Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan

This phrase was the war cry of India’s poor against the rich and powerful during the 70’s and 80’s. Subtly themed in the artistic works of that period, it was a recurring emphasis on the need for the three most basic essentials of any person – Food, Cloth & Shelter. Having grown up in those times and then having grown out of it, I now know that these needs are not specific to my country alone. They are quite universal. Maslow called them the fundamental physiological needs in his famous ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ theory. Though not apparent in today’s materially abundant world, these needs are as old as humanity itself. For thousands of years man’s quest was to seek and fulfil these needs for him and his family. It is for these reasons that any breakthrough in making them available has been nothing less than a revolution. Each of these breakthroughs have pushed mankind forward in no less degree than the oft quoted examples of fire, wheel and iron. But for some reason unknown to me, the importance of these breakthroughs has often been understated or completely forgotten. So I’m setting out to give some them the attention they deserve. Join me in this journey.

Roti (Bread)

The earliest life changing discovery made my man was agriculture. This discovery was the beginning of the end of nomadic life for him. By sowing the seeds in the ground for food, he also sowed the first seeds of today’s society. Everything else – family, languages, tradition, domestication of animals, employment, governments would not have been possible if man hadn’t decided to settle down and farm. However some scholars also believe this to be man’s first big mistake, for it opened a Pandora’s box we haven’t closed since – competition, jealously, wars, crime etc are the price humanity has paid (and still does) for this decision. Whichever way you look at it, the impact of agriculture is monumental. And at the heart of what we call agriculture lies man’s first major invention – plough.

It was the simple plough which allowed man to till the land. Before that he used basic hand held tools (hoes) do dig up holes and plant a few seeds. But plough made agriculture an industry. Overtime man learnt to use animals to pull the plough and this practise exploded the domestication of animals, to the extent that within a few centuries cattle became a symbol of man’s assets, a reflection of his prosperity, status.

I sometimes even feel that plough was perhaps a bigger invention than wheel. While plough brought massive benefits immediately, wheel’s impact may not have been so dramatic. Maybe because we see wheels everywhere around us today, we think wheel was more important. But back in those times there was no need of transportation in the first place, and even if needed, wheels were practically useless without decent roads. Animals (Horses, Camels) and not wheels were the primary modes of transport until just a few centuries ago, so wheel didn’t have any major role to play. In fact the earliest use of wheel was as potter’s wheel, making clay pots to store food. That was perhaps its biggest utility for the first few thousand years. Doesn’t seem big change compared to a plough, does it?

Over the next 12,000 years the basic plough underwent many improvements. Better designs and lighter material made the job easier. In my personal opinion the most beautiful change in this journey was transforming the fundamental job from digging to turning the soil. I’m not sure where it happened and who did it but it is a big change I feel. The first basic ploughs mostly dug through earth I think. That’s how I remember from the old Indian movies and the few visits to my village. Looks like a tough job. But I’m also aware that the more advanced ones have a curved board next to the blade, which simply turns the soil making the job a lot easier.. It’s like how your local ice-cream guy uses a scoop to turn the ice-cream and not strictly dig in it. That’s a wonderful idea, don’t you think? A little googleing tells me that the modern design of plough is at least as old as 1763 when a Scotsman James Small used mathematics to find the right curvature to make the job most efficient. My school teacher was right when he said, ‘Mathematics is everywhere except in your heads’.

Kapda (Cloth)

I’m not a believer in caste system and abhor its practice in any form or shape. But I’m quite aware of my own caste and how it determined what my ancestors did for several generations. As it happens I was born into a community of weavers. By that stroke of chance I was surrounded by weavers and farmers at my birth. And if it weren’t for the bleak future facing these professions, my family wouldn’t have migrated to the nearest city for better opportunities. And who knows, if these 1-2 key events hadn’t happened, I’d perhaps be operating a loom or tilling some dry land now instead of punching away on my laptop in a relatively comfortable London home. Destiny is a great playwright. However, even in this long fascinating journey, I vividly remember my family trips to our village in my childhood, where overcome by sentiment by father would occasionally complain that I should have learnt the loom at least as a legacy if nothing else. That topic has been closed for more than decade now and we all have moved quite far from it. But I do occasionally run into relatives at family gatherings (the great Indian weddings) with whom I exchange updates and stories. I tell them my job related trips and they share their trips to their Silicon Valley equivalent (Tirupur, Tamil Nadu) and we have a laugh. That’s about it and it saddens me sometimes that the link has been broken forever. However interestingly enough, I have recently learnt that there still is a great link which connects it all, right from the begining to the end. It goes like this...

Man’s relationship with cloth is spectacularly old. Recently, German anthropologists used molecular dating to establish that human body lice (which lived in clothing) first appeared at least 107,000 years ago. Sewing objects having been found by archaeologists which date back 40,000 years. The oldest piece of actual cloth found is a 9000 year old piece of linen found in Turkey. In those ancient times the process would have been like this - stripping fibres from plants, soaking them in rivers and then spinning and weaving them to make cloth. It was an unthinkably long and tedious process to produce something barely comfortable and effective. Somewhere down the line we learnt a few tricks to do this job better. First of them was the discovery that a finer thread can be made from cotton or animal fur by twisting together the loose threads between hands or on thighs. Then some genius came up with the idea of ‘spinning’ by which thread could be made significantly easier using a spindle, weight and gravity. Remarkable though it was, it was still only an input into cloth making. The much bigger shift came when some pre-historic Einstein came up with a loom a few thousand years ago. In its simplest form a loom consisted of parallel threads stretched between two pieces of wood having the mechanism to weave them together. Various improvements were made to this basic loom over centuries. Though the process became much simplified over time, spinning and weaving remained a manual job and occupied much of the time of the men and women of those times (hence the word ‘spinster’ for unmarried ladies). Next came the Industrial Revolution and with it this tradition of thousands of years started to get erased. Spinning and weaving became industrial processes and clothes were produced on a mass scale. Though scores of livelihoods were affected, zillions of mundane laborious hours were also saved by industrialisation. And for once, people didn’t have to be super rich to own fine clothes. Everybody could afford good fine inexpensive clothes. We arrived into modernity smartly dressed, only until the fashion pundits came and told us otherwise, but that’s another story.

You’ll be mistaken if you think this story of looms ends here. What followed next was even bigger. Back in the 19the century Indian weave was quite popular in the West, especially Cashmere (from Kashmir obviously). But pure Cashmere is completely handspun taking a long time and is also very expensive. A few cities in the west started manufacturing cheap imitations of Cashmere to cater to lower segment of the market. In 1890 Indian products entered the American markets. That same year an American textile trader told his brother-in-law about a new technology in loom. The technology involved passing multiple hooks through a set pattern of holes to pick up the threads automatically to produce cashmere patterns. This brother-in-law happened to be a statistician who liked the idea and developed a similar model to pass wires through a set of holes and automatically count the population. It was a roaring success and he went on to start his own business. This person was Herman Hollerith; the machine he made was punch cards, and the company he started was International Business Machines (IBM), the grand dad of IT industry. In fact IBM was originally called the ‘Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation’.

So hang on, let’s recap. We started with the age old profession of weaving, which my ancestors practiced, and ended in the world of computing, which as it happens is my current profession; this entire story connected in a single thread. Interesting ‘weave’, isn’t it?

Makaan (Shelter)

The story of housing is a long one, starting right from the caves our ape-like ancestors lived in to the modern intelligent homes that hopefully my grandchildren would be able to afford some day. I don’t intend to go over the milestones in this space for two key reasons. Firstly, my ignorance on this subject prevents me; this has never been my subject of interest. Second, and more important, I feel there is something buried in the details of this journey which is extremely remarkable, perhaps as important as the journey itself. In fact I wonder why nobody seems to mention its contribution in the overall development of mankind. Every house built in the last few thousand years has in its construction inevitably used this simple machine – lever. Also called fulcrum, it is the simple way to lift/move very heavy stones using much lesser force than would otherwise be required. Anybody who admires huge ancient constructions like Pyramids, Stonehenge etc, is in fact also admiring the power of this simple lever. Physics has classed levers as one of the six simple machines. But history seems to have gone silent about it. I don’t think man would have been able to build many wonders, or go about doing his daily activities without employing the use of levers. So whoever first realised its power and used it, has pushed mankind forward a great distance. I again believe this invention was as important as wheel or fire. I am unable to confirm this, but based just on daily observation, it appears to me that of all the species on Earth we are the only ones who have unlocked and tapped a lever’s potential. I don’t remember ever seeing any other animal using a lever in its activities. If my assumption is correct, then perhaps this simple machine should adorn a place in the hall of fame of those inventions which have made the ascent of man so meteoritic.

With this my friends I come to the end of my essay. I hope you found it interesting and informative. I also hope it has helped a few of you appreciate some simple things we often take for granted, how each was a revolution in it’s own right and instrumental in building our great story so far. Please feel free to leave your feedback, comments below. Tell me which of the three you liked best, share others which you feel are equally wonderful. 

I’d like leave you with a simple quote I find quite humbling. It may not be directly related to today’s topic (another day's topic surely), but it makes one appreciate the so many little things that come together to make the next big thing possible.

‘In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe’ – Carl Sagan.

Have a wonderful day!!