Prevent Pellattisation and Secure Your Success

Successful? You stand a good chance being ‘Pellattised ’

Not making much headway despite your best efforts? Are you being Pellattised?

“Pellattised? There is no such English word. Did you mean, palletized?”

“No. I said, Pellattised.”

It is not yet in the English dictionary. I coined the word. There is a true story behind it. It happened in Ontario, Canada many years ago. 

But, let me first tell you what led me to the word.

My wife, her brother Issac, and I had gone on a vacation to Toronto. We stayed with Colonel Reji and his gracious wife for a few days. Reji, a fellow veteran and friend with a huge heart, was more than kind. Reji was incharge and he drew up our itinerary. The Welland Canal, an interesting feat of engineering, was our first destination. Through a well choreographed and remotely controlled process, the authorities let water flow in or out of portions of the canal called locks, to lift or lower ships. At lock number three, we witnessed a ship being lifted ten meters in a matter of ten minutes. It was an exhilarating experience. From the Welland Canal we went to Niagara falls. After spending time enjoying the beauty of the falls we went to see the Niagara electricity generation station before returning home. Colonel Reji is well informed. At every place we stopped, he had some interesting details to share. The facts, figures, dates and anecdotes he shared made the visit interesting and meaningful. That is how I heard of Major General Sir Henry Pellatt. 

Niagara is a great source of hydro-electric power to both the USA and Canada. Though transmission of power from Niagara started first in 1896 with sending electricity to the City of Buffalo in New York, Sir Henry Pellatt came to the scene in 1903 as president of the Company that won rights to distribute power to Ontario. Time was on his side and business was good. Sir Henry Pellatt made a fortune supplying electricity to Ontario. It was also the time when the debate on private versus public holding of the natural resource was at its peak. The movement led by Legislator Adam Beck calling to make hydro-electric power produced by Niagara ‘as free as air’ became loud and politically compelling. Henry Pellatt's company was soon expropriated. There is no clarity about how much compensation he received. If at all he received something it was far below what he had invested.

Such takeovers are said to be dictated by socio- political compulsions and done allegedly for the good of the people in general, while the real reasons and players behind the scene are seldom known. Once Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario, a Government entity, wrested control from Toronto Electric Light Company owned by Henry Pellatt, the tariffs came down because it was subsidised. Records however, do not show that citizens ever received free power from Niagara Falls, as promised. Political promises are like that. The good is promised and the promise never made good. It was so then and it is so now; the public at large, always the cannon fodder, gullible and lured by freebies they were led to bleed themselves.

The next day Colonel Reji took us to visit Casa Loma, a mansion and a prominent tourist attraction of Toronto. Incidentally, it was once owned by Sir Henry Pellatt. With Toronto Electric Light Company, his cash cow, expropriated, Sir Pellatt could not complete the construction of the grand mansion he had ambitiously envisioned. A series of reverses followed. The world war made things worse. His real estate and other investments tanked. Cascading losses turned the rich man into a pauper. The government of the day was not kind either. The astronomical increase in annual property taxes from $600 to $12000, they imposed, broke the man. Pellatt, once a man with the Midas touch, was forced to move into his chauffeur's home to spend his last days and breathe his last. The grand burial ceremony with full military honours meant nothing to the man in shrouds, locked in the coffin, and with no chance of ever staging a comeback. 

As we walked through the passages in the mansion, the halloween theme playing out had a different feel. For the better part of the day, I felt sad for the man. I felt that the system had been more than unfair to him. It looked as if he was broken by intent. “Was it a conspiracy?” 

A few days later a second thought occurred. “Was he fair to himself?” How could a man capable of investing and reaping dividends in a vast range of economic activities be so oblivious to adversaries and adversities? That is when I coined the term ‘Pellattised.’ 

When an individual becomes exceedingly successful, people around tend to go out of the way to make things easy for him or her. The political system often becomes subservient if not subordinate to such people. With everything on their side they tend to roughshod people and subvert procedures. The “winner taking it all,” both the individual and society turn blind eye to illegalities. By no means, I am suggesting that Sir Pellatt ever did something irregular or illegal.

However, lost in the din of success and assumed sense of infallibility, the successful tend to become unaware of the undercurrents and storm building up over the horizon. Amidst the many, singing praises and bending backwards to make things happen, are people, bitten, bitter, bruised, and looking for ways to get even. Drunk with success, the person normally becomes arrogant and blind to loud and visible symptoms of erosion and signs of corrosion. They consider adversaries insignificant and fail to recognise signs of them forming coalitions. I do not know what afflicted Sir Pellatt. But, he certainly did not see or realize the potential of the current against him. Whatever countermeasures he might have taken were too little and too late. 

I felt bad for Sir Henry Pellatt. The government could have been more considerate. It is possible that it had caused or accelerated his call. His success might have been an eyesore for his adversaries. They would have colluded with those in power to chart his fall and stamp out any chance of revival. We do not know. Though we claim to be evolved beings, we cannot forget that we still live in a dog eat dog world. When competition is to garner money and power anything is possible, any means is good means and there is no end going to any end.

“Pellattisation” denotes one's failure through a series of commissions and omissions to read the ominous. Compassion history cedes while judging may not help because you may be history yourself. 

So, if you feel you are successful, secure your success by preventing pellattisation. If you are finding things hard, check for signs of pellattisation.