It was a win-win deal. "My wife and I were holidaying in Srinagar after our wedding, and I noticed an ancient lock at the guesthouse where we were staying. The housekeeper of the guesthouse was most happy to part with the old lock in exchange for a brand new one," says V Raghunathan, CEO of GMR Varalakshmi Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of Hyderabad-based GMR Group. That transaction and another two locks he picked up - one from his grandfather's house in Lalgudi in Tamil Nadu and another at a flea market in Sabarmati - have culminated in a unique collection of around 750 locks, and a book, Locks, Mahabharata and Mathematics: An Exploration of Unexpected Parallels, released recently.
The collection, put together over 30 years, has some rare locks. The biggest one weighs 30 kg and was used in a private temple in Nellore. Another is four-and-a-half feet long, which Raghunathan surmises was used either in a granary or a fort. There are locks used in temples that resemble beautiful sculptures. There even is one shaped like a scorpion, with moveable limbs. "If you don't have the right key, even holding the lock can hurt," he says. Yet another is a combination lock, probably from the Mughal period, in which any random combination will give you a verse from the Koran, but only one combination opens the lock.
The most interesting, however, are the trick locks that involve three or four steps before they yield, even if you have the key, or keys, to open them. "The 'hard' key would be the three or four keys for the four or five different steps, which means a large number of permutations-combinations, while the 'soft' key would be the knowledge required to open it. The combination of the two would make it very hard to pick," says Raghunathan, who earlier served as president of ING Vysya Bank. Such locks, dated 300, 400 or even 500 years ago, hark back to an era where people used thick iron safes at home, and doors themselves would be over six inches thick. "The idea was that the locksmith would bring in some trick elements that would be personalised for an individual," says Raghunathan. There is, for example, a lock that needs five different keys to open; it might have been used for a cash box by five brothers who may not have trusted each other to open the box alone.
With the entry of the Yale lock, though, these old, intricate locks began to lose favour, partly because these could not be produced on an assembly line easily and also because people no longer wanted to spend five minutes trying to open their front door. "At the time the locks were made, those five minutes spent opening the lock would have been well worth it because there were no alternatives like bank lockers," says the collector.
In his early days as a lock connoisseur, Raghunathan, who was a professor of finance and accounting at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, for two decades before he donned the hat of a corporate honcho, used to scour markets in various cities, from Ahmedabad to Aligarh to Jaipur, in the hope of a rare find. Later, middle-men started contacting him directly when they came across something unusual or interesting. He has opted to restrict his collection to Indian locks. "I also noticed that a lot of rare locks are traded outside India for ten times their price here. Though they are sold to me at a premium, I buy them so that Indian heritage can remain in India," says the 59-year-old.
Three decades spent among locks has also resulted in the rather unusual Locks, Mahabharata and Mathematics: An Exploration of Unexpected Parallels. The book, he says, is an application of lateral thinking, and draws parallels between the three, as the title suggests. The idea came from the story of Draupadi and how she came to have five husbands, and the lock that needed five keys to be opened. These are linked to a mathematical problem that also has five solutions. "There seemed to be some kind of a common theme there, so then I thought of more stories with parallels," says Raghunathan. Some of the parallels, he admits, are a little strained but it also makes the reader think - if he interacts with the book, and not read it as a work of fiction, he would be able to see the parallels." Soon to be published is another book, a novel on Duryodhana, where the Mahabharata is told from the perspective of the Kaurava prince.
The recent books though are a digression from the themes of his other books such as Games Indians Play; Ganesha on the Dashboard; and The Corruption Conundrum and other Paradoxes and Dilemmas. Raghunathan was a national-level chess player in his teens and has done illustrations for various newspapers as well. He did not pursue these seriously because he felt while he was good at both, he was not exceptional. "I moved on because I was not a Sachin Tendulkar or a Viswanathan Anand or Mozart." He has no regrets about his choices, and adds that he is now in the process of getting a private pilot's licence. "You have one lifetime and there are so many things to learn, so for lesser mortals like us, it's nice to do many things at a fairly high level even though you may not be exceptional."
Of his various experiences, he says it is his years helming the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation that have been the most satisfying. The foundation works in education, health, hygiene and sanitation and community development. Talking about the shifts in career, he says the decision to make the switch from academics to banking was easy. "When I moved from IIM-A to ING Vysya Bank, it was exciting to move from academics to industry. I've served on boards of various banks but running a bank was a different ball game." Teaching at IIM-A and steering the foundation also offer different levels of satisfaction, he explains. At IIM, the students are so bright you may not really make a difference to their lives. "Raghuram Rajan (the Reserve Bank of India governor), for example, was one of my students but, I can assure you that he would have done well irrespective of whether or not I taught him," he laughs. At the foundation, they can make a difference to the lives of the students, most from impoverished backgrounds, and that is the high of the job, he adds.
"The biggest gift Bill Gates gave is the awareness he has brought about giving," he says. He views the move to make corporate social responsibility part of the new Companies Act as a bit of a double-edged sword. "On the one hand, communities will benefit but making it mandatory also means people may just window-dress their way through it."
The collection, put together over 30 years, has some rare locks. The biggest one weighs 30 kg and was used in a private temple in Nellore. Another is four-and-a-half feet long, which Raghunathan surmises was used either in a granary or a fort. There are locks used in temples that resemble beautiful sculptures. There even is one shaped like a scorpion, with moveable limbs. "If you don't have the right key, even holding the lock can hurt," he says. Yet another is a combination lock, probably from the Mughal period, in which any random combination will give you a verse from the Koran, but only one combination opens the lock.
The most interesting, however, are the trick locks that involve three or four steps before they yield, even if you have the key, or keys, to open them. "The 'hard' key would be the three or four keys for the four or five different steps, which means a large number of permutations-combinations, while the 'soft' key would be the knowledge required to open it. The combination of the two would make it very hard to pick," says Raghunathan, who earlier served as president of ING Vysya Bank. Such locks, dated 300, 400 or even 500 years ago, hark back to an era where people used thick iron safes at home, and doors themselves would be over six inches thick. "The idea was that the locksmith would bring in some trick elements that would be personalised for an individual," says Raghunathan. There is, for example, a lock that needs five different keys to open; it might have been used for a cash box by five brothers who may not have trusted each other to open the box alone.
With the entry of the Yale lock, though, these old, intricate locks began to lose favour, partly because these could not be produced on an assembly line easily and also because people no longer wanted to spend five minutes trying to open their front door. "At the time the locks were made, those five minutes spent opening the lock would have been well worth it because there were no alternatives like bank lockers," says the collector.
In his early days as a lock connoisseur, Raghunathan, who was a professor of finance and accounting at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, for two decades before he donned the hat of a corporate honcho, used to scour markets in various cities, from Ahmedabad to Aligarh to Jaipur, in the hope of a rare find. Later, middle-men started contacting him directly when they came across something unusual or interesting. He has opted to restrict his collection to Indian locks. "I also noticed that a lot of rare locks are traded outside India for ten times their price here. Though they are sold to me at a premium, I buy them so that Indian heritage can remain in India," says the 59-year-old.
* * *
Three decades spent among locks has also resulted in the rather unusual Locks, Mahabharata and Mathematics: An Exploration of Unexpected Parallels. The book, he says, is an application of lateral thinking, and draws parallels between the three, as the title suggests. The idea came from the story of Draupadi and how she came to have five husbands, and the lock that needed five keys to be opened. These are linked to a mathematical problem that also has five solutions. "There seemed to be some kind of a common theme there, so then I thought of more stories with parallels," says Raghunathan. Some of the parallels, he admits, are a little strained but it also makes the reader think - if he interacts with the book, and not read it as a work of fiction, he would be able to see the parallels." Soon to be published is another book, a novel on Duryodhana, where the Mahabharata is told from the perspective of the Kaurava prince.
The recent books though are a digression from the themes of his other books such as Games Indians Play; Ganesha on the Dashboard; and The Corruption Conundrum and other Paradoxes and Dilemmas. Raghunathan was a national-level chess player in his teens and has done illustrations for various newspapers as well. He did not pursue these seriously because he felt while he was good at both, he was not exceptional. "I moved on because I was not a Sachin Tendulkar or a Viswanathan Anand or Mozart." He has no regrets about his choices, and adds that he is now in the process of getting a private pilot's licence. "You have one lifetime and there are so many things to learn, so for lesser mortals like us, it's nice to do many things at a fairly high level even though you may not be exceptional."
* * *
Of his various experiences, he says it is his years helming the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation that have been the most satisfying. The foundation works in education, health, hygiene and sanitation and community development. Talking about the shifts in career, he says the decision to make the switch from academics to banking was easy. "When I moved from IIM-A to ING Vysya Bank, it was exciting to move from academics to industry. I've served on boards of various banks but running a bank was a different ball game." Teaching at IIM-A and steering the foundation also offer different levels of satisfaction, he explains. At IIM, the students are so bright you may not really make a difference to their lives. "Raghuram Rajan (the Reserve Bank of India governor), for example, was one of my students but, I can assure you that he would have done well irrespective of whether or not I taught him," he laughs. At the foundation, they can make a difference to the lives of the students, most from impoverished backgrounds, and that is the high of the job, he adds.
"The biggest gift Bill Gates gave is the awareness he has brought about giving," he says. He views the move to make corporate social responsibility part of the new Companies Act as a bit of a double-edged sword. "On the one hand, communities will benefit but making it mandatory also means people may just window-dress their way through it."