Iran and ai. How a car maker spawned an arms ecosystem ? And where it will go.
Way back in 1987, I got a call from Pawan Kumar, an IIT Kanpur alumnus one of the founders of TCS. He wanted me to accompany him to meet JRD Tata for an urgent meeting on Tata Motors. The meeting was about Iran. India had made a national car called the Maruti 800 which was a toy. But the Iranians had built a car called Sanand which was way superior. Mr Tata wanted me to discreetly benchmark Tata Motors vs Maruti and Iran Khado.
What I found out in subsequent months shook me. The Iran Khadro company was way ahead of Maruti and Maruti was way ahead of Tata Motors. The Japanese were no match to the Europeans and we as Indians were no match to anyone. Fiats and Ambassadors still ruled in India. Maruti was trying to catch up.
The Tatas decided to pursue the nice segment of inter city taxis. And it took a slow and indecisive Tatas a full ten years after that to launch the Indica – a market it owned till Toyota Innova stole the market because of higher seating capacity. The Ambassador died out. As did Premier.
Today I was walking down from Bangla Bhawan in Lutyen Delhi to Juggernaut near Barakhamba Road metro station at 4 am. The universe of options for breakfast at that time is just one. I passed the imposing Iranian embassy to my left. I had come here in 1988 to get a fax number Iran Khado company. The helpful Ambassador had offered to get me a video call same day. It is the first time I saw a video conference system. It was like magic though video would be the wrong way to describe a screen with some kind of a static image. It worked off a leased line. Think 19.6 kbps. India did not have ISDN till 2003.
I had come here again in 2001 before leaving for Israel. I was the guest of Gil Shaki the then trade commissioner at the Israel embassy. I wanted to check if I could stop by at Teheran and visit some carpet weavers. I was told there was no such option.
It was then that I realised you couldn’t fly via Dubai either. My only option was a flight to Aman in Jordon from where a double propellor aircraft would take me to Tel Aviv.
I marvelled at Jaffa in Tel Aviv. Visited their university. Met Russian Jews. Visited Tadiran. The tiny state of Israel smaller than Goa had exports that recalled India. Jerusalem was a master class in spirituality. I spend days at the Wailing wall and learnt to sleep while standing. Israel defies convention.
The theory at the Holocaust museum didn’t hit home till I decided to take a trip to Bethelem and a rocket from PLA blew the car in front to smithereens. This was my last trip to the old world. And all hopes to visit the garden of Eden have remained just that.
As I waited for breakfast, I opened the Economist. It was well researched and very convincing.
But I don’t think it is correct.
You need to speak to a Shia carpet weaver in Kashmir and see a PLA rocket blow up a car in front of you to understand Iran.
More later.