The Hindu Business Line : Early bird catches the...

GULPING down antibiotics, sold by India's leading pharma companies, to get rid of a bad cold did not allow one to take a morning walk for an entire week. That was not the way the family looked at it. "The cold would have gone on its own but you went to the doctor for antibiotics to escape morning walks," said wife Rama, and the kids backed her. Morning walks have become a habit and one is awake by 5. One whiled away more than an hour staring out of the window into a twilight darkness awaiting the punctual visit of an assorted group of sparrows, pigeons and mynas.

Hot filtered coffee in a stainless steel glass helped one to pass the long wait. It is the family practice to place a handful of raw rice on the window ledge before the birds fly in. Cooing pigeons land first on the window ledge around 6.30 a.m., followed by chirpy sparrows and loud mynas. Initially, they quarrel to establish the first right to consume the rice even as a few crafty sparrows quietly have their fill. Like politicians fighting for Parliament tickets, the pigeons wrangle the most. They peck and jostle and when the weak get nudged off the ledge, the strong start feeding before the weak fly back to resume the scuffle.

Last week, one noted a pigeon with small rings round its legs. The family promptly named it `Ghungroo' though one does not know who ringed her. She lands up every morning and spends the day on the terrace, not flying back to her friends who have ringed her. Now the entire family waits for Ghungroo and only after sighting her do they go about their routine. The cold still irritates one despite three antibiotic pills taken twice a day and one decided to risk walking again in Borivili's darkness.

Lachman Singh thought I was shamming and ordered me to get back to the road. There is nothing better than a pacey walk in the morning, with or without cold. Lachman and myself made the usual rounds of the LIC Colony, which takes about 90 minutes, before proceeding down Linking Road to wind up at the tea stall. The scene on Linking Road has changed and Lachman Singh brought it to my notice. The spacious, well-laid road has been dug up by a natural gas company for laying pipes to supply piped gas. Most of the co-operative housing societies have agreed to pay the initial deposit of Rs 500 per family to get work started as they need not store gas cylinders at home. That could affect the business of oil companies. Till about the 70s, piped gas was a facility enjoyed by the public in Matunga and Dadar. The gas company does a good job of digging with men and women from Tamil Nadu employed to do the hard work. The roads are not relaid making walking painful, while BEST buses, cars and two-wheelers leap into the skies negotiating ditches. It is hard on old men and women suffering from arthritis, but the gas company is least bothered.

More interesting is the experiment in direct marketing of fresh vegetables by a few women who travel more than an hour by local trains from Saphala and Palghar villages to our area. The women team up at Saphala and Palghar railway stations with fresh vegetables such as palak, methi, radish, gobi and onions neatly packed in bamboo baskets. They get up early in the morning, harvest the vegetable crop and cart it to Borivili by 6.30 a.m. In about two hours, they are off having done some brisk deals with the early morning crowd on the roads. The palak and methi have a warm earthy smell with traces of wet brown soil sticking to the roots, while the onions burn one's eyes when chopped. Never in the last 10 years has one come across quality vegetables that are now being offered by the young women from villages situated beyond Virar. There are no weighing scales and the women refuse bargains. Two bundles of palak cost Rs 5, take it or leave it; a handful of onions (five or six bulbs) cost Rs 5. In fact, everything costs Rs 5 and none grudges. "Ye sab mere kheti mein hota hai (We grow them in our fields)," says a young woman. "You cannot get anything better," says an old man who has become a regular. But this marketing endeavour is not to the liking of the regular vegetable stalls in Yoginagar, who start the day at around 9.30 a.m., as it has cut into their sales. One wonders at the business acumen of the women as they have cut off the middlemen to fetch a better price. They have smelt a business opportunity without reading any scholarly stuff on marketing.

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