by Menon, Sudha
A few years ago, when I first wanted to start my 24-hour food channel, it caused quite a stir because it was something unheard of in India. My friends and colleagues in the industry, heads of other television channels laughed at me saying an ordinary chef had never managed to pull off such an audacious dream anywhere in the world. I would never be able to generate the humungous amount of money that would be required to fund such a project, they warned me. I refused to let the cynicism dampen my spirits and when the large industry heavyweights refused to buy into my idea, I got down to work silently, applying for a license, learning everything that I could about satellite television, the business model, and other technicalities. In the end, I started my own 24-hour food channel, FoodFood, and even if it was delayed—dreams often take time to become reality—I proved that a chef can, in fact, own his own television channel.
Belief has nothing to do with money. With money you may get the arrogance, but it won’t make your belief come true. Belief is a state of mind that tells you that you can do it.
My number one rule for my life has been to think differently and go after something that I want, with the belief that I can do it.
If you are willing to take risks, things will work out. Of course, you have to have your basics right and know your subject completely. Most people are bright, intelligent, hard working, but that is not enough. You need to be smart enough to enable yourself to visualize things for a longer term, be different, and then let destiny work its magic.
Prove your expertize and chase your goal till the very end. Starting with no money in my pocket but a bagful of dreams, I now have my own channel. In three years’ time, I will spend close to Rs 200 crores on it. The wonderful thing is that not all of this money is my own. The very people who did not believe in me initially are today willing to bet their money on my idea!
Years ago, before I even launched my first book, I launched my recipes on a CD at a time when our computers did not even have CD-ROM drives. My website sanjeevkapoor. com was up and running when large media houses did not have their own websites. My motto even today is to dream big and only then will the dream turn into a reality.
I see so many young, talented people not reach the heights that they could have because they are scared of taking a different path and choose to stick with the old, the tried, and the tested.
When I finished graduation and had to make a career choice, I decided to do a degree in architecture. I was a young, overconfident boy then and only applied for a seat at a nearby college, believing that they would definitely give me a seat. To my horror, I did not cut it in the first attempt and my name was put on the college’s waiting list. A close friend then introduced me to the idea of a hotel management degree and even though I had no interest in it—in my head, a chef was a mere cook then and not the glamorous being he is looked as today—I decided to appear for an interview for a lark. To my surprise, I cleared the interview and days later, I got a call from the architecture college as well saying a seat was now available for me there! It was a friend’s father who finally helped me decide on following the hotel management degree. ‘It is better to excel in a mediocre field than be mediocre in an excellent field,’ he told me.
At the end of my three-year course when it was time for placements for the management training programme at the government-run ITDC hotel, the selection panel suggested that I follow a career in kitchen management instead of absorbing me for a hotel management placement. I was furious and accused them of discriminating against me because I came without ‘connections’. The senior most member of the selection panel managed to convince me that I would have a place in hotel management if I so wanted. He told me that I was very good with the kitchen and food side of the business and told me to go home and think about it before I made my choice. By the time I went back to him the next day, my mind was clear and I had decided to take his suggestion and adopt the kitchen and food space as my career. Looking back, I like to think that I made the right decision. I truly believe that if you have the guts to stand out in a crowd, the chances of your standing out in life are much higher.
Kriti, you have your mind set on being a professional runner and have been following that passion for years now. Sometimes I am worried about you because this is a career that will be fraught with hurdles, one in which the chances of success are way limited than other spheres, simply because of the way sports is perceived in our country. But having followed my own dreams without heeding popular opinion and without always looking at the practical side of things, I want you to pursue your dream till the very end. Become the best runner that this country has produced.
Years ago, when I quit my job as Executive Chef at the Centaur hotel in Mumbai, your mother and I had no house of our own and had less than a lakh between us. But I quit because I was convinced I was meant for better things in life. I was working for nearly eighteen hours a day and was getting nowhere fast. I was looking at master chefs who had taken twenty years of slogging to get to that post and I was determined to not go down that route. Luckily, my tryst with television took off around that time and that too because I managed to convince the bosses at Zee TV that their food show would have much more potential if they called it ‘Khana Khazana’ instead of ‘Sreeman Baawarchi.’ I used my management education and my marketing skills to convince them and by the end of it, they were so sold on my idea and my ease with television as a medium, that I became the face of the by-now longest-running food program on television in India. What worked for me is the fact that I was a good teacher and I decided to use the show to teach viewers what they wanted to know instead of simply having me show off my skills. If they failed in their kitchen with my recipes, I would fail too and so I began with simple recipes such as the humble lassi that would make them succeed. That simple formula clicked and made me a household name in Indian homes and ever since then, my strategy has been to never set up my team for failure by giving them responsibilities that they are not equipped to handle.
My dear Rachita, my father taught me the value of knowledge. He was a banker and he spent the better part of his day at work but he continuously surprised us with the span of his knowledge on everything. He was on the lending side of the business and would say that if he did not know everything about the borrower’s business, his bank would run the risk of losing its money. When you study something, make that a journey of learning. If you are not learning while studying, it is simply a waste of time.
Another thing that he used to say was that good things happen only to people who believe good things can happen to them. I have trained myself to notice only the good things in life, the positives in people. I try and surround myself with positive people and learn from them continuously. My parents also taught us to maintain equilibrium in our lives. ‘Don’t revel too much in your joy or drown yourself too much in your sorrow. Strike a balance,’ they would say.
Remember how you used to be scared and worried about your math exams? I told you it was perfectly okay even you scored a zero in the test and that one thing liberated you from your fear forever. There is a learning there for all of us. Fear of failure keeps people from trying to do anything that is out of their comfort zone.
Remember always that the values your parents instill in you are always something you should follow. Parents are the only people in your life who have no ulterior agenda other than your well-being on their minds.
The other things that have also made a difference in my life include the ability to challenge myself continuously, think ahead, and plan for the long-term. ‘Always keep the big picture in mind when you plan your life’, my father would say. To add to that, I want to tell you that it is also necessary to do many things right consistently and take an informed, long-term view of things. You may take a path that you have not taken before but there have been lots of visionaries before you, who have spent their lifetimes making that road for you. In comparison your contribution is nothing, so keep that in mind as you move forward.
I
want you to know that as both of you grow up to become young, independent women with your own individual dreams and aspirations, restless to follow your own path, all I wish for you is happiness. But the definition of that happiness should be yours alone.
Relationships are extremely important for a happy life, children, so remember to build and nurture them and to have trust and faith in them. Skepticism and cynicism are the death knell of relationships.
Sometimes, I feel like telling you things about life so that I can save you the pain that comes from making mistakes. But I don’t think preaching helps. Live your life like you would peel an onion, each layer at a time, enjoying and savouring each moment, so that life becomes your biggest teacher. There is great merit in learning things on your own instead of having your parents tell you stuff because, if everything is revealed in advance, it is like watching a movie beginning with the end!
Sometimes people ask me what is the meaning of success. To me, success is equal to happiness. Success does not drive me, happiness does.
The birth of my daughters was my biggest happiness for a long time. Till my father passed away, I did not know what my greatest sorrow was. Today, when I get the time to call my mom twice a day and chat with her, that gives me immense happiness, contributing to other people’s happiness by helping them get a job, teaching them a skill or just giving them my time gives me happiness. Sometimes at home on a Sunday, I find happiness by just polishing my furniture so that it shines.
Be flexible with your thoughts and attitude and be sensitive to the people around you. In relationships and business, be fair. You can’t build businesses treading on other people’s lives. When I started my first restaurant in Dubai thirteen years ago, I had a relationship with the family of my then franchisee. Just three years after the restaurant opened, he passed away unexpectedly. But the family needed the money and so, despite the fact that the restaurant was being run by someone else, I still continue to give them a percentage of my royalty from that restaurant.
There are other things too which I hope you can avoid doing. I don’t suffer fools and expect perfection from myself and others around me. But I have started changing that now because that is too high a standard for most people. I want to tell you that it’s okay to make mistakes so long as you accept your mistake and make amends.
Respect the people around you. Respect as a value is something that has to be cherished. Respect your resources too. Wealth is not a value; spending with prudence is, and I am happy to see both of you have picked up our attitude about wealth.
I remember how upset you were a couple of years ago when I came to school in my new BMW to pick you up. You were aware that not all the students in school had the privileges that you did and you did not want to be insensitive to their feelings. It made me proud when you expressed that thought to me.
In the end, I want the both of you to remember that if anytime you want to come to me for a solution or want your mother or me to just listen to you, we are always there, no matter how busy we are. We love you.
Papa
Shaheen Mistri
haheen Mistri’s life changed in a few seconds one summer 23 years ago when the 18-year-old American resident was waiting at a traffic signal in a car that would take her to her grandparents’ plush home in South Mumbai. It was then that a group of street urchins surrounded the car, pressing their noses into the windows, begging, demanding some money so they could quell the hunger pangs that drove them crazy. The privileged daughter of a senior banker never could forget the image of those grubby children, their eyes full of hope but doomed to a life of begging, because they did not have the gift of education.
The young woman never went back to the US where she was studying but made the slums of Mumbai her home, working relentlessly to bridge the inequities in Indian society by educating its children. Her hard work paid off when Akanksha, the first organization that she set up for underprivileged children, caught the imagination and had young volunteers lining up to help her out. Akanksha touches the lives of over 4000 children through 40 centers and 13 schools in Mumbai and Pune, which delivers not just quality education but life skills that boost their self-esteem and empower them with income generating abilities.
Seventeen years after she started Akanksha, Shaheen took another leap of faith when she started Teach For India, an audacious venture that ropes in outstanding young graduates and professionals to dedicate two years of their life to teach in low-income schools for two years. The Fellowship enables them to become lifelong leaders advocating for educational equity.
Shaheen’s daughters have grown up living their mother’s dream, accompanying her mother as she visits the poorest communities in Indian cities, playing with the children of those communities and developing sensitivity to the inequities that are the scourge of Indian society.
Here she writes a simple poem to her children that underlines the strength of her own belief and her bonding with them.
Dear Samara and Sana,
If I could give you anything
I’d show you the times when I was really myself
When I did what I believed in
When I followed my heart
When I tried to live my potential.
And most important,
I’d show you some of what I wonder for you.
I wonder how to
Show you fun
That fun is fun
For everyone
To always take
The time to see
The bubble floating
Color-free
I wonder how to
Show you fair
That all things need
The greatest care
To push you hard
And gently too
To strive for greatness
In what you do
I wonder how to
Teach you right
And keep you safe
And hold you tight
And set you free
But not so free
And let you be
What you can be
Love you,
Mama
Zia Mody
arrived for my 6.30 pm meeting with Zia Mody, possibly India’s best-known corporate dealmaker and legal eagle, expecting that she was going to be at the end of her working day and relaxed for a long chat with me. I was mistaken.
I was ushered into the conference room of her 23rd floor office in one of Mumbai’s high-rise buildings, just a stone’s throw away from the famed Queen’s Necklace, and was treated to coffee and biscuits before she bustled in, a smiling bundle of energy that seemed difficult to contain in the room. She looked like everybody’s friendly neighborhood aunt, the one you slink off to for some tender loving care when your mother has put you in the dog house for some nameless misdemeanor. But those who have mistaken her for that have discovered in the past that it was a completely wrong and very expensive error.
When Zia, a student of Cambridge and Harvard Law School, decided to start her own litigation practice, she ran into a glass wall straight away with many a client rolling their eyes in disbelief that a woman would handle their case. She had two burdens to bear—that of being a woman in a completely male-dominated space and that of being the daughter of India’s former attorney general and brilliant legal mind, Soli Sorabjee. Zia was vexed and she turned to her mother for advice. She got sound advice from the mother who told her to ignore the whispers and get down to the business of proving that she could become a career attorney who could beat not just her father but any man in the same business.
In the following decades, Zia’s firm AZB & Partners has become one of the most sought after in the legal space, known for sorting out the most complex corporate disputes and closing several expensive and prestigious acquisitions for some of the country’s top corporate houses, including Tata Steel’s high profile acquisition of UK steel-maker Corus, in a jaw-dropping $12 billion deal. The firm followed this up with advising the Aditya Birla group d
uring its $6 billion plus acquisition of Atlantis-based aluminum maker Novelis and later, Tata’s takeover of Jaguar Land Rover.
My meeting with Zia was interrupted several times when she had to retreat into her office to attend conference calls. She told me later that she preferred coming into office after sunset in order to be able to work more efficiently in the still of the night, without distractions, before heading back home after sometimes having put in over fifteen hours at work!
When she is not working at the frantic pace that she goes by, Zia is a practicing member of the Baha’i faith and doting mother to three daughters with whom she does not get to spend the time that her mother spent in raising her. Her mother, she recalled fondly, spent her days teaching her not just sewing, embroidery, dancing, and music but also taught her about the importance of the woman being a unifying element in her family and in the community. Zia did try to ape her mother and teach her children some of the skills that she has but eventually gave up when her own career gathered steam. Which is why, she cherishes the couple of family vacations that she takes every year with her childhood crush and now husband Jaydev and their three daughters.
