We had visitors last evening. My old time buddy and his wife dropped by to say hello. The nice thing was that they got us a gift. The not so nice thing was that the gift was a bag of tomatoes. Now I have known my friends doing weird things that at times freak me out, but I still could not understand the whole idea behind gifting me a bag of tomatoes. I am no tomato connoisseur to fancy them (for that matter I don’t fancy any vegetable at all). So why gift me tomatoes? Well I have heard mom complain about growing vegetable prices, so I can understand that a kilo of tomatoes would have cost my friend dearly, but still I feel that a bar of chocolate (Dairy Milk – the Fruit and Nuts one preferred) for my daughter (which of course I would gulp down most of) would have made a better gift than a bag of tomatoes – however expensive tomatoes might be. The bottom line is that tomatoes don’t make gifts. Period!

Now as I was staring at the tomatoes in disappointment, my friend’s wife blurted out “They are farm fresh tomatoes. Straight from the farm.”. There was an unusual excitement in her voice with an extra emphasis on the word ‘farm’. ‘Oh, so giving me tomatoes you got for free. That’s even more horrible’ was what I thought. Well no, I didn’t say that. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a tomato farm” was what I said instead. “No we don’t have a farm, we went to one yesterday”. Apparently my friends had spent the weekend at a farm at Lonvala (a two hour drive from Mumbai) doing what they termed as ‘Vegetable Picking’.

Now I have heard of people doing such things. I have known my friends in the US going ‘Strawberry Picking’ and ‘Potato Picking’ and all. I personally have never done that. I have never understood the whole excitement of getting a vegetable or a fruit straight from the farm. Don’t they all come from farms? So what’s the big deal in going all the way to the farm and getting it yourself, when you can get an equally good (and often better ones too) from the vendor just a few blocks away. I frankly cannot tell the difference between a ‘straight from farm’ fruit or vegetable, from the one purchased from the market. Anyways, people do strange things. This is just one of them. Never mind. Now as I was trying to discard those tomatoes from my mind, my friend said “You should go there sometime. They just charge 400 bucks per head and you can spend a whole three to four hours picking vegetables. And then you can buy the ones you pick too. That’s extra though.”. (So the tomatoes were not actually free ones)

I have heard people say that there comes a moment in your life when your whole perception changes. It’s like your ‘defining moment’ the ‘Eureka Moment’ of your life. That is exactly how I felt when I heard my friend talking about paying the 400 bucks for picking tomatoes. ‘Wow’ I though ‘what a brilliant idea was that. Getting people to work for you and then making them pay you too. Why did I not think of it before?’. My mind was racing in all directions and I was seeing things in new light. I could visualize the happy farmer sitting and counting his money while people queued up to work for him, all eager to pay him too. I could also see the smile on the winemaker’s face who made people pay for letting them stomp his grapes. Even the old lady outside the temple who sat there with her cow and some grass, whom people paid just to feed her cow that grass, suddenly seemed to me like a smart entrepreneur.

I had actually found a brilliant idea. I should also do that, is what I decided that very moment. I should also let others do my work and let them to pay me for it. That would be perfect. When I came up with this idea last evening, I had a ready customer sitting there right in front of me. I did offer him to work for me for a day and pay me for it, but he didn’t seem interested. He mocked me off. He thought I was just kidding (These days, people have stopped taking me seriously. Wonder why?). Never mind, I thought. I will find somebody else. There will be many others who would be interested in ‘Working in Jay’s office’.

So here’s an open offer to all. ‘Work as Jay for a day’ only for Rs. 1000 (Remember: You are the one who’s going to pay me the money, just like you do when you go when you go fruit/veg picking). You get to work from my office, from my desk. You can reply to my emails, answer my phone calls and even talk to those who come to meet me. And as a special limited time offer, I would even grant you permission to write my blog, I bet you will find it as exciting as working in the farm or stomping grapes. Hurry, offer ends soon !!! Only limited entries !!! (Damn, I suck at writing sales pitches)

Well, any takers?