More or Less
When I visited the USA for the first time about forty years ago, I had a cultural shock as I ordered coffee at Starbucks at Chicago Airport. . There were three sizes, small, regular and large. I ordered the smallest size is 12 oz. I come from a country of a scarcity mindset, and 12 0z was a lot of coffee, while two to three ounces was my average. Back home, I always ordered one by two or two by three if friends went to a restaurant. Two or three gulps were good enough to recharge and for a conversation. For an American coffee, I need more than two friends to share.
I learnt the lessons of living with ‘less’ early in my life. My father bought me three pairs of clothes every year. No replacement was possible if I damaged my dress. There was no concept of pocket money as I grew up. I grew up in a ‘less’ environment. In my village, my neighbour who had a family of four bought a Brooke Bond chai sachet for five paise and 50 ml of milk for ten paise in the morning. He never stored milk or any other condiments in his house. He had no refrigerator or containers to keep the inventory and always ordered another sachet and milk if he got a guest in his home. He followed the same process for lunch or dinner-’Just in time’ ordering and inventory management. He bought a sachet of shampoo or coconut oil once a week. He did not have much furniture, and his house was sparklingly clean with no clutter.
Debate on ‘more’ or ‘less’ occurs all the time. In a home situation, it is neither ‘more’ nor ‘less.’ In one of his spiritual discourses, I remember Bhagawan Satya Sai compared human needs to a pair of shoes- they can neither be small nor big. The shoe needs to match the size of the foot. A large or a small size gives discomfort. It is about getting ‘more’ with ‘fewer’ resources in the corporate world. ‘Tightening the belt’ was the expression used during the budget discussions. Brevity is another lesson in my corporate life. My managers taught me to use less number of words to communicate. The concept of ‘elevator pitch’ came here — ‘smaller the better is the mantra’. Twitter and What’sup brought in new words.
An Airforce test pilot told me about the need for precision while bombing a target- it can not be more or less. A sprinter in a one hundred meet dash or a high jumper must be precise on his target. For those familiar with control systems, the feedback signal must be exact, neither ‘more’ nor ‘less” for system stability. I recall a technical inspector making a hilarious statement in — ‘jaada hoga to parwa nahi hai, kam nahi hona chahiye’ ( It is ok to have a higher output level rather than less) in an acceptance test.
COVID-19 brought several changes in my life. My shopping habits changed, and the virus taught me to shop small. As I could not step out of the house because of the lockdown, I ordered bare essentials for minimal living. My house was clean with no clutter. I had to clean the house myself, so no house help was available, and I did not accumulate junk. The memories went back to my childhood when every family member had to manage the available resources and could not ask for ‘more’.
“Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology toward the organic, the gentle, the elegant and beautiful.”
― E.F. Schumacher, Small is beautiful: Economics as if people mattered.
