THE WEDDING SUIT

 

Vijay Khanna is a good conversationalist. It is fun to spend an evening with him if good company is in attendance. Sipping the golden liquid that restores the jangled nerves, he would regale vou with hilarious real-life stories.

That evening, Khanna was reminiscing about his early days in an institution that he later headed. He was posted in a factory in a north Indian state. The industrial township had hardly any scope for entertainment other than the film show in the factory club on a 16 mm screen on Saturday evenings. If you had watched the films for a year, you had seen them all, for the same fifty movies were recycled.

It was, therefore, not surprising that the middle-level executives of the company looked for other diversions. What could be better than a get-together of a small group of close friends?

Over time, a pattern emerged: they would gather at the house of one of them. Often, the conversation would be reduced to talking shop. In order that it did not happen, it was decided that every time anyone of those present talked shop, he would be fined the princely sum of a rupee.

The money thus collected would go into a piggy bank fashioned out of a small earthen pot, which they nicknamed 'beer-belly'. When full, it would be used to fund the get-together where ultimately beer would flow.

Year 1972. It was winter. That Saturday evening, they had met in the house of Dibyendu Chatterjee and his wife, Debjani. Dibyendu had a guest staying with him: Kumar, Debjani's brother. The country head of a large multinational corporation, Kumar talked with a clipped accent. Nattily dressed, not a strand of hair out of place, spit-and-polished pointed shoes, a scarf in a shade of rich burgundy around his neck, he was fashion personified.

The conversation that evening inevitably drifted to men's fashion: how solid colours and bold checks had replaced pastels and subtle stripes in shirts, and how complementing shirts and jackets had given way to contrasting combinations. Casual shirts had, at different times, sported dog collars. long collars, pointed collars, short collars, and no collars. Over the decades, the trousers had changed from drainpipes to bell-bottoms to parallels and the lapels of coats had shrunk and become broad.

Chatterjee, our host for that evening, was a soft-spoken man. Suddenly, he asked, "Would you like to see my wedding suit?" He was on the wrong side of 40 and his only daughter was about 13. Which meant the suit would be about 15 years old, Khanna estimated. Was it double-breasted with side-slits? Or was it a solid ink blue or one with bold stripes? Were the lapels broad or narrow? Everybody was eager to see what had been fashionable in, say, the late 50's or the early 60's.

Encouraged by the overwhelming response. Dibyendu went into the house. It was strange, Khanna noticed, that he went towards the kitchen instead of where the wardrobe would be. He soon he emerged and called out to Debjani.

As soon as she went in, an argument in muffled voices and sounds of a minor scuffle could be heard. Apparently, the wife surrendered after the initial resistance for Dibyendu re-emerged, ending the speculation on the reason for the domestic strife. He had a large, shining dekchi (cooking pot) in his hands.

Debjani had exchanged the wedding suit — which the now portly fame of the lanky young man she had married could not get into — for the kitchen utensil from the bartanwala (vendor of vessels on barter terms, a common sight those days). This confirmed Khanna's vague feeling that one morning he had overheard Chatterjee sitting at the next table in the office on the telephone, talking in an agitated tone to someone about a bartanwala.

A COCK AND BULL STORY

The intercom buzzed. It was my secretary.

"Sir, Dr Dave Greywall is on the line. He wants to discuss his project with you. Shall I give him the appointment on Monday afternoon?"

"Greywall who?" (Did I sound like Lord Elmsworth?)

"The man from Sydney, sir. He had written a month back that he would like to meet you during his next visit to India."

"Of course, I remember," I said, adding, "Okay, 3:30 on Monday is fine."

Moments later, he was back on the line. "Sir, he would like to have a word with you."

"Fine, connect me to him," I replied.

The heavy voice at the other end had a distinct Australian accent. "Mr KT, I will need about half an hour on Mon-die. I have a short presentation."

***

It would be an understatement to say that when Dr Greywall was ushered in on Mon-die, I was intrigued. I had expected a fair-complexioned Aussie, but seated before me was a Sardarji. Tastefully attired, he wore a natty suit and a turban that matched his shirt. He had a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard.

Sensing my consternation, he said, "When I went abroad for higher studies, I was Devinder Singh Garewal. I was addressed as Dave by my classmates and friends. So I modified my name to Dave S Greywall."

That was an interesting ice-breaker. He narrated the story of his life. Born in Lalru near Zirakpur between Ambala and Chandigarh on the Grand Trunk Road, he had lost both parents in early childhood. It was his uncle who brought him up. After his schooling, he studied animal science in Deakins University, Victoria in Australia and went on to earn a Ph D.

Then he worked for large dairies including Dairy Australia in senior positions. In 1990, the entrepreneurial bug bit him: he planned to return to homeland to set up a beef plant in his village where he had a 42-acre inherited farmland. For some reason, he had to abandon that. He had revisited the project now and made it a chicken plant instead.

Then he opened his bag and took out his laptop (the first laptop I saw in my life, I must add). He began his presentation. That he had done his homework was obvious. The professional endeavour was rich in illustrations, tables, schematic diagrams and graphics and the idea was easy to grasp.

The first part was on the table chicken market in India and upper India in particular. (Again a first: till then, I had thought that hens that stopped laying eggs would land up on the dining table; I did not know that there are table breeds and laying breeds.)

‌Part 2 covered his project. The entire process was automatic. Live chicken would be fed into the 'receiver cubicle' and at the other end of the 'carousel', you could pick up neat shrink-wrapped packets of different parts — drumsticks, breast and wings. Workers had only to weigh and label the packets.

"How about waste disposal?" I could not contain my curiosity.

"I'm coming to that, sirree," Greywall said. "Part 3 covers that and 4 is what you are interested in — the financials, profitability and repayment.

"For every 10 broilers, 3 pounds of feathers are produced. The keratin in the feathers can be used in the production of diapers, pillows, insulation, upholstery etc. One of the byproducts is the 'feather meal' produced by a high-pressure,

steam-processing method similar to autoclaving, followed by drying. The heat and the steam hydrolyze the feathers into a cysteine-rich, high protein product that is 60% digestible.

"Also, researchers have developed a viable method to convert heads, feet, and viscera which contain 10-15% and blood meal which contains 60-80% of proteins into granules."

Instead of taking me though part 4, he gave me a spiral-bound project report, saying, "I do not want to venture into uncharted territory by explaining what my accountant has prepared. You could go through this at leisure."

"The tea is getting cold," I pointed to the cup he had put way when he was half way through the presentation.

While sipping it, he told me, "I am staying back tonight in Patiala. Can we meeting the evening? Rajindra Club. 7 pm."

***

Dr Greywall was a good racounteur, I discovered. And he was getting better in direct proportion to the quantity of the amber liquid he imbibed.

That evening I asked him, "Dr Greywall, why was the beef project shelved? Religious reasons? Protest from the public?"

"Oh, that?" he asked. "Good you asked me. There is an interesting story behind it, though it set me back by half a million bucks. The process and the machinery were similar to what you saw — only they were much bigger because cattle are bigger than fowls," he guffawed.

"My consultant suggested that instead of importing the machinery at high cost, I could take a specimen to Melbourne and see how the machinery works.

"That made eminent sense. What if I found that the machinery imported was unsuited? So I did exactly that. I brought a cow from India by ship — with a 'gwala' to feed it and look after it during the long voyage.

"The animal was mounted on what is called the 'tablet'. In chamber 1, it would be beheaded; in 2, skinned,..."

I stopped him. "Spare me the gory details, please, Dr Greywall!"

"Okye, to cut a long story short, we walked to the other end of the chain for the neat little cellophane packets of tenderloin, chuck, brisket, round, sirloin, rump and flank, not to speak of the tanned cowhide and protein granules."

Twenty minutes later, the cow walked out! Turns out that the Indian animal was too small for the machinery built for their Australian counterparts.