Who is a successful person? Going by the general refrain, it has to be that person who leaves a brilliant mark in the world, rising meteorically from a nondescript background. We often celebrate such rag to riches stories since they make for a good Sunday reading. But, how about those people who fell out of the race but kept fighting doggedly before making a dazzling come back? Far and few, such people are hard to come by.
But, when they do, doesn’t it call for a celebration, particularly, when the current trend is to flee the challenge than fighting failures?
If your answer is ‘yes’, then you should meet sixty-year-old Shaji Baby John, Chairman and Managing Director, Kings Infra Ventures Limited and the son of Late Baby John, the veteran leader of Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), an 11-time legislator and seven-time minister from Kerala. Baby John had his admirers cutting across party lines, because he had an uncanny knack for defusing political crises, and for this very reason he was better known as the ‘Kerala Kissinger’.
It was his grass-root level work and intimate understanding of the common man’s problems, in particular the issues of fishermen that made Baby John a successful politician. He was also a social entrepreneur who founded Kings Infra as an innovative fishing company way back in 1958. So, it is not surprising, Shaji, his eldest son, had grown up rubbing shoulders with many political luminaries.
A mechanical engineering graduate, Shaji’s ambition in life was to become a nuclear scientist by pursuing higher studies. He had even secured admission in a prestigious university in the US in pursuit of this dream. Destiny, however, had other things in store for him. “Instead, I joined the family business. My father being an active politician and businessman wanted me to help him out,” Shaji says in an informal chat with the writer.
His passion for fisheries and engineering background stood him in good stead and being a dreamy youngster, he wanted to recast the entire fisheries business in a new mould that is both innovative and futuristic. “Luckily for me, my father endorsed my crazy ideas,” Shaji says with a big grin.
This saw him setting up the country’s first integrated semi intensive aquaculture project. Being a social entrepreneur, he wanted the new technology to benefit large number of farmers. So, instead of keeping it close to his chest, he opened it up.“We travelled across the entire length and breadth of the country educating farmers, organising them, training them and offering them the new technology. We put in lots of hard work and very soon it turned out to be a massive hit,” Shaji nostalgically recalls. Thus, Kings Infra (formerly Victory Aqua Farm Limited) and team became the architects of the country’s first blue revolution, and as business peaked, it went on to bag national awards from 1991 to 1994 for the highest aquaculture productivity and contribution to exports. Everything was going smooth till 1997 when a cruel turn of fate handed down Shaji with a twin blow.
One in the form of a Supreme Court verdict that ordered the demolition of aquaculture farms in Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ), and another in the shape of a stroke that his father suffered when he was still a minister in the cabinet of the then Chief Minister EK Nayanar. “He lost his speech and mobility and had to depend on my mother even for his daily routines. It was heart-breaking to see him in such a condition because he’d always led an active life,” says Shaji.
Meanwhile, in compliance with the apex court directive, Shaji closed down the farms and the business came to a standstill. Result: a heavy financial loss. “We lost business worth Rs 200 crore built painstakingly over a decade,” he reveals adding: “In 1997, that was a substantial sum.”
The outside world, however, did not realise the gravity of the situation nor the tough phase the family passed through. “To them, we’re still well-off! If you told them, we’re staring at a financial crisis they would simply say: don’t joke, okay!” Shaji too, left to himself, would have wanted to believe them.
But the only thing was that it was not a joke but a harsh reality, and for the sake of survival, from being an employer he had to fit into the shoes of an employee. He admits, “That is what I did. I became a consultant sharing my knowledge on fisheries both in India and abroad.”
Even then, in the back of his mind, he was certain the country, one day, would be forced to bring back aquaculture farms since he could foresee the growth and global demand for a non-controversial protein source to feed a growing population.
It was a question of time and he kept biding his time like a patient kingfisher perched on the branch of a tree scanning the placid waters below. Meanwhile, he put the court-induced hibernation to good use continuing the research work on aquaculture with a small team that had opted to stay with him despite the financial uncertainties. “We did a lot of work during this period and even developed some new technologies suiting local conditions,” adds Shaji.
Ten years down the line, to be precise in 2007, his conviction proved right when the central government passed a bill on coastal aquaculture which allowed Kings Infra to resume its activities. It was a daunting task to build everything, once again, from scratch, but Shaji says he enjoyed doing it.
Equipped with matchless expertise, rich experience and the track record of having conducted clean business in the past, it was not difficult for him to revive the operations and reach out to the market. “Today, I can say we’re on a solid platform with diverse business interests. As for fisheries, we’re exporting our products to Japan, the US and Europe among other countries. And, our export revenue is expected to touch the Rs 100 crore mark by the end of this year,” he discloses.
Kings Infra now operates aqua farms in around 100 acres in Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu with an annual production of 700 tonnes. Being an advocate of sustainable aquaculture, good management practices and safe-to-eat food, Shaji had recently launched India’s first STQC (sustainability, traceability, quality, certification) aquaculture hub. Kings Infra would soon expand to Gujarat and establish STQC hubs to support the Fisheries Department in the State through farmer producer organisation.
Gujarat, in fact, is not an unknown terrain for Kings Infra, because, some 30 years back, it had done a coastal area master plan for the state government using satellite mapping system, besides supporting small farmers there to set up aquaculture farms. “During a recent visit to Gujarat, I discovered that the farmers who set up their farms with our support are now thriving. Seeing someone doing well in life and the fact that we also played a small role in changing their fortunes gives me immense satisfaction. This inspires me to undertake the next phase expansion in Gujarat,” says Shaji. Kings Infra, he says, has also lined up a few other projects with substantial investment it is now a bit early to talk about them though.
Shaji firmly believes that sustainable aquaculture that protects environment and improves the life of rural masses is the only way forward. We need to take him seriously because he is talking from the lessons learnt from the great teacher called experience.
Ask him about it, Shaji - a member of the expert group set up by the UNESCO Institute of Life Long Learning (UIL) and an invited speaker at the International Conferences of Learning Cities–nods and says, “You’re right.
But, I think I ended up paying a hefty fee to the tutor,” he quips, getting up in a hurry, looking at his watch, betraying no trace of the battles he had to fight to conquer back the kingdom that he once lost.
(The writer is a senior journalist, political analyst and communication specialist)