The Conversion

Religion is almost sacred to most people in India. So, when Paro’s son Somu converted to Christianity, it was only natural that she felt betrayed. Paro handled rising prices, a perennially drunk husband and the sheer physical labor of doing the cleaning and washing in four houses stoically; but this was unfamiliar territory. She turned, as most people did, to my mother for solace and counsel.

I was in seventh grade then. It was the Puja holidays. I was sitting at the dining table idling through a comic book, when Paro’s words caught my attention.

Memsaab, Somu has become a Christian, she announced. Somu was a rickshaw driver and my favorite one at that. He was always pleasant and smiling and would give me short rides whenever he could. He’d also drop my kid sister to school and pick her up in the afternoons.

I jerked my head around to where Mummy and Paro were sitting. Mummy was on the sofa with her legs folded, cradling the paan box in her lap. Paro was sitting on the ground, facing Mummy. Her elbow rested on the table and the fingers held her head in the universal pose of a person grappling with bad news.

Aa re re..chi chi! Ram! Ram! Mummy had almost jumped off the sofa.

The concept of conversion wasn’t new in the Chotanagpur region, where we lived. Christian missionaries ran some of the best schools there. I studied in one of them. But this was the first time Mummy had heard of someone she knew getting converted. Five thousand years of Hindu blood rushed through her veins in protest.

When did it happen, Mummy asked.

Yesterday, replied Paro.

Has he changed his name?

He hasn’t told me. I haven’t asked.

How has his behavior been? Has he shouted at you?

I shouted at him; he just kept quiet. He simply said that he has become a Christian and that’s that.

Paro, as long as he continues to be a good son, you should be thankful. What else do we want? Better a good Christian son than a bad Hindu son! Look at Prema.

That made Paro feel good, I could make out. Prema competed with Paro for domestic work, but her life was miserable. Hardly four months ago, her son had thrown her out of the house. Prema had complained to everyone in the locality; even I was aware of the developments.

God is one finally, said Mummy. Secure in the knowledge that her children were still Hindus, she could afford to be broadminded.

But he will eat beef now, protested Paro. And go to the church. Girls coming to church wear skirts.

It’s your house. You set the rules. Make it clear that no beef will be allowed. Also…..Mummy’s voice trailed off.

Also what? asked Paro.

Mummy was obviously contemplating some weighty advice. She kept quiet and set about making a paan for herself.

I suggest, said Mummy slowly, that you get his wife to also convert. She’ll go to church with him then and keep an eye on him. And in any case, if you can have one Christian in the house, you can have two.

What are you saying memsaab?

Think about it, said Mummy. I think it is a good idea. By the way, did you get the five hundred rupees, asked Mummy.

Conversion to Christianity was accompanied with a gift of five hundred rupees; or so we all believed. After all, changing one’s religion is an act of great courage and it was baffling to think that one would do so without some form of immediate tangible, large monetary benefit. It was a theory so well accepted that everyone assumed it to be the truth.

It also gave a somewhat plausible explanation for the rapid spread of Christianity in the region. Once a poor person gets five hundred rupees, he leapfrogs right to the top on the affluence scale in his community. Those whom he leapfrogs over, wonder why they can’t get the five hundred rupees as well. So, they go begging to be converted and Christianity marches on. This had once been explained to me by a friend who religiously put his sacred thread around his ear while pissing in a Catholic school.

No money, said Paro. At least, none that I can see.

There was silence as Mummy pondered over this piece of information, chewing her paan in a long, measured rhythm.

What about the bicycle, she asked at last.

According to the generally accepted belief, cash was usually accompanied by a bicycle as well. Being a liquid asset, it was usually sold off within the first day.

Must have sold it off, said Paro. If he got one, she added.

I wanted to ask Paro if a watch had been given. I had heard that in some cases it was so. Either a watch or a transistor radio. But given the fact that Paro had seen neither the cash nor the bicycle, it was hardly likely that the watch would have been sighted. In any case, the watch too, would have been sold.

It must be his wife, Mummy pronounced finally. She must have told him not to give you anything.

It was obvious that Mummy was not prepared to abandon the cold logic of monetary inducements on the singular data point of Paro’s ignorance.

Paro’s daughter-in-law was a docile creature who rarely featured in Paro’s conversation. Paro mulled over this new line of thinking. On one hand, it went against Paro’s view of her daughter-in-law’s capacity for cunning. On the other, Mummy had a point. If the money did come into the house and did not reach Paro, it must have made a stop in the daughter-in-law’s cupboard. There was no other explanation.

You should never underestimate your daughter-in-law, Mummy said. It was neither a piece of advice nor a note of caution; it had the calm articulation of a truism.

You should never trust anyone, said Paro. My son has become a Christian. My daughter-in-law has started stealing money.

As long as the kitchens are not separate, money should not be separate, Mummy observed. It was obvious that the juicy part of the conversation was over and I ran away to play.

Next day was Tuesday. Mummy and I were returning from the vegetable market. The holidays were also being used to induct me into the responsibility of doing the vegetable shopping. As luck would have it, we were in Somu’s rickshaw. Mummy was busy quizzing me about my exam preparation.

Suddenly the rickshaw stopped and Somu got down. He took out a packet from the boot of the rickshaw at the back, mumbled ek minute, memsaab and rushed towards the tiny Hanuman temple in front.

We watched, too shocked to speak.

By the time Somu emerged from the temple, grinning and beaming, Mummy had recovered.

As he offered us a small laddu, Mummy demanded, Ai Somu, you have become a Christian, no? So what’s this thing with Hanumanji?

With a bewildered expression and a hurt tone, Somu said, Christian ban gaya to kya memsaab? Apna dharam chor doon?

Knowledge trading, not knowledge management, is the key

Billions of dollars have been invested in knowledge management but the results aren’t making headlines. The money has been spent on everything (technology, integration, travel, salaries of “core teams”) except the creation of knowledge; there is no value attached to knowledge. Knowledge is neither an expense/investment head nor a revenue/profit head for a business unit; therefore, it’s not central to its goals and objectives. Creation and/or implementation of knowledge will remain a tertiary activity as long as it’s not linked to business results.

I propose a “Knowledge Trading” process within the organization, which will attach a real, tangible, monetary value to knowledge (and to the raw material required for creating knowledge). Individuals/teams can sell and buy knowledge/raw material for knowledge through a knowledge exchange. Business Units will have budgets for buying knowledge and creating knowledge. Market dynamics will control the processing, flow and use of knowledge within an organization; facilitated by technology.

Knowledge Trading answers the key question “What is knowledge?” Is it MIS reports? Is it customer feedback? Is it best practices? In this system, it’s what fetches a price. And the higher the price it fetches, the more valuable the knowledge is.

The first requirement for effective knowledge management is the mobility of “raw material”. Knowledge Trading will make the raw material for knowledge (memories of customer conversation, observations, reports, numbers in excel sheets, training sessions attended, problems solved in the field etc) mobile within an organization because individuals can get real money for this. Currently, there is no value attached to this raw material and therefore they are static inside every individual and his desktop. Efforts on the part of the organization to make employees share it are met with a natural indifference, because they are not paid for it; and whatever you are not paid for is not a part of the job. Value of the knowledge/ knowledge raw material created by an individual is neither a part of the compensation structure nor of the appraisal system.

The second step in effective knowledge management is having the right people process the raw material into knowledge packs.

Entrepreneurs will spring up within an organization who will buy raw material, process it, add value and create finished knowledge products, which will be up for sale within an organization; primarily for the business units/management. This suits the organization fine, because it’s really not concerned about how the knowledge is created, but rather with (a) the accuracy (b) the value (c) the timeliness (d) ready availability of the knowledge. In their enthusiasm, organizations expect everyone to create knowledge; this is impossible. Few have the talent to process the raw material to create knowledge.

The well-known dynamics of the market will influence the knowledge production and trading within an organization. In the beginning, there may be many individuals/groups trying to create a saleable knowledge pack. But with time, ability to access relevant raw material, quality of analysis and value-add and understanding of customers’ knowledge requirements will separate the winners and kill others. The “cost” of raw material, too, will undergo shifts over a period of time.

As a result, knowledge factories will be created within an organization, which will be geographically decentralized, have sources of raw material, minds that process it and a market in the top management of the organization; and not because the management wants to spread “knowledge management”.

Knowledge Trading aligns the compensation structure of employees with the earnings and profitability structure of the company. People within an organization, who make substantial intellectual property/knowledge contribution, will leverage it to make more money and rightly so; after all, the organization that leverages knowledge makes more money. In fact, there may be a seismic shift in the salary structure, where a substantial component will come from your knowledge trading. (This is in tune with the past; when company efficiency and productivity drove market success, compensation structure evolved to reward employees for increasing them).

The third step in effective knowledge management is for the different units of a company to accept the knowledge created elsewhere willingly and without any hostility.

Knowledge Trading will overcome the “not manufactured here” syndrome. When organizations try to dissipate any knowledge across geographies, there is a tendency to resist it with the classic “things are different here”. History has shown that trading best breaches such a protectionist wall. When you sell to others, you don’t hesitate to buy from others. Knowledge Trading will, therefore, increase the acceptance and implementation of “others’” knowledge for “my” good.

Knowledge Trading becomes a bottom-up process in an organization, because everyone is a producer of raw material for knowledge and therefore, everyone benefits. Technology adoption, implementation and innovations will come from within, bottom-up, instead of being thrust top down.

And the final step in effective knowledge management is for a business unit to leverage the knowledge for increasing its profitability.

Business Units will have budgets for buying knowledge and creating knowledge. Once trading is established, (incremental) return on knowledge investment/creation can be a key metric to evaluate (and compare across the company) the business performance of individual business units. This will, in turn, align the value of knowledge creation and management within an organization to the objective of business profitability and leadership.

By putting a value to knowledge generated, a continuous production line of new, improved, relevant knowledge is established.