The passionate and professional sweet master

I started seeing Mr. N recently in the clinic. A 70+ year old gentleman with a thick dash of milky white hair on his head, and a glowing smile, Mr. N’s face was marked with numerous thick, deep lines that indicated his age. When people have difficulty in hearing, initially they talk too loudly so that they can hear their own voice, and with time they lose even this little hearing and their voice fades away. Sometimes they don’t even complete words and sentences. Mr. N was in the latter phase. He spoke so softly, that it took a lot of effort to understand what he says. 

“I have this mild breathing…….” That would be his sentence. He would have said “breathing difficulty” but the words would have faded away. 

 

When I meet Mr. N, I sharpen my visual observations and keenly watch out for his lip movements. Mostly the end of his words and sentences are just lip movements without any sounds. It took us several visits to develop a kind of comfort in communication. The initial few visits were just frantic attempts to somehow communicate our thoughts to each other. Usually within the first couple of visits many of my patients and I engage in personal conversations and exchange of life stories. But this took some time to start with Mr. N due to the communication challenges. From a medical point of view Mr. N has diabetes and high blood pressure. He has been taking tablets for these conditions for over 20 years now. About 10 years ago he developed a heart attack and was admitted in Chengalpet Government General Hospital. He underwent conservative medical treatment. He has been regularly taking tablets for all these conditions from Chengalpet Government Hospital till now. But the travel to Chengalpet government hospital once every 15 days to get a prescription refill was challenging to Mr. N as the distance was prohibitive. He had heard from a relative about our clinic and decided to get the medications from us, even if it meant spending a small amount each month. 

 

Yesterday when I met him, there were no other patients waiting in the clinic. It had rained quite heavily in the village and people were taken by shock and surprise by the sudden unexpected rains in summer. Many people had planted watermelons, and groundnuts in their fields. These crops require good sunshine for them to be productive. Any rain in the early stages of growth can damage the crop and lead to poor harvest. There must have been a lot of disturbance among the people who had planted these crops and generally the flooded roads and the intermittent rains must have discouraged people from visiting the clinic. So the crowd was relatively lean. Mr. N walked in with his classic bright smile and sat down. 

 

“How are you doing?”

“All fine. How did you make it with all this rain?”

“When I left from Chennai, there was no rain and when I reached here the rain had reduced. That is the advantage of a long train travel.” I replied. 

To remind you, most of this conversation happened in a combination of sign language, slow and articulate speech and liberal lip movements for either of us to read and understand. After completing the initial clinical encounter and writing out the prescription, both of us sat quietly in the clinic. I did not want to lose out on this opportunity to get to know Mr. N better. 

“You mentioned that you used are a sweet master. Tell me about your job”

Mr. N smiled broadly as soon as he understood that I was asking about his job. 

“Yes, I can make laddoos, jaangri, athirasam, mysorepak, and all traditional sweets. I used to prepare sweets for weddings, temple festivals and all other festive occasions.”

“When did you start making sweets and how did you learn?”

 

With this question Mr. N’s eyes glazed over and I could see he was no longer in the clinic space. He had travelled in his mind to the past. 50 years ago, as a young man all of 20-22 years, he had helped in organizing his elder brother’s wedding. Those days, weddings were major village level occasions, where the entire village would get together to make the wedding happen. Some would help in decorations, some in cooking, some in the rituals and some just in arranging travel, stay and logistics. A famous sweet master in the local area in those days, was commissioned to come a week ahead of the wedding to make sweets and savories. They would set up a huge tent with large firewood stoves and cauldrons for cooking. They prepared the sweets adirasam, murukku, laddoos, porul vilanga urundai etc. in 1000s. It was a major week long operation with about 7-10 men working round the clock preparing sweets and foods. One of the junior cooks had developed fever and had not turned up. The assembly line was so tightly planned that even if one person was short, they cannot accomplish the major feat of cooking for so many people. So, Mr. N had volunteered to join the team. That was the beginning of a lifetime as an expert sweet master. 

 

Mr. N began his journey with this great sweet master as a junior cook. Initially his job was just cleaning the large cauldrons, washing and scraping them clean before preparing the next batch. For more than 3 years the sweet master would not allow him to handle the ingredients, mixing, cooking, cutting or designing. Mr. N had left the comfort of his home and village and adapted himself to a nomadic life traveling with the sweet master and the team to different villages and cooking there. 

“Even for my own marriage, I was in the village for only one week. I packed up, left my young wife back at home, and left with my sweet master to cook” As Mr. N said these words, I could sense the feeling of amusement that accompanies reflections about the difficult things that we have crossed in our past. It had taken 12 years of back breaking work, slowly rising the totem pole for Mr. N to become a full-fledged independent sweet master. Even then, his guru had not taken the fact that Mr. N wanted to go independent and start his own catering service that well. There had been bitterness and arguments. But young Mr. N had no choice but to leave the sweet master’s team as his family had now expanded to 3 children and he needed to earn more and sustain his growing family. 

 

Pride and honor were gleaming on Mr. N’s face when he said, “Over the years, I have prepared sweets for the weddings of several generations of young couples. I have made sweets for the weddings of grandfathers, fathers, sons and grandsons also. If I have an order for 1000 laddoos and 1000 adirasams, I will order the exact quantity of ingredients, never waste anything, and always I have delivered 1200, 1250 of the sweets in the place of 1000. I never charge extra for the 200-250 extra sweets. I give it as my own gift and blessings to the newly married.” Mr. N is not a rich businessman. He is a modest sweet master from a small village. But his sense of business ethics and professionalism was inspiring. He added, “I have never defaulted in any of my orders so far. I have a clean record of delivering every sweet order before time.” Today Mr. N does not get enough orders. He barely manages one or two orders in a quarter. His business has substantially shrunken. He is dependent on the government support for elderly persons, and some meagre wages in the rural employment guarantee scheme of the government. His era was one in which word of mouth and referrals were the only marketing for a sweet master. There was no advertising, no social media marketing, no Instagram reels or YouTube posts. The quality of his work, the taste and flavors in his sweets and the satisfaction of his customers were all the advertisement that he had. I could understand from his story that he never bothered to expand his business, make more profits or build a sweet empire. He learned the skill on the job, worked hard, conducted his business with professionalism and ethics and kept it small and simple. 

 

Mr. N always made it a point to wear clean white shirt and white dhoti to the clinic. He was always immaculately groomed, bathed, oiled hair, fresh bright streak of Vibhuti on his forehead. But if you observed closely you can see that the collars of his white shirt are frayed and there are small holes in his dhoti due to years of wear and tear. Despite living in poverty Mr. N lived a life of honor. He carried himself with dignity and had immense pride in his work. “Next month I have an order for 500 adirasams for a baby shower ceremony in the nearby village. I have to call my assistants and we will do a great job. They have asked only 500, but I am sure we will make 600 and give them” Mr. N said and laughed heartily. His passion for his work was evident even at this age. 

 

Mr. N had poorly controlled blood sugar values and blood pressure. He had a heart condition called dilated cardiomyopathy which means that due to the heart attack that he sustained, the muscles of his heart had given up and become weak and bulged out like a balloon. His heart was struggling to pump blood through his body. It was working at only 20% capacity. Anyone else with Mr. N’s condition would be bed bound, and suffering. But Mr. N’s zest for life and passion for his work as a sweet master keeps him active despite these limitations. I have observed in many people with such life limiting disabling diseases that their attitude to life, and this interest, enthusiasm and passion makes a great difference. It does not allow the disease to become a disability. I am glad that I got to know Mr. N better yesterday. I have learned some valuable life lessons from him. Professionalism and business ethics come from a deep love and respect for one’s work. Passion and pride in one’s work may not make one a rich person, but it makes life much better, and livable and tolerable despite potentially disabling disease conditions. Mr. N has promised to bring some of his sweets for me to sample. I am eagerly looking forward to it.