….widows of your cousin uncles are not receiving their pension….It’s anyone’s guess, price of all the things is going up…Do you know, Hanumanthappa, Yadgiri, who was with your father in the army, their widows are working as domestic help…ration we get is not enough…there are no roads and street lights…last night, Arjun fell in a ditch along with his cycle…did he hurt himself?...he has broken his left leg…Panchayat says we don’t pay our property tax, so it cannot provide street lights and roads….That’s a lie!... Siddhi and Mahesh are lucky, their sons are in the city working for big companies, so they have got generators and invertors to light their house..they help their parents with money too…what can we do, our sons are in the army…Did you get your ration card?... I have lost my voter’s ID Card…the clerk is asking for money…I cannot afford to eat eggs, vegetables are so expensive..” Seated at his shop’s cash counter, Harish cast an amused look at Raghu, who was city dweller and was listening helplessly to the young and old rattle off their woes in their evening congregation.

“Hello friends, good evening! Hope I am not too late for the meeting? Hi Raghu! What brought you here?” Manoj’s warm and lively voice came to hapless Raghu’s rescue who jumped up from the wooden bench and rushed to his old friend to greet him, “Hello Manoj, what a pleasant surprise! Harish had called me asking me to help him with some legal matter...I thought you were living in the city working for the Horticulture department! Hey, you are still the lanky fellow, look at me and Harish, we really have literally added on our age to our waistline!” The friends guffawed together and Harish called Rasheed and asked him to get tea for everyone assembled on the benches placed in front of his tea shop.  He then addressed the gathering, “gentlemen, I hope you will not object to my mother and few of the ladies of the village to join us in this meeting?” Harish’s question met with a resounding silence as people in the group did not expect Harish would make such a request. To break the impasse, Raghu replied, “Why not, Harish? Would like to meet Rohini and Farida Mausi…” before Raghu could complete his response, Basappa, the oldest man present in the meeting piped in, “What the ladies have to do in a men’s get-together? Why do you want them here, Harish?”

Harish smiled and replied calmly, “Thank you Basappa uncle, for the question. There is a reason why my friends Raghu and Manoj are present here. My mother and her friends have been working together on a small enterprise for quite some time and they need our help to make it a success.” Harish’s reply met with a sound of the disgruntled sound of objection from the group. To cover up for the face-off Manoj piped in, “Harish, I think I know what Rohini and Farida Mausi are doing, we all should know about them.” Just then Rasheed approached the group with a tea kettle and a tray full of teacups. Manoj took them from Rasheed’s hands and asked him to get Rohini Mausi and her mother to join the meeting. Girish Babu, who was Harish’s father’s friend got up and looking annoyed addressed the group, “friends, since these boys have decided to have the ladies here, then we need to get up and leave. I don’t know why my friend Virupaksha is not here in this gathering.” Harish immediately left his seat in the shop and stood beside Girish and said, “Uncle, Baba has taken my brother to the city hospital for the monthly therapeutic treatment, otherwise, he would have been here with you. It is he who has asked me to organize this meeting. Please don’t worry about the ladies; they are going to sit inside the shop. Here is your cup of tea, uncle.” Harish took the teacup from Manoj and gave it to Girish. While the menfolk were busy speculating the reason why the ladies were asked to participate in this informal evening gathering, Harish, Manoj, Raghu and Rasheed’s mothers entered the shop from its back entrance, spread mats on the floor and sat down on the floor. To see their mothers present in the gathering Raghu and Manoj yelled together, “Maa, what are you doing here?!” Manoj’s father, who was a silent spectator, replied with laughter, “Don’t be impatient son, let your mother speak.” Harish gestured to his mother to address the gathering.  

Rohini got up and said, “Namaskaar everyone, I would like you to see these packets of turmeric, chilli, coriander, cumin powder, potato chips, tomato paste, dried coriander leaves and methi leaves that you buy from this shop and made in your home.” The group gasped in sheer astonishment. Basavappa could not contain his curiosity and asked, ‘Rohini Behen, could you tell how you have been doing this?”

Rohini cleared her throat and replied, “my friends Farida, Nagamma and Mahalakshmi will tell you.” Farida continued with the narration, “Wise ones, you all know that I am a widow and my son Rasheed earns his school fee by helping Harish in his shop. Now that his high school fees have increased, I decided to grind spices and sell them from Harish’s shop to make up for the required amount for the fees. When I discussed it with Rohini Appa, she said that I would be investing a lot of effort and money for very little returns. We discussed this and with Nagamma, Manoj’s mother, who with the help of her son’s horticultural knowledge, has been growing many spice and food plants in her garden and has been helping many of her widow friends to do so too. I bought part of the raw material from the market and the rest I got from most of the ladies growing them in their kitchen garden. Harish helped me get the packaging material and package the spices and sell them from his shop. Rahim, who was Manoj’s neighbour got up and said, “Farida and Nagamma Khala have helped my mother too. Manoj has taught Nagamma Khala to make vermicompost and the optimum use of the land area to grow vegetables. My mother has been growing tomatoes, chillies, fenugreek, coriander and selling them to Farida Aka. All these ladies have also encouraged other ladies in the neighbourhood to grow vegetables in and around their house. Nagamma has helped my brothers Ali and Roshan to collect bio-degradable garbage from every household in the village and make vermin-compost. They give a fixed amount of money to every household instead of the garbage they collect from it Mahalakshmi Amma, who is working in the local bank has helped the ladies of these households to open a recurring account at the bank and deposit the money they get for the garbage they contribute for the vermin-compost project. Now, Ali and Roshan are making enough vermin-compost to supply to the households in the village and also sell it in the market to the farmers and horticulture gardens. After six months, the recurring deposit will mature and with that money, each household will get methods, tools, seeds/seedlings, medicines to grow most of the spices and vegetables in the garden.” Out of the sheer excitement, the gathering responded with a resounding clap to applaud the successful Endeavour of the ladies and youngsters. Encouraged by the group’s response, Ali got up and addressed the gathering, “We have not taken any help from the Panchayat. Balu Anna, Raghu Anna’s brother has also agreed help us set up biogas plants in every household and also helps with the project on a common solar-power unit for all the households in the village. Now, no one will complain that their sons are not working for big companies in the cities to buy a generator or inverter for their parents and home in the village.” On hearing this, the gathering broke into laughter and clapped with joy. Balu, who was standing beside Ali, raised his hand and said, “To be successful in our endeavour we need to organize ourselves.  This is the reason why we are here so that my brother Raghu can tell us how we can achieve this.”

Raghu all this while was listening spellbound to all the speakers. He got up and said, “Congratulations to WE: the Winning Enterprise.” All we have to do is to form a Cooperative and then connect with respective departments for support and guidance: Horticulture, Cottage Industry for the production and marketing of the spices and condiments and of course, we will also create a website with our friend Anal Duhidha’s help about our Winning Enterprise our products too.  In fact, those of you have a patch of agriculture land beside your house can utilize it quite beneficially in this enterprise. You can also frow spices and pulses at home. Please ask any question you may have about the way forward.”

While everyone was involved in an animated discussion about the enterprise, who would participate in garbage collection, vermicompost, vegetable growing, spice growing, product making and packaging, finances, biogas project, solar-power project, Rohini, Nagamma, Farida and Mahalakshmi quietly retreated through the shop’s backdoor to Harish’s house and got plates full of potato chips, dry chilli fry, tomato pickle, curry leaves chutney, as treats for the gathering along with the rest of the ladies who too were stakeholders of this enterprise and had already begun selling these products from the shops in the village.