“But, I sent you the mail in the morning” howled my colleague on the cell phone.
“I am sure you did, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it. I have been busy preparing for tomorrow’s client meeting.”
“But, this is urgent. How can you not check your mails for 3 hours?” he continued. I could visualize the expression of agony on his face as he spoke.
“I generally don’t check emails when I am busy with something. It tends to distract me. Besides, if it is so important you can always call. That’s what mobiles are meant for.” The grunt at the other end of the line gave me a feeling that my ideas are not being received well.
This is a conversation that I have with a colleague almost every week. I believe a number of readers may not appreciate the opinion I have on this subject. So let me take an opportunity to explain my point of view in greater detail.
Two developments in the world of communication have changed the way we work and live our lives in the last 15 years – Emails and mobile phones. Both the means allow us to reach others at a pace which was the stuff of science fiction just 30 years back. Yet, there is a key difference between the two. One is an Asynchronous means of communication while the other is a synchronous mode. So when you send out an email there is no way to make sure that your intended recipient of the email has actually received the email and is working on the same unless the recipient chooses to inform you. In fact you can never be sure as to when he will actually look at the email. And this could be due to a variety of reasons. He could be ill and not at work, he may be travelling or he may be simply too busy to check emails. There is usually more to work than just responding to emails. A lot of us seem to have forgotten this simple fact. There are cases where you want an immediate response and fret over the fact that the recipient has not done so. Well, guess what? The recipient is on a flight across the Atlantic and will not be able to check mails for five hours and you are not even aware.
There is no doubt that emails have changed the way in which we communicate for business or personal reasons. However, they have also resulted in increased stress faced by executives who make the mistake of treating it as a synchronous mode of communication. A mobile phone is a better tool to use when you want to get in touch with people instantaneously.
It’s interesting to look back and see how life was without a mobile phone till a few years back. One could get in touch with people only when they were either in office or at home. I remember I would fix up a meeting with my girlfriend on weekends and then reach the destination at the appointed time and wait there for her. There are times she would be late by almost an hour. I had no choice but to wait.
Now, I tend to get irritated if my wife is a few minutes late and does not pick up her mobile when I am calling to check. Most people consider it reasonable to expect people to pick up their mobile phones at any time of the day when. I have seen people flood their acquaintances with continuous calls if there is no response. It’s become difficult to imagine staying away from the phone even for few minutes. In a recent meeting at our office most team members were wary of switching off their mobile phones for a workshop lasting a couple of hours.
I am not trying to run down the benefits of that these devices have obviously brought in our lives. The attempt is to present different view of the impact they have on us. I have seen people get highly stressed up when they do not receive an immediate response to their email or in a situation when their colleague does not pick up the mobile. One tends to build up a whole lot of anger within oneself and form opinions on the other person’s reasons for not responding. I have even seen bosses getting offended when subordinates do not pick up their phones. I am sure that is the kind of stress we all have been through at some point in our life while using these devices.
Here are a few suggestions to keep in mind while using emails or mobiles based on my experience
Allow the receiver of the email sufficient time to respond. This depends on his/her work schedule. If it’s very urgent call up and ask for a quick response.
Try to explain things in sufficient details for the receiver to respond effectively. It reduces too much of email exchange on the same subject
Do not send too many emails to the same person. Try and consolidate everything that you need in a single email.
If out of office for a long time try and configure an auto responder to your email for people trying to get in touch with you
Everyone has a right to not pick up the mobile when in a meeting or in middle of something important.
If its very urgent leave a voice mail or send a SMS
Configure a voice mail on your mobile number so that people trying to reach you have some way to let you know how desperate they are.
Pick up that phone if someone is calling repeatedly at any time in the day. It must be important.
Let me conclude the post with the mention of the only person I know who works in an administrative position in a company but does not bother to keep a mobile phone. He says “I have an office job. I don’t need to travel much. So I can be reached either at home or at office phone numbers. The only time I am not reachable is when I am driving to home or work. I don’t need a mobile.”
Well, he is one of the happiest and stress free persons I know and he is doing fairly well in life.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
The Great Will of China
The Olympics are over and China has not only emerged as the new sporting superpower but has also managed to organize arguably the most impressive Olympics show in recent times. A few years back the Chinese had declared that they will win the largest number of gold medals in the Beijing Olympics. China has won the largest number of gold medals by any country in any Olympics in the post soviet Olympic era.
A nation that was labeled a third world country a couple of decades back has emerged as one of the key players in the global economy and politics and now has also demonstrated a similar capability in the sporting arena. The world has been speaking of India and China as the emerging super powers of this century and with this Olympics China has truly arrived at the world stage.
So where does that leave India? I am afraid the answer to that question will not please most Indians. India has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to be spoken about in the same breath as China in the international arena again.
The first time this thought struck me was when I arrived in Beijing and Shanghai 2 years ago on a business trip. The impression I had in my mind of China was formed based on media reports of its rapid economic growth and modernization and I was quite prepared to see a reasonably modern nation and not the kind which you see in the typical Chinese Kung Fu movies. Yet, I was taken aback on seeing the level of development in the two cities. There has been talk of making Mumbai the next Shanghai, well its going to take a few years for Mumbai to even come anywhere close. Shanghai is in the league of global cities like New York with its beautiful high rises and cosmopolitan culture. As a foreigner I felt as comfortable in Shanghai as I would feel in any city in my country.
I visited China for a couple of years on a regular basis and what impressed me the most was there single minded determination to succeed. This determination is seen in an average citizen of the country. He wants to succeed in whatever he does for a living. I always felt that this will to succeed in spite of odds is perhaps the key reason why China has gone so far ahead of India.
I also discovered that the origin of this quality has some interesting factors behind it. In the middle of the last century, China came under communist rule and all aspects of religion were abolished from the life of its citizens. The nation was the only religion and the party leaders were the priests. Everything was decided by the party including where you lived and what you did for a living. All decisions were taken for the common good of the country, or so the citizens thought. But as it happened in other communist countries, the people started becoming disillusioned with the party and its leaders. The leaders were after all mortals and fought for power and the riches that being in a powerful position brings and corruption became a way of life. By the mid eighties the common public had realized that all that the party was preaching about socialism was a farce and the leaders themselves were after money. So why should the common man stay behind? Gradually earning money and living a good life became the key mantras for most Chinese citizens.
At the same time the party decided to start opening up the economy to the world and more money poured into China. This drove further growth and there were huge opportunities for the average Chinese people. And there was no religion, and no value systems apart from the communist value system which the people did not believe in anymore. In most societies, religion plays the role of building the value system of its inhabitants. Forty years of communist rule had destroyed the religious systems in China that had been there for centuries and the current generation had no exposure to the same and the ancient value systems.
Success had become the new religion the success was measured in terms of money and career growth as well as a good lifestyle. These were the values passed on to the children by their parents who were completely disillusioned with the communist system and wanted their kids to have the good life that they could not.
The strong Chinese will comes across in everyday life when you deal with them. Chinese will typically negotiate hard in any business deal especially when working with another partner from a different country and usually end up with a deal on their terms. This is also demonstrated in all their negotiations in the international trade and political arena.
I would like to close this post with a key thought that I often have about the Chinese. At this point in time the nation is riving full steam towards development and most Chinese want to focus on being economically successful. In the next few decades the Chinese will achieve this dream. What will they strive for then? With no value systems that most societies have will they decline and degenerate or try and rediscover religion?
A nation that was labeled a third world country a couple of decades back has emerged as one of the key players in the global economy and politics and now has also demonstrated a similar capability in the sporting arena. The world has been speaking of India and China as the emerging super powers of this century and with this Olympics China has truly arrived at the world stage.
So where does that leave India? I am afraid the answer to that question will not please most Indians. India has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to be spoken about in the same breath as China in the international arena again.
The first time this thought struck me was when I arrived in Beijing and Shanghai 2 years ago on a business trip. The impression I had in my mind of China was formed based on media reports of its rapid economic growth and modernization and I was quite prepared to see a reasonably modern nation and not the kind which you see in the typical Chinese Kung Fu movies. Yet, I was taken aback on seeing the level of development in the two cities. There has been talk of making Mumbai the next Shanghai, well its going to take a few years for Mumbai to even come anywhere close. Shanghai is in the league of global cities like New York with its beautiful high rises and cosmopolitan culture. As a foreigner I felt as comfortable in Shanghai as I would feel in any city in my country.
I visited China for a couple of years on a regular basis and what impressed me the most was there single minded determination to succeed. This determination is seen in an average citizen of the country. He wants to succeed in whatever he does for a living. I always felt that this will to succeed in spite of odds is perhaps the key reason why China has gone so far ahead of India.
I also discovered that the origin of this quality has some interesting factors behind it. In the middle of the last century, China came under communist rule and all aspects of religion were abolished from the life of its citizens. The nation was the only religion and the party leaders were the priests. Everything was decided by the party including where you lived and what you did for a living. All decisions were taken for the common good of the country, or so the citizens thought. But as it happened in other communist countries, the people started becoming disillusioned with the party and its leaders. The leaders were after all mortals and fought for power and the riches that being in a powerful position brings and corruption became a way of life. By the mid eighties the common public had realized that all that the party was preaching about socialism was a farce and the leaders themselves were after money. So why should the common man stay behind? Gradually earning money and living a good life became the key mantras for most Chinese citizens.
At the same time the party decided to start opening up the economy to the world and more money poured into China. This drove further growth and there were huge opportunities for the average Chinese people. And there was no religion, and no value systems apart from the communist value system which the people did not believe in anymore. In most societies, religion plays the role of building the value system of its inhabitants. Forty years of communist rule had destroyed the religious systems in China that had been there for centuries and the current generation had no exposure to the same and the ancient value systems.
Success had become the new religion the success was measured in terms of money and career growth as well as a good lifestyle. These were the values passed on to the children by their parents who were completely disillusioned with the communist system and wanted their kids to have the good life that they could not.
The strong Chinese will comes across in everyday life when you deal with them. Chinese will typically negotiate hard in any business deal especially when working with another partner from a different country and usually end up with a deal on their terms. This is also demonstrated in all their negotiations in the international trade and political arena.
I would like to close this post with a key thought that I often have about the Chinese. At this point in time the nation is riving full steam towards development and most Chinese want to focus on being economically successful. In the next few decades the Chinese will achieve this dream. What will they strive for then? With no value systems that most societies have will they decline and degenerate or try and rediscover religion?
Monday, August 4, 2008
May I help you?
"Thanks,I do need some help", I told the lady sitting behind the counter in the bank. I need an Internet user id and password for my savings account. The smile from the lady's face sort of disappeared and she directed me to pick up a form from the counter and fill up the same with my account details, which I gladly did. But to get the form submitted and receive an acknowledgement I had to spend 45 minutes waiting in a queue and the operations executive refused to provide me with a request id with which I could track my request from the call center.
This is not an isolated example, I know of many of my friends and acquaintances having been through such a nightmare while making a benign request like change in plan for their mobile connection or change their address on their savings account. In fact, my friend actually had to change her mobile number because the sales executive of the telecom company's marketing agency would not accept a request for change in the plan.
Having seen multiple such situations in most service organisations, I decided to explore the reasons behind this seemingly strange behaviours on the part of executives of organisations that come across as highly service oriented in their branding and marketing exercise.
The findings are quite interesting(some of the consumers may call it disgusting). Most companies have very stiff targets for their front end staff for closing new deals and bringing in new accounts. The incentives provided to the staff is also directed towards new customer acquisition and towards cross selling of services to existing customers. Handling queries like change in plan do not fetch any incentives, in fact there are instances where the managers(also carrying targets) encourage the executives to try and sell a new service when the customer walks in with a problem with the existing service.
Additionally most organisations do not focus on systems to handle customer service requests which are non revenue yielding in nature but require effort on part of the organisation to fulfill so even if there is a desk reading "May I help you" there is actually no system to back it up within the organisation.
This attitude of the middle level managers results in the executives trying to avoid registering customer service requests all together. Every request registered needs to be closed else it tends to escalate. So the best possible solution that executives trapped in such situations can think of is, don't register the request at all. Since, it has not been registered no one knows about it and it does not need to be closed.
A similar scenario exists in arms of the government in India that are primarily for public service. Last year, a court ordered that police departments are duty bound to register an FIR of any citizen and provide a copy of the report to the citizen. The court passed the order taking cognizance of a common problem faced by most citizens wherein the officers in the police force would avoid registering FIR. The reasons are quite similar to the scenario in the corporate world. There are over worked police officers providing security to politicians and trying to control crime at the same time with dated tools and processes that make it difficult to cope with today's smart criminal. So the best way to show a reduction in the crime graph is not to register complaints at all.
So what do you do when a policeman refuses to lodge your FIR? You contact the higher ups and bring pressure on the police officer. A similar culture is building in most corporate entities. Since, most of them do not have a mechanism to handle customer service requests, the enterprising customer connects with the senior manager to get the problem resolved. But in the process of reaching the senior management and getting the work done under pressure from the staff a whole lot of heartburn is caused which results in a unhappy experience for the customer.
Most organisations live from quarter to quarter burdened with the expectations of the shareholders to increase the customer base and hence the stock price and dividends. This usually percolates down to the level of the front end executives who have to face the burden of closing deals almost every day even in situations where there is actually no obvious demand in the market. There is a major disconnect between the top management perception of quality of service and the actual level of the same demonstrated on the ground.
Is the pressure to sell more and more resulting in crisis in the financial services industry across the globe. A couple of years back Taiwan's banking industry was engulfed in a Credit card crisis that resulted in major write offs at most banks. One specific case that was highlighted by the media then was of an old lady selling street side goods having been given credit of thousands of dollars when she had no obvious means of paying off the debt. Cards were also issued to students who had no income and were years from completing their studies and take up any jobs. More recently, there has been the sub prime crisis in the mortgage industry in US.
A number of economists and financial experts have and will provide a variety of theories for the crisis based on jargon that most of us don't understand. The fundamental problem, perhaps is very simple and one which our local grocery shop owners probably comprehend more clearly than most highly educated Business Managers. Don't lend money to people who do not have capacity to pay.
Maybe it is time to look at revenue assessment models by looking at the revenue from a customer over a period of time. This will typically result in effective customer service models that work on retaining customers and realising larger revenue per customer rather than a mad rush towards acquiring new customers with complete disregard to the satisfaction of the existing customers.
This is not an isolated example, I know of many of my friends and acquaintances having been through such a nightmare while making a benign request like change in plan for their mobile connection or change their address on their savings account. In fact, my friend actually had to change her mobile number because the sales executive of the telecom company's marketing agency would not accept a request for change in the plan.
Having seen multiple such situations in most service organisations, I decided to explore the reasons behind this seemingly strange behaviours on the part of executives of organisations that come across as highly service oriented in their branding and marketing exercise.
The findings are quite interesting(some of the consumers may call it disgusting). Most companies have very stiff targets for their front end staff for closing new deals and bringing in new accounts. The incentives provided to the staff is also directed towards new customer acquisition and towards cross selling of services to existing customers. Handling queries like change in plan do not fetch any incentives, in fact there are instances where the managers(also carrying targets) encourage the executives to try and sell a new service when the customer walks in with a problem with the existing service.
Additionally most organisations do not focus on systems to handle customer service requests which are non revenue yielding in nature but require effort on part of the organisation to fulfill so even if there is a desk reading "May I help you" there is actually no system to back it up within the organisation.
This attitude of the middle level managers results in the executives trying to avoid registering customer service requests all together. Every request registered needs to be closed else it tends to escalate. So the best possible solution that executives trapped in such situations can think of is, don't register the request at all. Since, it has not been registered no one knows about it and it does not need to be closed.
A similar scenario exists in arms of the government in India that are primarily for public service. Last year, a court ordered that police departments are duty bound to register an FIR of any citizen and provide a copy of the report to the citizen. The court passed the order taking cognizance of a common problem faced by most citizens wherein the officers in the police force would avoid registering FIR. The reasons are quite similar to the scenario in the corporate world. There are over worked police officers providing security to politicians and trying to control crime at the same time with dated tools and processes that make it difficult to cope with today's smart criminal. So the best way to show a reduction in the crime graph is not to register complaints at all.
So what do you do when a policeman refuses to lodge your FIR? You contact the higher ups and bring pressure on the police officer. A similar culture is building in most corporate entities. Since, most of them do not have a mechanism to handle customer service requests, the enterprising customer connects with the senior manager to get the problem resolved. But in the process of reaching the senior management and getting the work done under pressure from the staff a whole lot of heartburn is caused which results in a unhappy experience for the customer.
Most organisations live from quarter to quarter burdened with the expectations of the shareholders to increase the customer base and hence the stock price and dividends. This usually percolates down to the level of the front end executives who have to face the burden of closing deals almost every day even in situations where there is actually no obvious demand in the market. There is a major disconnect between the top management perception of quality of service and the actual level of the same demonstrated on the ground.
Is the pressure to sell more and more resulting in crisis in the financial services industry across the globe. A couple of years back Taiwan's banking industry was engulfed in a Credit card crisis that resulted in major write offs at most banks. One specific case that was highlighted by the media then was of an old lady selling street side goods having been given credit of thousands of dollars when she had no obvious means of paying off the debt. Cards were also issued to students who had no income and were years from completing their studies and take up any jobs. More recently, there has been the sub prime crisis in the mortgage industry in US.
A number of economists and financial experts have and will provide a variety of theories for the crisis based on jargon that most of us don't understand. The fundamental problem, perhaps is very simple and one which our local grocery shop owners probably comprehend more clearly than most highly educated Business Managers. Don't lend money to people who do not have capacity to pay.
Maybe it is time to look at revenue assessment models by looking at the revenue from a customer over a period of time. This will typically result in effective customer service models that work on retaining customers and realising larger revenue per customer rather than a mad rush towards acquiring new customers with complete disregard to the satisfaction of the existing customers.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Turtle Watching in Trinidad
“We will go turtle watching tomorrow at Matura beach. That’s the best place for this”. The decision was announced by my colleague in my maiden trip to the Caribbean island. Though, I had heard of this tourist attraction it wasn’t my first choice for an evening in West Indies. I was pretty sure there would be more exciting things to do in this part of the world. That’s the image I had in my mind of Trinidad. The image was devastated within 24 hours of landing in Port of Spain.
Trinidad is a small island right at the tip of Central America with typical third world characteristics. For those of you who are looking at a Goa like vacation it’s definitely not the place to visit. There are hardly any beaches or resorts in Trinidad. (The island of Tobago has all the good vacation resorts). In fact Port of Spain is as noisy as it gets during business hours with narrow roads and traffic snarls during peak hours as people attempt to go to or come back from work. Trinidad is the place where the business is conducted. You can see massive construction going on at most places in the island with a lot of oil money getting pumped into the economy. The population consists of Africans and Indians in almost equal number with a few white faces around. Indians in Trinidad are hardly in touch with their roots back home as they have been settled here for generations. The language for communication is English but the accent is very pronounced (I had to strain myself to understand the English spoken even in the Business meetings).
It’s a small island which has a hilly terrain and commuting is not easy. Taxis are more expensive than in US. The other option is to get down to the road and wave any passing car for a ride. The driver will charge you less than a fraction of the taxi fare, but this mode is best left to locals who know their way around. There are a few malls in Port of Spain but they close by sunset and the only entertainment seems to be to visit the city square and sit on the benches doing nothing. You do get to see a lot of people selling music cds on the streets (mostly pirated though). There is hardly any night life and only a few good restaurants that usually close by nine. In a situation like this watching turtles seemed like the most exciting thing to do.
Matura beach was a two hour ride from our hotel on a road that was hilly and narrow in a region which had hardly any habitants. The only time to watch Turtles was around midnight. So we set off in a taxi after dinner through the secluded road which reminded me of the road trips I used to make with my parents during childhoods in interiors of India. We had some trouble finding the exact location where the Turtles can be seen but managed to reach there with the help of a local from a nearby hamlet. It was few miles off the highway on a dirt track. Driving to the place in the middle of the night with no lights and no sign of humans suddenly did not seem a very smart thing to do. We finally reached the security post before the beach signifying that it was a protected area. The guard at the post said we could not visit the beach as we had no permission from the City office. Now we had taken a not so pleasant drive for 2 hours to watch turtles and I had no plans to return back from the security post. It took a little persuasion and a couple of hundred TT Dollars for the guard to allow us entry in the beach.
We were told to buy tickets and pay for a guide to take us through the process of watching turtles. I thought this was taking things too far. What’s so difficult about watching some turtles? We just planned to stroll in the beach and watch a few of them before going back to the hotel. I wasn’t sure it was an activity to be taken so seriously. Actually I found the whole thing a bit silly. Driving two hours in the middle of the night to watch some turtles did sound like a silly idea, if not completely crazy. Well, we might as well watch them since we are here, said my friend.
The guide initiated us into the process by saying that the turtles have not yet come on the beach so we will need to wait for them to come out. Now this was getting crazier by the minute. We had a meeting early in the morning. I had a few questions for the guide and he better come up with convincing answers. His explanations actually got me interested in the whole process.
Leatherback Turtles are a rare species that visit the 8 kilometer stretch in the Matura beach to lay eggs during a 3 month period every year. A number of people come this far every night to watch them lay eggs. The guide was a part of the Turtle conservation project that was started with support of the Trinidad Govt conserves this rare species. We had the option of waiting at the post or at beach for turtles to show up. The cool breeze from the beach was tempting and the decision was made.
We strolled down to the beach which was full of darkness (we were not allowed to use any lights as turtles would be scared and not show up) but the sky above was a breathtaking sight. It had been ages since I had seen such a clear sky where one could point out all the stars we learnt about in school. We spent a good few minutes soaking up the experience of being in an environment far away from the pollution and noise. The breeze was cool and so were the sand and the sea water. We strolled across the beach just to enjoy the moment rather than look for turtles. The beach had uneven mounds of sand spread across the entire stretch which we were told were Turtle egg nests.
We finally settled down on one of the nests waiting for the turtle to show up. There were a number of volunteers of the project on the lookout for the turtles to emerge. They usually come after the tide becomes higher as the use the waves to swim on to the beach, said our guide. The wait lasted more than a couple of hours and as we were about to give up a message was received that one turtle had emerged on the other side of the beach.
We set off immediately and were warned not to take any pictures before the guide permitted us to do so. We saw a black turtle which must weigh about 200 Kg trying to dig a hoe in the sand in the beach. It was using its rear feet to dig the hole and remove the sand. It kept doing so till the hole was at least 4 feet deep and then started to lay eggs inside. It was one of the rare sights of nature to see an animal giving birth to its progeny after careful planning so as to protect the turtles that are born from becoming a prey to other animals in the beach. Having heard of a number of examples of the sophisticated manner in which the nature has developed a system for animals to survive and reproduce in the world, I was amazed to see a process like this unfolding before my eyes. The turtle continued to lay eggs for some time and at this point the volunteers allowed everyone to take pictures and touch the turtle. It lay around 100-120 eggs. The ones laid first are generally more productive and softer and are buried deep in the hole while the ones on top are harder and are meant to protect the productive ones from the other inhabitants of nature. The turtle starts filling the hole with the sand after the laying of eggs is complete and then goes on to create some dummy mounds in the beach sand to camouflage the actual nest. On an average each turtle comes to the beach a few times in the season to do this activity and only a few of the eggs actually survive for the babies to be born.
As we set off back to the city after viewing what was one of the most amazing sights of nature that I had seen, I imagined the beautiful sight of baby turtles running towards the sea after coming out of the nest. I smile broke out on my face thinking about the lovely sight.
Trinidad is a small island right at the tip of Central America with typical third world characteristics. For those of you who are looking at a Goa like vacation it’s definitely not the place to visit. There are hardly any beaches or resorts in Trinidad. (The island of Tobago has all the good vacation resorts). In fact Port of Spain is as noisy as it gets during business hours with narrow roads and traffic snarls during peak hours as people attempt to go to or come back from work. Trinidad is the place where the business is conducted. You can see massive construction going on at most places in the island with a lot of oil money getting pumped into the economy. The population consists of Africans and Indians in almost equal number with a few white faces around. Indians in Trinidad are hardly in touch with their roots back home as they have been settled here for generations. The language for communication is English but the accent is very pronounced (I had to strain myself to understand the English spoken even in the Business meetings).
It’s a small island which has a hilly terrain and commuting is not easy. Taxis are more expensive than in US. The other option is to get down to the road and wave any passing car for a ride. The driver will charge you less than a fraction of the taxi fare, but this mode is best left to locals who know their way around. There are a few malls in Port of Spain but they close by sunset and the only entertainment seems to be to visit the city square and sit on the benches doing nothing. You do get to see a lot of people selling music cds on the streets (mostly pirated though). There is hardly any night life and only a few good restaurants that usually close by nine. In a situation like this watching turtles seemed like the most exciting thing to do.
Matura beach was a two hour ride from our hotel on a road that was hilly and narrow in a region which had hardly any habitants. The only time to watch Turtles was around midnight. So we set off in a taxi after dinner through the secluded road which reminded me of the road trips I used to make with my parents during childhoods in interiors of India. We had some trouble finding the exact location where the Turtles can be seen but managed to reach there with the help of a local from a nearby hamlet. It was few miles off the highway on a dirt track. Driving to the place in the middle of the night with no lights and no sign of humans suddenly did not seem a very smart thing to do. We finally reached the security post before the beach signifying that it was a protected area. The guard at the post said we could not visit the beach as we had no permission from the City office. Now we had taken a not so pleasant drive for 2 hours to watch turtles and I had no plans to return back from the security post. It took a little persuasion and a couple of hundred TT Dollars for the guard to allow us entry in the beach.
We were told to buy tickets and pay for a guide to take us through the process of watching turtles. I thought this was taking things too far. What’s so difficult about watching some turtles? We just planned to stroll in the beach and watch a few of them before going back to the hotel. I wasn’t sure it was an activity to be taken so seriously. Actually I found the whole thing a bit silly. Driving two hours in the middle of the night to watch some turtles did sound like a silly idea, if not completely crazy. Well, we might as well watch them since we are here, said my friend.
The guide initiated us into the process by saying that the turtles have not yet come on the beach so we will need to wait for them to come out. Now this was getting crazier by the minute. We had a meeting early in the morning. I had a few questions for the guide and he better come up with convincing answers. His explanations actually got me interested in the whole process.
Leatherback Turtles are a rare species that visit the 8 kilometer stretch in the Matura beach to lay eggs during a 3 month period every year. A number of people come this far every night to watch them lay eggs. The guide was a part of the Turtle conservation project that was started with support of the Trinidad Govt conserves this rare species. We had the option of waiting at the post or at beach for turtles to show up. The cool breeze from the beach was tempting and the decision was made.
We strolled down to the beach which was full of darkness (we were not allowed to use any lights as turtles would be scared and not show up) but the sky above was a breathtaking sight. It had been ages since I had seen such a clear sky where one could point out all the stars we learnt about in school. We spent a good few minutes soaking up the experience of being in an environment far away from the pollution and noise. The breeze was cool and so were the sand and the sea water. We strolled across the beach just to enjoy the moment rather than look for turtles. The beach had uneven mounds of sand spread across the entire stretch which we were told were Turtle egg nests.
We finally settled down on one of the nests waiting for the turtle to show up. There were a number of volunteers of the project on the lookout for the turtles to emerge. They usually come after the tide becomes higher as the use the waves to swim on to the beach, said our guide. The wait lasted more than a couple of hours and as we were about to give up a message was received that one turtle had emerged on the other side of the beach.
We set off immediately and were warned not to take any pictures before the guide permitted us to do so. We saw a black turtle which must weigh about 200 Kg trying to dig a hoe in the sand in the beach. It was using its rear feet to dig the hole and remove the sand. It kept doing so till the hole was at least 4 feet deep and then started to lay eggs inside. It was one of the rare sights of nature to see an animal giving birth to its progeny after careful planning so as to protect the turtles that are born from becoming a prey to other animals in the beach. Having heard of a number of examples of the sophisticated manner in which the nature has developed a system for animals to survive and reproduce in the world, I was amazed to see a process like this unfolding before my eyes. The turtle continued to lay eggs for some time and at this point the volunteers allowed everyone to take pictures and touch the turtle. It lay around 100-120 eggs. The ones laid first are generally more productive and softer and are buried deep in the hole while the ones on top are harder and are meant to protect the productive ones from the other inhabitants of nature. The turtle starts filling the hole with the sand after the laying of eggs is complete and then goes on to create some dummy mounds in the beach sand to camouflage the actual nest. On an average each turtle comes to the beach a few times in the season to do this activity and only a few of the eggs actually survive for the babies to be born.
As we set off back to the city after viewing what was one of the most amazing sights of nature that I had seen, I imagined the beautiful sight of baby turtles running towards the sea after coming out of the nest. I smile broke out on my face thinking about the lovely sight.
Deepak Bhatia
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