THE LEARNING CURVE

It is after quite some months, I went visiting my friend of potato and chips fame. Yes, the one whose big household wanted democracy and had elections in there sometime back. If you remember, the original head of the family was ousted in a democratic election and a younger uncle of my friend had taken over.

If you recall further, they had evolved a family policy of stopping most of the cooking in own kitchen and started getting very good quality stuff from neighbouring villages – also from villages afar, of course. The potatoes were sold to the neighbours. Excellent, precision cut and fried, vacuum packed, tasty chips were bought for consumption. The last I heard was they were changing the policy slightly and were asking the experts from neighbouring villages, and of course from villages afar, to come and make those good food items in the household kitchen.

I was quite interested to know how they are doing after these reforms in policy.

So, one day, I phoned him up.

He sounded very agitated on the phone.

‘Come, come! If you want to see our progress, you must come….. I don’t know if you will find it amusing or will you laugh out loud seeing the affairs here. And as far as possible, don’t talk when others are present. You might get hurt.’

‘I am coming tomorrow.’ I went the next day to his house.

There are changes I could notice as we were approaching. Earlier, we had to stop and park our cars just inside the main gate of the compound, because from there we had about 12-15 steps to come down to the front courtyard of the house. Now the steps have been replaced by a road which winds down to the front of the house and then continues around the house to the backside.

An array of many kitchens is constructed behind the house. About one-third of them are having some activity going on inside There are tables and chairs in front of these ‘kitchens’.

‘It looks like a regular food court. The drinks are also served?’

‘Yes. Initially some of my uncles were against it. But, we have to earn from this. This cannot be just a service to our household. So now, we are serving to our neighbours also.’

‘So, your guys have nothing to do?’

‘It is not like that. Our people are doing most of the in-kitchen manual work and they get paid for it. Look at it this way. We are increasing the employment opportunities, no?’

‘Do you also pay for the food?’

‘Of course.’

‘Things seem to be working out well. Why most of them are not occupied yet? Why did you say that there were many problems?’

‘You have not seen half of what is happening here. You can see it today. We are going to have our big conference today.’

‘Conference? What is that for?’

‘Oh, everything…. Whatever we are doing here must have approval from our conference.’

'Give me some lead, no? Let me be prepared.’

‘For example, today we are supposed to discuss two subjects. There is a suggestion that every Saturday we should have Idly or Paratha for breakfast. You watch it and observe the discussion.’

The discussion started. (Or, rather, did not start…) One of the elder uncle – probably he was not happy with the cornflakes or burgers – stood up to talk demanding the Idly/Parantha. What happened next is to be seen to be believed. He is shouted down, not allowed to speak and then about 10 of them joined together in shouting match, giving the impression of about 100 people speaking at the same time. Footrulers and paperweights were thrown at each other and then after sometime, one group got up and went away.

‘So, now what is going to happen?’

‘Oh, nothing. Tomorrow again the same thing will happen. Also, some uncle, it seems has taken money from one of the kitchen guys from the neighbourhood for getting him a prime place in our…. What did you say, food court? Yes, in our food court. So the group of people who went away say that they will not allow the meeting to happen until that uncle is removed…..’

‘Oh, I didn’t know that a simple theme of potatoes and chips could become such a big issue!’

‘Not only this. Sometimes we have bandhs also. None the kitchens will be allowed to operate…  We are told that this is all part of the democracy learning curve, you know!’