Opinion Enveloped in silence

I wonder why the world treasures these Nobel awards. Sweden’s inventor of dynamite,Alfred Nobel,the owner of Bofors,established them from the money he amassed selling cannons and armaments for warfare. My favourite Nobel awardee refused to accept the award. He’s French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre,whose funeral I attended in 1980. He had to hide in his girlfriend’s sister’s house to avoid meeting journalists chasing him to find out why.

Revisiting Kolkata,street posters make you effortlessly remember Nobel Laureate Tagore. But not all Nobel Laureates are lucky enough to enjoy such visibility including Rabindra Sangeet (Tagore songs) played at Kolkata traffic signals. Countries with the highest Nobel prize winners such as USA 331,UK 114,Germany 102 and France 64 would be hard-pressed to honour awardees this way. Nobel even awarded Germans Adolf Butenandt,Richard Kuhn,Julius Wagner-Jauregg and Johannes Stark who were followers of Hitler’s Nazism that exterminated Jews,gypsies and the handicapped.

Livelihood vs human life: Curiosity overcame me at the long wait at the Kolkata traffic signal. I jumped off my car for a ringside view of the quaint action below the lamp-post. From under a moist,jute gunny-sack,the protagonist was taking large,individually rolled,semi-dried,stick-like black tobacco leaves,tearing off the spine skillfully and feeding the balance to the grinder. Cutting through the silence that prevailed in his work and customer interactions,I discovered this was Chaturbhuj Singh of Bihar selling khaini. This unprocessed ground tobacco for chewing is much more injurious to health than the smoked tobacco the hoarding above was warning people against. Beside him was a large faded paint tin can filled with some white substance of the consistency of hardened mayonnaise. I dipped a finger into this thick white cream,smelt it and immediately remembered it to be chuna used with tobacco. Chuna as powdered lime becomes a low cost paint for coating walls of poor homes. Chaturbhuj gives chuna free of cost. Sometimes customers come only for free chuna,thumb-mix it with tobacco before tossing it into the mouth.

Suddenly a man came,perhaps from the neighbourhood,put his left hand below the grinder,and directly collected freshly-ground roughage. He took a dollop of chuna,rubbed the mixture moving his left palm and right thumb together. Then pulling at his right cheek,he packed the mixture inside his mouth. This silent gesture displayed an air of satisfaction. I noticed a strange blackish spot on this man’s left cheek. On closer observation it was not a spot,but a hole from where you clearly see his discoloured teeth. This shock revealed to me how dangerously potent this tobacco was to wear out his cheek tissue.

Whatever the impact of his wares on his customers,you cannot but admire the silent entrepreneurship Chaturbhuj Singh displays. A kilogram of leaf costs Rs 300,he picks it up at Rs 200 per kg in the wholesale market,and makes Rs 400 per kg in his grounded-leaf retail. He’s open seven days and sells 4 kg in 13 hours,from 7-noon and 4-midnight. His readymade packets start from Rs 2,going up to Rs 20. So he makes about Rs 800 per day,with no overhead costs,just an umbrella when it rains. Even uniformed policemen stroll by,pick up a packet without paying. Chaturbhuj silently hands over stapled plastic packets to customers who’re in a hurry,but others silently wait in front of him with passion and patience for fresh khaini. What surprised me was how he’s automated his craftsmanship. Everything happens together,leaf-spine peeling,meticulous grinding,packing,sealing,filling little customer boxes with tobacco or chuna,transacting money. Nobody’s haggling,everybody’s quiet,buying at contented liberty because nowhere is there any written word threatening them that khaini can be cancerous.

Undoubtedly the poor man is making an honest livelihood under the open sky,oblivious to his profession possibly destroying many lives. This certainly is an interesting example of how India only takes care of the affluent,English posters warning them against health damage through smoking. But for the underprivileged,from their birth to livelihood generation,who cares about anything? Would Nobel ever consider an entrepreneurship award for the silent entrepreneur,Chaturbhuj Singh?

Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top management. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com