packing and dispatch. The officers at the factory were cooperative. Sharad was interested in starting a similar venture in India. But while returning home he told me that he did not feel it would work in India. It was of course a short visit and then he returned to India. After that I never heard anything from him. Last month his elder daughter Shreya, along with her husband and their daughter visited us. They were on holidays in Switzerland and stayed with my family for a week. That was our contact after a long time. A few days ago, I got a message from Joshi about you writing this biography and that was our first contact after all these years. But I still carry very fond memories of Joshi who was my valuable colleague for eight years.’ I was immensely grateful to Tony for sharing so much from his memory. Even after my return to India when I sent him the notes running into 18 pages, he patiently checked and corrected them. Without him those eight years of Joshi’s life would have always remained a dark tunnel for me and all other admirers of Joshi. When one looks back on those eight years in Switzerland and wonders what impact they might have made on Joshi, four points come to mind. The first was realizing the importance of prosperity. Everything around him was in one way or the other engendered by prosperity — natural sense of generosity which is cultivated because of having no shortages of any kind and because of the way government provided for your old age, spacious and wellequipped playgrounds, heated swimming pools, beautiful flowers hanging from every window and cheerful faces of people. Without prosperity society would not have had the leisure or inclination to develop all these. Energy and creativity of people would have been sapped in the daily grind of living, as seemed to happen in a country like India. Throughout his 68
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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage
