Exactitude

On an estate amongst the literally hundreds of cultivation related chores which the field assistant is tasked with, ONE of the most crucial one is the application of fertilizer in the fields.  While bulk of the estate purchases are taken care of at the estate level, with the cost of fertilizer being a major chunk of the cost of production, the ordering of this particular input, based on information and a requisition issued by the Estate Manager, was always the responsibility of a centralised purchase department, operating out of the Head or Central office of the Company.

During my South India stint the standard practice was that, me being the Assistant Superintendent, under my personal supervision I was required to draw soil samples from each field.  This was done by digging 18/24” pits in at least 10 spread-out locations in each field.  From the inner side of each pit we would first scrape out soil from the upper 6 inches (the top soil) of the pit and then scrape out a second sample from the lower (sub soil) layer.  The same exercise being repeated with all 10 pits, we’d create two, top and sub soil bulked samples, which were accepted as being representative of the whole field.  These samples were then bunged across to some lab for analysis with the findings being the basis for fertilizer being ordered and delivered to the estate for application. 

Easy as falling off a chair!

The exercise towards the ordering of fertilizer in Assam was a much more complicated practice and a totally different kettle of fish.  The basis of this operation was the premise that every single bush in each field must receive back the amount of nitrogen which the bush would have drawn out from the soil in the preceding season.  Theoretically brilliant!  How that dosage was to be determined was where the complexity came in.

The curtain opens with Act I of this comedy of errors:

• • This being a standard practice on any estate, records are kept of leaf harvested from specific fields.
  • Thrice a day, leaf harvested from various fields is delivered to the factory from various estate divisions.
  • Once there, the leaf simply gets bulked with the factory being unaware of which particular field in which particular Division the leaf has emanated from.
  • The bulked leaf is duly processed into made tea.
  • That daily production of tea against the total leaf received on that day provides an outturn %age.
  • This figure is conveyed back to the field office, on the basis of which the field staff determines the actual quantity of tea generated from each field.
  • Based on records of the bush population in each field, by the end of the season one is able to determine what was the actual quantity of tea contributed by EACH bush during that period.
  • So theoretically one knows how much nitrogen has to be fed back into the root system of each bush.

Complexity, on account of which the calculation of that figure was a whole nine yard exercise and the Assistant Field Managers responsibility.  Which basically meant that well ahead of when this information was to be submitted, for days on end the Assistant would end up sitting in his office every evening, working late into the night, calculating that magic figure for each field under his care.  Which is when that lovely theory would fall flat on its face and is the point where I need to get subjective.

In all my years of education, from primary school all the way through to university, the one subject which had me totally flummoxed was mathematics!  So now we have this somewhat brainless dolt (me) sitting with this very broad sheet of paper specially created for the purpose by pasting 5 or more sheets of A4s along the breadth of the paper so as to accommodate the dozens of columns required to calculate, one step at a time, the field-wise dosage per bush.  Having no calculators (Yup!  This was way before some genius unveiled that marvellous piece of electronics) to turn to for doing the dirty work, meant that I was required to exercise my limited collection of grey cells, wading my way through literally hundreds of VERY long divisions and multiplications to arrive at bush-wise dosage of Urea required in each field.  I have no hesitation saying that, thanks to my mathematical skills, the figures I arrived at were anything but pat!  Which I readily admit is actually a gross understatement.

Regardless, after many evenings of head scratching and liberal usage of a rubber eraser, on completing my end of that arduous clerical task, there being the fond hope that this venerable gentleman would be able to audit my miserable efforts, I’d pass on this papyrus scroll of calculation sheets to my Field Supervisor.  Utter bullshit because what I would have taken a month of long evenings to complete, this gentlemen would profess to have gone through in two days, before that sheet would land back on my table. 

Each of the four Field Assistant Managers (Dhoedaam being a huge property having 4 Divisions) having gone through a similar and what was at best a perfunctory exercise, the 4 of us would on an agreed date go to the Manager’s office to hand over our respective manuscripts.  This gentleman, I daresay being as much of a mathematical wizard as yours truly, would give the four newspaper size scrolls a cursory glance before appending his signature on each and then having the lot bunged across to our Central Office.  In course of time a long line of trucks loaded with our ‘oh so well calculated’ loads of fertilizer would trundle in. 

The upshot of the field-wise calculations was that in each field (my Division had 21) the amount of fertilizer to be applied to each bush was subjective to that particular field, with the dosage difference from field to field being very tiny, usually ranging anywhere between 120/130 grams.  To ensure ‘proper’ dosage field-wise volumetric measures had to be ‘engineered’. 

It was now that this farce would get multiplied manifold, leading into Act II

• • Fertilizer application, like everything else on an estate, being highly labour intensive one would end up having to organise about a hundred cloned measures for each field, which exercise proceeded along these lines:
  • Assume a dosage of 124gm for a particular field.
  • A sample of 124gm of urea was weighed on an ancient and wobbling weighing scale which was used for determining the weight of postal articles.
  • That ‘oh so accurate’ 124gm would be spooned into a dry coconut shell with the level of the contents on the inside of the shell being marked with a pencil.
  • The shell above the marked line would be shaved off with a knife so that the supposedly 124gm was flush with the rim.
  • That lovely prototype was then handed over to the estate carpenter with instructions that he produce at least a hundred coconut shells of exactly the same size.
  • By nature coconut shells are simply not homogenous in terms of thickness, shape or depth and with the carpenter simply hacking away to produce a hundred clones, it does not take much imagination to understand what the carpenter would plonk in front of me.

So now we raise the curtain on Act III, the climax of this lovely comedy of errors:

On the day of application a hundred or so workers, usually all male for this particular work, would be lined up with each facing a row of tea bushes.  Each worker was ‘armed’ with an ‘assumed’ 124gm measure.  Tying together the ends of an empty fertilizer sack, the workers would make a sort of sling bag which they would hang from their shoulders.  The urea spread out on canvas bulking sheets would be shovelled into these sling bags.

When ordered to start with depositing the contents of a coconut shell measure to each bush, the line would advance forward much like a Roman legion setting forth to subdue Astrix and the Gauls. 

Just past just that first bush in the row, that painstakingly engineered coconut shell measure would be simply shoved into the sling bag and left there, while fistfuls of urea being scooped out would nonchalantly be liberally broadcast as the troop advanced forward.

What a bloody parody, fooling ourselves into believing that we were working with ‘oh so accurate’ proper systems.  When in fact we just just mulled along, keeping the wheels moving.  But then, as my good friend Shakespeare would say – What a mulling around was there!!!