The Ratna that Ratan was!

October 9th 2024, will go down in Indian Industry as not a day of mourning but one of immortalizing a legend who was an embodiment of humility, business acumen, philanthropy and integrity. As soon as the news was broken at around midnight there was a huge out pouring of emotions on the social media leaving many Indians with welled up eyes and lump throats across generations from boomers to Gen Alpha! Such emotions are normally reserved for celluloid heroes and politicians in India.

This is not a requiem to the great Mr. Ratan Naval Tata, as the Social media is flooded with tributes by people who have worked for / with / along him and also people who have met him in an elevator, hotels, airports, events, exhibitions etc. I don’t fall under any of the above categories. I felt I should write this from a common man’s perspective growing up hearing this household name the last 50 odd years. Salt to Steel conglomerate they call the empire, that’s how a Gen X would remember and also, for Titan that replaced the boring HMT’s on the wrists of the bride and bridegrooms of the 90’s, the Gen Z would remember them for the jewelry and sarees from Tanishq and Taniera, while Gen Alpha would remember them for Starbucks and Jaguar.

The story of Ratan Tata is not one of rags to riches, but one of humility in entitlement. He was handed over the baton of a thriving century old empire and one in which the surname was a household brand, what more could one ask for, taking over a business. Many a brands and great business surnames have fallen by the wayside while Tata remained and continued to make an impact on the common man’s lives across generations. That is not just due to the brand recognition / recall value the name carried but solely due to the bearer of the baton who carried that brand name, in this case, the man, Ratan Naval Tata. The timing was also right for him as he took over the reins of the Tata group in 1991, a significant year in Indian corporate history as that was the year the seeds of liberalization was sown by the Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. P V Narasimha Rao and yours truly was in the sophomore year in Engineering hoping for a better future is a few years. TELCO / TISCO / TCS / TCE where the names that did rounds in any aspiring Mechanical Engineer’s minds in the 90’s.

India is a country where sycophancy rules the roost and paid mourners and crowds are mobilized for the final journey of a politician or a celluloid celebrity, and the journey to the final resting place takes multiple detours and is delayed by several hours and even days to gain maximum public empathy. However, this was not the case with Mr. Ratan Tata’s final journey.  He was laid to rest within 18 hours of his breathing his last breath. But the crowd that lined his final journey route and the millions watching it on television or on social media sites with moist eyes were a testimony to the man he was, and the culture he had created in an organization.

Tatas were an epitome of corporate culture and the words that are used these days more as fad or simply for ticking the governance boxes were the bywords at the Tatas. The emphasis on Compliance, Ethics, Integrity, Equality etc. look good on governance posters in canteens and board rooms in corporates these days, but that was the way of life and business that Ratan Tata preached and practiced.

Many stories on Ratan Tata’s benevolence to the society has been written about in the last couple of days, I would like to highlight one from my side too. Tata Chemicals dropped a 500 Mio USD (in 2008) Soda Ash Plant close to a potentially large soda ash reserve in Lake Natron in Tanzania which was a popular breeding ground for Flamingos, on the instructions of Ratan Tata, yes, there were a few objections raised by environmental activists, but Ratan Tata was willing to give an ear and react.  I cannot imagine any of the present-day industrial power houses willing to lend a ear or compromise on a 750 Mio USD deal today to save a breeding ground for flamingos.

The political parties were up in arms even before he was laid to rest on who will be the first to recommend a Bharat Ratna (the highest Indian Civilian award) for him. The same award was given to a cricketer who is just as old as Mr. Ratan Tata’s contribution to the Indian society at large and yet politicians are debating on if and when one should bestow him with this honor. He definitely would not be turning in his graves thinking of this, as his very name embodies the most precious gem and for his work, 1.3 Billion people of Bharath have already adopted him as their RATNA.

Ratan was well and truly the Ratna that Bharath had or will ever have and for optimism sake, wish more Ratans come up in corporate India following his legacy of humility in governance which is lacking in the new age valuation driven business leaders

The Fourteen Idli Annachi is no more!

Given his misgivings people might raise eyebrows on a tribute to a man convicted for life imprisonment for murder and died a few days into his sentence.

For me he is a man who revolutionized vegetarian food in Madras. A kind of disruptor in his business almost 3 decades back.

Madras was famous for its Dosas, Idlis and other delicacies primarily dished out by all the ‘Vilases’ and dominated by the Udipi restaurants serving filter kaapis. The sad point was the kaapis were served with a couple of fingers of the waiter dipped in it and the idlis were served by the same hands. The cutlery was predominantly made up of highly dented and beaten up sheen less stainless steel plates and serving dishes.

Then Annachi happened… and he focused on the most important ingredient in any restaurants recipe for success and that was cleanliness which was missing all along in the industry. Cleanliness was confined to the Five Star rated restaurants or the second tier restaurants, frequented by the celebrities.

He employed revolutionary management techniques that were well ahead of its times.  A very distinct one comes to memory. You sit peacefully having a meal in one of their outlets and suddenly have burly bouncer looking men dressed in Full Black or in White shirt and khaki pants alighting from a Maruti Omni and rushing in and landing on your table and pick up, what was in your opinion a spotlessly clean glass and shouting aloud why the Glass wasn’t properly washed. You can call it a gimmick but I call it a very successful Management Technique since if I can recall that incident almost 3 decades later, that definitely left an impression in every other customer present there including me and prompting us to revisit Saravana Bhavan for its focus on cleanliness.

As a friend correctly mentioned, he kind of McDonaldised Vegetarian food in Madras. He came up with innovative dishes, predominant among them were the Fourteen Idlis.  He did this when the whole world knew of idlis that were made of a particular diameter, he reduced its diameter and called it mini idlis and made 14 of it and made them float in sambar.  Though down the line as inflation caught up and many competitors came up with versions called Floating Idli in which the numbers of idlis were less than fourteen. This in turn made the makers of the Stainless steel Idli moulds to reduce their diameters too and cater to an entirely new market for mini idlis.

If this was not disruptive what else is?

RIP Annachi and thank you for entertaining our taste buds all these years.

A requiem to a Hermit!

Back after a period of writer’s block to write a tribute to someone who has been instrumental in introducing something way back in 1954 that has been my trusted companion during most of my youthful years and blogging sessions.

Little did Edward Abraham Dyer know in 1855 that he would leave a more positive legacy in India 162 years down the line than his notorious offspring Col Reginald Edward Harry Dyer who would go on to feature in history books across India as a person who was more cursed than forgiven for his acts every time one read his role in history.

Ghaziabad shot to the limelight or rather (Orange light) in the recent past for all the wrong reasons. But Ghaziabad has a history of spiritual association with the youth of the country since 1960.

When Jamaica took the lead, we in India created a cult.

The above clues were not from a connect-them-all trivia quiz round but facts about something that would go on to calm the nerves of the first youth of an independent India, something that the senior Dyer in a distant way helped us forget his descendant’s wrong doings and also helped us to curse the English better in better English!

The hermit in each one of us was kindled by this concoction. Some would introspect, some would turn a socialist and some would simply laugh out loud much before the expensive laughing club memberships came into being.  Easy on the pocket, light on the mind might sound oxymoronical to a few.  

Solitude was the virtue of a hermit. But the product that was named after the hermit always brought people together…

Happy that a monk is now the guardian of the region that THE MONK that united people irrespective of caste, creed, or religion was born!

The Monk never dies!!! However Old he is!

RIP Brig Kapil Mohan!

We think of you….

We came to you as teary eyed 4 year olds with a handful of jumbled letters and you made us a meaningful word out of it. We then grew up to be a mix of jumbled words; you made us into an expressive sentence. We never knew when to stop or pause, you told us, the full stop and the comma were for that. Finally when we had learnt to put them all together we proudly showed you our prose. You weren’t impressed; you taught us ways to make it sound better. Finally, you made poetry out of us.

When the lines were skewed and the angles were not adding up, you were the angel who taught us, that variables were as important as the constants both in Mathematics and life. This lesson we carry until this day. You gave us little tricks to solve complex problems and tucked it into our sleeves and asked us to use it when the need arises. We think of you, decades later, when we pull it out of our sleeves while teaching our little ones.

When we look at a plant today we still remember the Xylem and the Phloem’s, when at the physician’s and discussing a liver ailment, we quickly ask, "Is the bile secretion ok?” We go on to have reasonably informed discussions with our physician. The gen next looks up at us with an expression "When did you google that?" We simply smile and think of you!

Even today being part of an audience in a school quiz show, when a blurred image of a cave pops up on the screen followed by the question, we put up our hand with the same childlike exuberance and shout out the answer ...stalactites and stalagmites it is!. When we are flying over the vast oceans and land forms we name them silently to ourselves, thinking of you.

At a local athletic meet, we remember the synchronized marching tips and the hop skip and jump rules in a triple jump you drilled us in. We think of you setting our bars high, be it for a high jump attempt or for the life ahead in general.

We think of you when we open a door for a lady, or when we stand up as an elderly person walks in, or each time we say please and sorry. We think about you each time we say a Thank you!

Here you are! Thank you! You put in your best to make us do our best. We hope we did.


Happy Teachers Day!!!


The Class of '88

A Madras boy makes Chennai proud!

I sometimes wonder we in India are a selfless lot, since we take great pride in chest thumping a fellow Indian’s achievement with gay abandon. Indian media these days goes a step further and makes it a point to celebrate the occasion by giving us a byte from the tea shop from where the celebrity had his last bite.

We just don’t praise him we leave no stone unturned to claim our share of the limelight. Someone or the other knows the someone who knew someone who was close to our new found celebrity. Call this 6 Degrees of separation from fame?

The elevation of Sundar Pichai as the CEO of Google today is one such incidence that has gone berserk on the social media. Well here’s my share of claim to his fame, we were born in the same year and his birth date (12) happens to be a mirror image of mine (21), and that’s not all, we share a rare numerical connection, the squares of the birth dates are also mirror images of each other. Wow! So you see how close we were!

It is indeed commendable that a Gen X compatriot went on to head a company without whose help Gen Z would not survive today. From an Indian perspective the rise of these guys was inevitable. Thanks mainly to the institutions set up in the 50’s and 60’s; within years of gaining independence, such visionary decisions on setting up of educational institutions of quality have gone a long way in shaping the nation. Irrespective of political affiliations I believe this need to be acknowledged and appreciated. A true example of one reaps, what one sows.

The eighties and the early nineties were the coming of age of these institutions and the products of these institutions during these years were juxtaposed between an opportunity filled fast moving world and a complacent India that had lost its fire-in-the-belly post-independence.

This was essentially the pre coaching center, pre-parental aspiration era. An era when the parents were too poor to have aspirations and the kids were so full of dreams, so much so, they forced their parents to reluctantly toe the line. Toe the line, not to enrol them into the most successful of tuition / coaching centers but just to buy them an air ticket to pursue their dreams, the dream they had achieved by sheer hard work and nothing else. Unfortunately, today it’s a reversal of roles, the parents are full of aspirations and the kids are too poor in spirit to dream!

Congratulations Sundar Pichai, this is definitely not a rag to riches story, all stories of our era are Kumar shirts to Louis Phillipe. The middle class successes that we see these days are not just stories but epics that need to be well documented, the good and the bad. Otherwise why would the first Mc Namarical performer from India be behind bars now? So enjoy your moment of glory responsibly with the usual Madrasian humility.

The Madras boy, who is today in the limelight was born and brought up in Madras and left it before it became Chennai and returned to bring glory to Chennai. What Madras sowed then, Chennai reaps today.

Just Beat it stopped beating...

MJ is no more...Jacko was a legend but somewhere on the road to fame and glory the legendary Jacko became a whacko, he sang ''it doesnt matter if you are black or white' but still changed from black to white. A great musician who folks of my gen grew up listening / gyrating to... inspired a whole new genre of performers. He pioneered the concept of a singer being a performer / entertainer. The king of pop died in near penury, strange are the ways of the world or was it his own undoing?

The man who gave the world the 'moon walk' has begun his long walk to the moon and beyond.

A tribute to Besant Nagar’s famous Singh…

I was informed by a friend in Chennai about the demise of Mr. Daljeeti Singh of Cozee and this blog is a tribute to him.

For all of you who are familiar with the Besant Nagar beach of the yesteryears when it was quieter and only frequented by the neighbourhood folks, the most familiar joint for a bite or a coffee has been ‘Cozee’ - the beach side eatery on 6th Avenue. And Daljeeti who owns it was always a part of the shop running the show until the wee hours of the morning.

The hot cheese samosas were one of his specialities and was normally downed with shared ‘quarters’ at the end of each semester exams and also on the day of the results (One to revel in joy and the other to drown the sorrow). The morning after and all other days it was just coffee. He was very hospitable or patient I should say with folks like me who probably spent hours with friends occupying his table and all that we ordered was a cup of coffee each.

Though swanky outlets which are ‘cosier’ have sprung up in recent years, having a cup of coffee at the Cozee is a ritual I tend to follow each time I visit India.

Daljeeti even featured in one of Chennai Trivia questions that go thus.….

Daljeeti Singh, also known as Badshah Singh for his role in a Rajni movie, opened which restaurant in 1985?

Cozee


May his soul rest in peace…

A Tragic Day for the World of Comedy.

Nagesh is no more.
A person of moderate looks and all of skin and bones, but the fact was most of those bones were funny. A legend initially in the line of Jerry Lewis but later went on to leave an indelible mark of his own style.
He was as quick footed as he was quick witted. He was a delight to watch when he shook a limb or more... his jives, twists, taps and simple stretches thanks to his bony structure were some display of gracefull dancing sans the pelvic thrusts that you see these days. His dancing skills would definitely outclass his imposters (including his son) of the break dance crazy generation of 80’s and 90’s.
As for his acting skills I am yet to see a better scene to match his histrionics in 'Kadhalika Neramillai' as an ambitious wannabe movie maker who narrates a horror story line to his dad Ballayya to wheedle him to finance his project.
I managed to post the link to this immortal clip in memory of this legendary comedian.

From Chinna Chinna Aasai to Periya Periya Dreams…

That has been the journey of this music maestro from Chennai. He shot into fame with Roja and went on to become the first Indian music director to win the Golden Globe award for his score in the Slum Dog Millionaire. His rise to fame can be associated with India’s liberalisation era of early 90’s, the Internet, Napster etc. It was also a time when the Indian film Industry saw some serious marketing with the likes of glitzy music launches and the role of Music Directors came into prominence. He has to his credit some of the catchy numbers, catchy but ephemeral, very few lingers eternally.

This was not the case long back; songs on its own had to find its way into the ear drums of the listeners and then settle down in the dark recesses of the mind for ever, to be recalled when needed, years or even decades later. Let me give you an example. The song ‘Annakili Unna thedinen’ was a song in the Tamil movie Annakili which announced the birth of a legend, the Young Prince of Music, Illayaraja. He had and still has a cult like following and yours truly is a member too. Coming back to Annakili, a movie released when I was 4 and the song heard for the first time when I was probably 6, but even three decades later listening to it, is bliss. This is what I call everlasting music.

My intention was not to compare the two, since both are iconic names in Indian music, though one will be remembered by a generation of music lovers while the other will be remembered by more than one generation.

Congratulations Rehman!!!