Not many of those who know Sachanand D will associate him with religion. But for many years, in the peak of winter, Sacha takes a 10 day holiday. He travels to the hills of Uttarakhand, sans his laptop and mobile phone. The laptop gets replaced by a kamandal – as Sacha lives the life of a sadhu for those 10 days. Many years ago, on one of his winterly sojourns in the mountains, he got caught in a snowstorm. He took shelter under a rock – and decided to stay there till the storm clears. By the time it cleared, everything around him looked a uniform white. And he realised that he had no idea of how to get back to the village that he had started off from. In any case, he had come to the mountains for meditation, so he decided to settle down under the rock – and meditate. The only difference – with very very limited food supply. The meditation turned out to be much longer than he expected. By the end of day 10, Sacha was too weak to move. The weather had improved slightly, but the stamina was zero. And that’s when he happened to hear the bells of some animals moving into pasture. With whatever little strength he had, Sacha pulled himself out and climbed the rock he had sheltered under. He grabbed the attention of the shepherd, who had got his sheep out for grazing. And he managed to live to tell this story to me. I wonder what I would have done if I were in Sacha’s situation. Probably take some Discovery channel inspired action. Wander along till you come across a stream. Start walking downstream – and you are sure to come across some form of civilisation soon enough.

Cut to September 2020, Sacha and his colleagues at Gestamp, encountered a viral agent, who dumped a fairly virulent load on to the top management. Sacha tested Corona positive. Soon his family was too. The family, like most of the people who get infected, bounced back in a matter of days. But for our primary carrier, the infection got deeper. Sacha had to get hospitalised. All the big hospitals in Pune were chock full of patients, so he had to get admitted to one in Chakan. The first week of hospitalisation was quite cool. No major troubles. On day 7, the discharge process started, and a last X ray was done. It was discovered that the lungs are all clammed up. The same day, breathing troubles started happening. Time for the ventilator to start. His viral count reached an alarming level of 800. His Gestamp colleague, who was admitted along with him, had also reached a very high level of viral load of 400. The colleague passed away within a few days of that level being reached.

On Day 12, Sacha’s oxygen saturation level dropped down to 65. His attending doctor was told of this – and drove down from his house in Pune at 2300 hrs – ostensibly to see his patient alive, maybe for the last time. In the bedside conversation that happened at 0030 hrs, Sacha assured the doc that he planned to recover quite early from this mess. By then Sacha was breathing 75 times a minute. What helped in the recovery was the pranayama and meditation that Sacha had been practising for many years. Sacha told himself to concentrate on the ventilator – and match his lung breathing with the rhythm of the ventilator. The situation then was so bad that even a short trip to the loo was akin to running a marathon. The doctors had him on 100% oxygen inflow. Antibiotics were being pumped in intravenously at a furious rate. The breathing was restricted only through the nose, and it was totally dried oxygen. The doc’s philosophy being that the dryness will help dry up Sacha’s clogged lungs. And help the faster transfer of the antibiotics from the blood to the lungs. 

Any disease is a battle that first and foremost has to be fought by the patient himself. Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s search for Meaning’ talks of this fight very well. What saved  our friend was his will power, and the past experiences with training himself in breathing. By Day 20, the ventilator was removed. And our friend was adventurous enough to cajole his daughter into taking him out for an unofficial ride to Chakan to sample some street food. He collapsed in the small distance that he had to walk from the lift to the car. And he realised that his body could not take in more than two spoonfuls of poha. He returned back to hospital – and was subjected to a court martial with participation from all ranks, starting from the nurse to the matron to the doctors. 

I have a personal philosophy about medical expenses. The law of diminishing marginal utility applies even to hospital bills. A hospital bill of Rs. 10 lakh +, and here I am assuming that one is not checking into a 5 star hospital, is a sign of the end being near. The low cost surefire remedies have all been tried out – and what the docs are now doing is taking expensive shots in the dark to try to prolong the agony and empty the purse of the patient. In such cases, it’s better to just accept that one’s time has come and move on. Of course, this decision is not the patient’s alone. I think an important part of parenting is to let the kids know when the plug has to be pulled. Sacha’s hospital bill came to Rs. 8 lakh – and I am happy that he passed my 1 million test. Sacha tells me that the mortality rate of hospitals in Chakan were much lower than the mortality rates of Pune’s leading hospitals.

One thing that near death experiences teach you, is the value of life. As Snoopy of Peanuts says: One day we must all die, but on the other days we must live. So Sacha continues to enjoy life to the fullest. He can walk 3 km now. He flew down to Hyderabad this month. His eldest daughter, the same one who was his conspirator in crime in the street food ride, saved money for the family, by only getting a one way ticket purchased to Hyderabad. She settles down now with her new family in Hyderabad, after getting married to her friend of many years. She also saved her dad some more money, as Corona restrictions ensured that there were only 7 people from Pune who attended the marriage. Sacha met me yesterday evening. He wants to recycle, ahem.. start cycling again. Managed to get him a Felidae electric cycle – and Sacha’s plan is to cycle the 28 km distance from his house in Pimpri to the factory in Chakan every Saturday. Welcome to the cycling gang, Sacha.  Look forward to many long rides with you!

 Chakan Notes, 25-Nov

Bla Bla car always introduces you to an interesting set of folks. There was an ST strike going on, so in a sense there weren’t too many other options. So got a lift from Prathamesh, who was going to Baner from Nasik. He had a diesel Honda city – and I was the last to get in. Was carrying a full complement of passengers. The rear seat comfort with 3 passengers is nothing to write home about – but why should a cyclist complain about it? Most of my co-passengers were from the IT industry. One was based in Bangalore and in Nasik, thanks to WFH. He liked WFH better than office, as it allowed him to be with family – and save money at the same time. One was a HR executive in Synechron – who promptly made an offer to the Bangalore WFH guy to join. The most interesting person was Prathamesh himself – he makes food vending machines. You have machines which take out biryani from a refrigerator, heat it in a microwave and serve it hot – all within 35 seconds. We stopped for breakfast at Shri Hari Pandurang near Narayangaon ESR charging point. I had already had a lovely misal breakfast at Deepak Hotel near Nasik road railway station. Had a black tea there. Everyone bought some bakery items from the lovely in-house bakery that the restaurant has. Managed to get 10 (non vegan :-() cream rolls packed in paper. 

Reached Chakan at 1145 hrs after starting from Nasik at 0845 hrs. With a 30 minute break thrown in, this wasn’t too bad. Anil J and Sacha picked me up from Chakan. We went over to the granite processing unit first. This is about 5 km from Chakan town. Unfortunately, there was no electricity, so we could not have a dekko at the robot in operation. Sacha has put in a lot of thought into replacing a machine tool with a robot. He has used a Fanuc machine with a 10 kW servo drive motor. An Ahmedabad based German company has made a special spindle that operates his granite cutter. He has worked with the Fanuc controller software team to simulate the work of a Gavandi as he cuts the granite. The robot can round corners – and even chamfer! And all this with an accuracy of 100 microns. 

Sacha’s main client is Schindler, who use granite slabs as floors for their lifts. Nowadays Schindler has started offering customized lifts. So there is a lot of variety in sizes – and that is where Sacha’s robot has helped them deliver them with low lead times. Sacha has also got a crane installed in the 6000 sq ft shed to help with material movement. The total investment in this unit is around 60 lakh. The team size is just 2 people – and 4 helpers who are on contract. 

Saw a lot of engineering thought go into the packing of these slabs before despatch. He used wood quite frugally, about 60% compared to the competitor’s packing, He compensates that by using 13 mm corrugated sheets for absorbing shocks in transit. He has also made some interesting corners from corrugated sheets again, which serve to protect the granite corners from chipping during transit. The end result of all this – with 3 months of starting operations, Schindler has made his share of business almost 90% for customised lifts. Way to go, Sacha! 

What excites me most is that Sacha’s robot has the potential to actually shake up the machine tool industry. Imagine the savings that can happen with this most general purpose of machines. It can be used for cutting, milling, drilling. Am sure if Sacha applies his mind, he might even get the robot to do turning operations. If he were to go with this idea to VCs – he should easily be able to raise a few hundred million dollars in funding. I think the COEP Mech 90 batch should get together and invest 10 cr in his robot company.

We then went off to his next factory which makes brackets and pressed parts, again for Schindler. This factory has a lot more invested in it, about 4 cr. There is a laser for cutting sheets and engraving the part number. The consumables for the laser – are gases – oxygen get used. And once every two weeks the laser lens has to be changed. Maybe he should set up an oxygen plant as a backward integration project! Next is a bending machine. I could see Sacha’s engineering talent visible in the bending dies that he has designed. Most of the stamping happens at a vendor’s place. There are 1400 types of parts that can be used in a customised lift. And Sacha only makes to order, so that he does not end up sitting on stocks of unsold inventory. 

Most of these parts have differences in terms of number and position of slots and holes. So he has designed a die where the holes and slots are progressively punched, so that the same die can be used for a wide variety of brackets. His vendor is unhappy as the number of strokes in the press go up – but Sacha is compensating the vendor for that. But what vendors actually like is long production runs, and that by design, cannot happen with customised lifts. Sacha is thinking of investing in his own presses, so that he can do some more rapid fire innovation in that space. The high rise building have rail supporting brackets which are welded. But for lifts up to 8 floors, the joining inside the brackets is done by riveting. There is a patented process, which has been approved by Schindler, which is the only one allowed to be used. So Sacha has had to invest in an expensive half crore riveting machine.

Today, the main challenge in this plant is not machine, but man. He operates an Amazon kind of warehouse, where components have to be packed in for each customised lift. There have been instances of washers being short in quantity – and work stopping because of that. He is building tech into this part also. My suggestion to him was to reduce the carton sizes, so that handling becomes easier. It will increase packaging costs (most of it is in recyclable cardboard boxes.) But there may be a bigger decrease in labor costs. A time and motion study may also help. Milind Sohoni may find this an interesting assignment for his operations management students at ISB.

There are 4 partners in the business. Two of them are planning to exit, so Sacha may find his stake going to 50% soon, as the two existing partners will buy out the remaining two. As we got ready to leave, Sacha entertained us with yet another interesting story from the Himalayas. In one of his trips to the Uttarakhand ashram in 2018, he got into a discussion with a swami on detachment. He was challenged by the swami to see what happens when he loses all his wealth. The share market savvy swami advised him to invest in options – and do exactly the opposite of what his brokers would tell him. Sacha did that – and in keeping with the losing philosophy managed to lose some serious money – about 2.5 cr! He had 6 months of health issues after this experiment. The BP was high – and doctors thought that the end was near. But Sacha bounced back – after having learned about the application of staying calm in adverse situations.