The Hindu Business Line : The build-up

It had been some time since the white Mercedes stopped moving. Smooth vehicle, only a faint whirr betrayed the air-conditioning and the powerful engine. The uniformed chauffeur sat expressionless; he was used to Mumbai’s traffic jams. Not so the security guard, who was bristling with impatience, gun on his lap. From the rear seat, I watched his dancing fingers, nervously.

Only the man next to me was upbeat; he sat tapping out a slow rhythm on his knees. No hurry, just a tap-tap, its pace dragged a bit to help some inner thought process. “I like this weather,” he eventually said in a raspy drawl. He was the city’s most influential man whether the rest liked it or not. Like him, hate him, he made money. Money that fetched attention all around when required — he was the builder.

“Your question about the future of my business — there are two possible answers for it. The usual tome on economic growth and I can throw in a couple of equity reports to go with it; or, the simpler paradigm, which is the unglamorous mother of it all. What’s your pick,” he asked, a shade better than dismissive.

There is nothing more enticing to a journalist than an invitation to something new. “Lead on,” I said, confident of his choice.

It started to rain. The well-built car absorbed all the pitter-patter rendering dull thuds of metallic twangs. As water flowed down the glass windows, first the distant buildings faded then the nearby cars became blurred blotches of automotive paint. Suddenly the world inside the Mercedes became thick with unsolicited focus. The builder spoke.

“When it rains, people say it’s bad for my business. But look at the mess — the dirt, the squalor, the water-logging, the disease. Quite frankly that’s stuff which gets me clientele. It isn’t just grass and trees that find new life during the rains. I also do,” he said laughing. I tried to visualise him as a green creeper entwined to the city, the strain showed. My face could never hide anything, least of all a puzzled brain.

“Alright,” he said, turning serious, “I read somewhere; 18 million people stuffed into 640 sq km of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai? That makes every inch of land precious even without me for villain. And that 18 million will keep rising. If you keep unpredictable human minds aside and see only the numbers, it is a de-risked business environment; always a small hop to short-supply. Too many people, too little land and, within that, those who can afford will keep seeking the better land. Nature helps as does the municipality. Rains, flooding — some God-sent insecurity to catalyse my sales. Get the overall picture? I just want you to realise that I am only someone who knows how to get money out of this 18 million but they decide why. The money is mine, the demons are theirs. They also set the rules.”

“They set the rules?” I asked. He wiped the car window with his palm. A small patch of vision emerged but it was soon overwhelmed by rain drops, tiny rivulets tracing an ephemeral pattern on the wet glass. The builder dried his hand on a clean handkerchief, pausing to inspect his turquoise ring. The stone was sky-blue in colour.

“I bought this after my first good sale,” he continued, “there’s money in this business for everyone, not just me. Problem is: you notice only me. I am the big, fat public face. What you don’t see is — how 18 million people on it, makes Mumbai gold. It’s a very broad-based game; everyone is a villain, if you want one. The whole crowd hustles property price, the moneyed buy, the rest try again — and it’s there every morning, a bigger, hungrier crowd than before. True, they fetch me money but they also help each other.

“Look at me, paying millions to vacate old-timers from their teeny-weeny one-room houses! You think I would have had to do that if there were eight million and not 18 million of us? Those folks just sat in their houses and population did the rest. That’s the funny thing nobody highlights — or maybe, they know it only too well — you may curse others for eroding your space but their presence is vital to the price of the land you’re sitting on. If they go off, that’s value lost. That’s how this collective alchemy works.

“You shove, push, grin and bear for brown earth to turn gold. No wonder we don’t talk land or home anymore, it’s investment; an ever costlier spiral of investment. So you see… it’s too big a game for one man to set the rules. All I do is sniff out the best investment opportunity; 24 carat.”

I thought of the house I hadn’t yet bought. “The rest of India can’t be as bad,” I said hopefully.

“Really?” the builder asked, adjusting his position to face me, “try a bird’s eye view. We are a country half the size of China with almost the same size of population. You don’t need to be brilliant to see what that means — congestion with high property prices. Remember those satellite pictures of Earth at night? You don’t find the illuminated swathes of urbanisation all around; they cluster at ideal places. That makes your rest of India either premium wilderness or genuine back of beyond or transit camps on the highway to big cities. Ours then becomes a big country with little land! Having created that short supply, each of us will then fight for what is scarce. Be clear on this — I’m going to cash in on that greed, mint money. The long term fundamentals of my business are sound.”

Point made, he relaxed.

“So, you have no fears then?” I asked.

The builder was silent. His fingers sought turquoise. “It is supposed to protect me, this stone,” he said softly, “deep down you know, I have a tiny fear. In this country, the real driver of my business is not land. It’s people. The land was always there; never more, never less. The variable is our numbers, a billion-plus and still growing. It continues to be celebrated as that great market opportunity, not yet, the devil in the works.

“I like to see where I am going. But honest to God, when I wake up in this crowd, I just have no idea where I am headed. It seizes me. Higher and higher prices… any safety net is lost way below. That’s when I realise that Mumbai, India — all these are actually our reflection; they betray our character, our need for more and more of ourselves, our devotion to profit. But how far will you go on a one-way ticket? You tell me. It’s a trap, a conspiracy of human numbers. Perhaps I am milking the land to pay for my passage when the devil strikes; who knows?”

He sat staring at the turquoise ring as if to make sure it would remember his face. The interior of the Mercedes felt big and empty. From the front left corner, the restless guard turned, gun and all. “We are really stuck in traffic, sir. What should we do?”

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The build-up