2 Bandra Girls Buy a Farm, Part 4 – Mithai Diplomacy and Electric Poles

With the planting done and the borewells drilled, we turned to the next task in our greenfield farm project – Electricity! Drilling borewells was all very well, but we needed electricity for a submersible pump to draw water from them! Very logical and all too easy in our urban world, but, as we soon found, a treacherous minefield in rural Maharashtra. The closest electric pole was in Mahagaon Adivasi village, a mere 300 meters from our farm. But it was an uphill task to achieve that last mile (300 metres!) connectivity.

We had already made two tentative forays to getting electricity to the farm and had come up wanting.

In our first attempt, M, our man-of-all-parts, had brought along an old bent, gnome-like man wearing somewhat tattered clothes who he introduced as the point man for MSEDCL (Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited). The man cackled away, chattered nine to the dozen and gambolled around the farm explaining how he planned to get us our electricity. He pointed his crooked finger at an electric tower in a distant field and said he would instal pylons in four neighbouring farms, and et voila, we would have electricity. At some stage, when Bandra Rose leaned back a little to adjust her mask, the gnome admitted he’d had a drink or three that morning, and it’s possible that he was reeking of alcohol! This was at 10.30 am! Undaunted, he continued on gaily, saying we shouldn’t worry; just give him our 7/12 (there it pops up again!!); he would have our electricity up and running before we could say ‘cheers’. As entertaining as he was, the gnome didn’t inspire much confidence, and in any event, we were still waiting for our name to appear on the elusive 7/12, so we had to give him a pass.

A few weeks later, when the Farm Fiend was crawling all over us to extract money in every possible way, he offered to get us electricity through the village. Many calls later, he announced we would need 12 towers from the village to our farm. 300 meters, 12 poles!!! It didn’t sound right to us, and the amount he quoted could have bought us another acre of farmland! So, we put him off as well. But not before he (again) threatened to put a spoke in our 7/12 wheels.

So here we were, many months down the road at the peak of the monsoon, with over four hundred trees planted and no light in sight. The rains would sustain our plants till October, post that our borewell pumps would be needed, and they required electricity!

M&S, our trusted manager and farm consultant, dug into their network and brought along a new MSDECL contractor and linesman. They examined the area, calculated distances, and gave us two options. Either we erect 6 poles from the village to our farm (that’s half the Farm Fiend’s 12!), or we ask for permission from neighbouring farms and fields and pull the electricity from the farm in the distance. We opted for the former, not wishing to risk our electricity to the vagaries of others.

Decision made and price negotiated, we returned to Mumbai assured that work would commence within the next week after all forms were filled and permissions received.

But again, why did we think this would be smooth sailing? When the contractor arrived with the poles and lines, the villagers refused to allow them to work, saying there was no way we would be allowed access to their electricity. It seems the village elders had a meeting and decided it was simply not to be. M&S had several backchannel chats with various people in the village but could not get them to change their minds. This was seriously not a good situation.

A face-off was suggested and agreed upon. We would meet the village elders to plead our case. A note here; we could have pulled in our legal guns to get a court order to allow our electric poles, but that wasn’t the route we wanted to take. We plan to be a part of this village and community for a long time, and a confrontation so early on wasn’t in our best interest.

Unfortunately, on the agreed day, both Bandra Rose and Mr Stonethrower had urgent appointments in Mumbai, so it was decided I should go alone instead of asking for a rain check. My sister offered to come with me, which was a huge relief.

On the drive there, M&S repeatedly called with advice and suggestions, and finally, as we neared Kolad, they called again, but this time with the best news.

A quick back story here. Our broker had once introduced us to the Police Patil. A term we had never heard and needed the help of Aunty Google to decipher. For those of you who (like me) are curious about this enigmatic post, here goes…The Police Patil is a state government employee who mediates on behalf of the police and the villagers and is the principal officer of the village. His primary duties are quasi-judicial and administrative. He is responsible for writing up the birth and death register and caring for any unclaimed property found in the village. The Police Patil is directly subordinate to the Police department and the taluka magistrate and is widely respected.

A few months ago, when we finally got the 7/12 transferred to our names, we launched our ‘mithai diplomacy’ charm offensive. Accompanied by M&S, we visited the Police Patil, the (Lady) sarpanch of the village cluster and several others, armed with mithai boxes to introduce ourselves and announce that we were now a part of their eco-system.

Back to the present and the drive to the village conference to plead for our electric poles.

M&S had been hard at work speaking with people who could help us, and thanks to our mithai diplomacy, both Police Patil and Sarpanch were ready and eager to fight in our corner. Phew!!

This was seriously an example of ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man.’ We swung by the Police Patil’s house and arrived at the village with our new Farm Friend (opposite of Farm Fiend) in tow. A few minutes of chaos and shouting later, we were seated with Police Patil and me on one side and maybe 10 elders in a loose circle on either side of us. First, for warm-up water cooler conversation, our round table discussed the spread of the virus, the efficacy of the vaccine, the latest political machinations in the State and Centre and the general mistrust of any government scheme. This was the morning after the Central Cabinet reshuffle, when Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Jhavdekar, etc., were unceremoniously dropped and Jyotiraditya Scindia and Rane, amongst others, were brought in. Views were exchanged on every appointment and removal. We all agreed that Scindia was a good guy, while Rane was a fool, and the BJP would rue the day they decided to pitch him against the Shiv Sena.

At the risk of sounding patronising, I was seriously impressed with the awareness, clarity and strong views and opinions of everyone present.

Then, we got to the topic of the day – permission for our electric poles – and the atmosphere suddenly turned hostile with loud shouts, heartfelt arguments and foot-stomping on the part of the villagers and, most importantly for me, a master class in diplomacy by the Police Patil. At no stage did he belittle or try to override any objections. He indulged the ramblings, sympathised with the complaints, eased the discussion back on track when it went awry and calmed tempers that were flying high. I must admit, there is no way I could have managed this meeting on my own. Through all this, my sister dear walked along the periphery of the circle nodding sagely and video graphing the meeting for posterity.

One older man in a bright orange shirt repeatedly jumped up, spraying tobacco spittle, and said they would never allow us to get the electric poles. Another rambled on about outsiders who haven’t a care for the lives of villagers. And yet another shouted at us because a neighbouring farm owner had accidentally run over one of the villagers. They were really irate and not in the mood to listen. When Police Patil pinned them down to their real objection, they said we would build a fancy ‘farmhouse’ with air-conditioners and place a massive burden on the village DB [distribution board].

Now it was my turn to jump up. No fancy farmhouse and no air conditioners, we needed electricity for the pumps to water our farm!!! It was like a helium balloon had been released and we all watched it gently float away. The air was quite literally taken out of their objections. All we wanted the electricity for was pumps??? The man in orange with the spittle jumped up again to say it was agreed. The village had no objection. We could go ahead and get our electricity installed.

That was it. Bonhomie and smiles all around.

And so it was that our mithai diplomacy won the day, and two Bandra girls got their electric poles.