by Dhiraj Singh
Maru Kapoor lived up to his name. He was a tall, good-looking man with a thick moustache. There was a small scar on his forehead, which was a reminder of an unpleasant fight between Lina and him. Maru would often flaunt his scar to his business partners and claim that it was from a fight with a college friend who did not return his money on time. As a result, most of Maru’s business partners paid him on time.
Lina and Maru belonged to a happy Punjabi family, which, through all its ups and downs, never compromised on two things in life: how they looked and how they cooked. The food on the dining table was the centre of all discussions, business or personal. The richer the food, the longer and deeper the discussions. There was laughter, emotion, drama and sometimes action too at the dining table every day. The dining table was the platform on which the Kapoor soap operas were written and rewritten every day. But even with all the calorie intake, the Kapoors managed to look good. After eating, they worked hard for the rest of the day. Their happy disposition and good genes did the rest, along with expensive, stylish clothes and regular visits to the gym and spa.
The Kapoor in Maru urged him to combine his investment skills with his love for food. So no one was surprised when Maru decided to become a full-time investor and partner in the QSR (quick service restaurants) industry. QSR was a terminology used by the business community to refer to the mushrooming chain of restaurants across all parts of the country.
The country was growing in population and opportunities. The women were no longer happy just taking care of the cooking at home. They were taking up jobs in the well-paying world of business and commerce and did not have the time or inclination to cook at home like their mothers and grandmothers. With more money and less time, QSRs were an attractive option for Indian families. And Maru was quick to spot this opportunity. His first few investments in this segment paid off handsomely, and his appetite (pun intended, as Maru often said) in the QSR industry grew significantly.
“Lina, you should now expand your restaurant and set up more branches. And then have franchisees in other cities. Let me put in all the investment, you just manage them,” Maru would often prod his sister.
“So that you can make more money? Maru, get a life! Do something meaningful. You are just a broker – bringing the money from investors to hard-working people like us who are doing ‘real’ business,” Lina would snap at her brother. It was true that Maru made most of his money from the investments of others. It was a trait he had learnt from his maternal grandfather. He was an investment manager. He believed there was more fun in making free money than earning more money from your own money.
“Without us, you ‘real’ business people would have no capital to grow your businesses,” said Maru.
“Whatever! Come on, let’s have some delightful mixed berry soup together with some artichoke and sausage pasta,” Lina said, to make peace with her younger brother. While Maru could say ‘no’ to a business offer, he could never say ‘no’ to a sumptuous meal.
9
Umar was an ardent fan of Ramaan Khanna. Rum-aaan is how he was called. Ramaan was a big superstar in Bollywood. He made a bigger name and more money for himself after he turned producer and then an entrepreneur with business interests in studios, multiplexes, theme parks, restaurants, branded clothes and special effects technology. Ramaan was the perfect example of ‘brand building’ and ‘vertical integration’ in management case studies.
Umar was simply enamoured by Ramaan’s style and charisma on the celluloid screen. Ramaan had invented many trademark styles of his own, more in the mould of superstars of the Seventies, aided by the technology of the new millennium. He often wore a dark coloured, circular glass, attached to a golden magnetic band, on each of his wrists. And before every fight with a villain, Ramaan would roll his wrists forcefully and the glass pieces and the golden magnetic bands from his wrists would magically fly in the air and unite to form a single pair of smart-looking goggles covering his eyes.
He would then go on to say his favourite dialogue in Hindi, which translated to something like this, “If you die from my sight, how will my hands fight?” Umar tried to find such goggles everywhere he went, but he could never find one. But he loved to practise Ramaan’s classic act with imaginary goggles in front of the mirror.
Umar also mouthed another famous dialogue of Ramaan, not in front of the mirror alone, but in his work life too. Whenever he was in a good mood, he said this dialogue at the start of every flight.
Like today. Umar was flying to Bangalore on a new Boeing aircraft. He was very excited. He was almost as excited as he was when he was offered the role of a co-pilot by a leading private airline. He was excited because he was going to watch the latest release of Ramaan at a multiplex owned by Ramaan himself. He also planned to wear a T-shirt from the Ramaan line of clothing and then go out for dinner with a friend to a restaurant, again owned by Ramaan.
“All on board. We shall be ready to fly in a few minutes now. Naam hai Ramaan, choona hai aasmaan,” said Umar. The passengers loved it every time Umar said this famous dialogue. Though the airline company was initially a bit reluctant to allow this, it soon accepted it as there was no harm intended in the dialogue.
The flight to Bangalore was smooth and on time. Umar quickly changed into his T-shirt at the airport itself and took a cab to the new multiplex on Bannerghatta Road in Bangalore. He was impressed by the neatness and fresh aroma of rose water inside the cab. The driver too was very courteous. He was wearing a neat yellow T-shirt over blue jeans. The T-shirt had the letter ‘R’ printed in red on the upper corner. Umar was curious to know more.
“Hi. What does the ‘R’ on your T-shirt stand for? Don’t tell me it stands for Ramaan!” Umar was half hoping that it would.
“No sir! It stands for the name of our company. Rajni Cab Services. Rajni is the name of our owner.”
“Rajni? You mean your owner’s name is Rajnikanth?”
“No sir! Our owner is a lady. A very fine lady. Her name is Rajni.”
“Oh I see! Well, please tell her she is doing a fine job with her business. I am impressed.”
“Sure sir. Thank you, sir.”
Umar’s friend joined him at the multiplex. They both went inside the theatre much before the movie was to start. The movie started with a song picturised on Ramaan and his heroine as they rode through a dense forest on horses. At the end of the song, Ramaan fell from his horse, with an ugly wound on his forehead. The heroine touched the forehead and the wound was immediately healed. The story then moved to a flashback about how Ramaan met the heroine in one of his dreams, which carried him to a faraway planet, where the heroine used a sci-fi machine from the future to convert Ramaan from being a part of a dream to her partner in reality. Ramaan’s company had done the special effects for the movie; they were used abundantly to create maximum effect.
At the end of the movie, Ramaan cried like a child as the time period for the ‘dream to reality’ experiment had come to an end. He was about to wake up as a normal human being on earth. Umar cried with Ramaan, much to the embarrassment of Umar’s friend. The hero did not want to wake up from his dreams, and Umar did not want to see his dream hero cry or get sad.
Umar and his friend walked to the nearby restaurant they had planned to eat in. Umar touched the scar on his face and said forlornly to his friend, “I wish I had such a heroine.”
“Looks like Ramaan Khanna has still not woken up. Come on, we are here now,” said Umar’s friend, as they entered the restaurant. They found two good, cosy seats in a corner of the restaurant. They both looked at the menu before the waiter arrived.
“What would you like to have, sir? Something to drink maybe?”
“I will have a mixed berry smoothie please,” Umar said without even looking at any other drinks on the menu.
“Excellent choice sir!”
10
Rajni was a feisty young lady with short hair and a shorter temper. She belonged to Mysore, and had come to Bangalore lookin
g for work about a year ago. After almost a year of frustration, going from one office to another, one hotel to another and one factory to another, she decided to start something of her own. She remembered her English teacher’s words at school, “Do something that you are good at and enjoy the most, and you will see success like you can never imagine.”
Rajni was good at only one thing. Driving. She had learnt driving from her maternal uncle, who owned a car and was happy to teach Rajni how to drive. Soon Rajni got a driver’s licence. Using her pocket money, she often filled the fuel tank in her uncle’s car and went on long drives in the beautiful surroundings of Mysore. She could drive fast and also carefully. As only a woman can. “Men get carried away by their testosterone while driving fast. Women know how to be in control always,” Rajni would tell her friends.
Rajni was tired of travelling in the crowded buses of Bangalore. She decided to combine her desire to start something new, her driving skills and her disdain for the Bangalore buses by starting a cab services company. Rajni Cab Services was an easy name to come up with. What was not so easy was finding the funds to buy the cabs, at least ten to start with. Her uncle came to her rescue again. He was happy to invest in her company. He put in just enough money to get her started and build a balance sheet to secure loans from the banks.
Rajni was a hard driver, both on the road as well as in business. She tolerated no nonsense from anyone – be it the avaricious traffic policeman, the lecherous passenger or the envious male drivers of other companies. She also did not tolerate lack of punctuality, improper dressing, unshaven faces and lack of courteousness towards clients. She was slow and patient in selecting her drivers, but quick and ruthless in firing them if they performed below her high standards. But she was happy to make the people who stayed on, after a couple of months, partners in her business. She shared the business profits with them transparently.
Rajni was a hands-on leader, literally. She personally drove at least a couple of passengers every day. This helped her be in touch with the ground reality of her business. It also motivated other drivers to put in their best efforts.
Today, Rajni was on an assignment for a travel agency. She had to receive a young American backpacker at the airport early in the morning and then show her around the town, before dropping her back at the airport in the evening.
Rajni was up early in the morning. She had had a very restless night with strange dreams. She dreamt that she was studying in a school in Nagpur, visiting the famous sweets shop in the city and then having an orange barfi. Rajni had never been to Nagpur and did not even know that something called orange barfi existed. In another dream, she saw a man and a woman, whom she had never met or seen, fighting and shouting at each other.
When Rajni woke up, she was a bit disturbed and puzzled by her dreams. But she quickly banished them from her mind. She had real dreams to follow. She put on her yellow T-shirt and blue jeans, quickly wiped the dust from her mid-sized car and then drove towards the new Bangalore airport. The American was a young, bubbly and cheerful lady, with just a rucksack on her back and a big smile on her face.
“Good morning, madam. I am Rajni,” Rajni greeted her American client.
“Namaste! And please call me Amy.”
Amy folded her hands and brought them together to show the traditional Indian greeting of respect.
“Thank you Amy. You look so Indian, so familiar…”
“Isn’t it? I was just about to say the same thing to you. I think I have met you somewhere too. You don’t drive on the mean streets of New York, do you?”
They both laughed as they drove towards the city.
“Are you in India just for a holiday, Amy?”
“Well, a bit of that. And a bit of a family affair.”
“Family affair?”
“Yes Rajni. Unfortunately, my twin brother, Lian, died in the plane crash at Patna. I wanted to see the land where he breathed his last. And this is indeed a fascinating land!”
“Oh, I am so sorry Amy. May he rest with abundant energy always, in the abode of the gods. He is the brain and we are just the bodies. The brain consumes less energy than the body…”
Rajni was surprised by her last sentence. She did not know what it meant. It just came out of her mouth. Amy assumed it was an Indian way of offering condolence and kept quiet. Rajni too decided to remain quiet for most part of the ride. She spoke intermittently about the monuments and tourist places she had planned to take Amy to.
After Vidhan Soudha and Cubbon Park, Rajni took Amy to the Bangalore Turf Club, which was famous for horse races. Rajni had taken special permission to show her the insides of the race course where the horses were prepared for the evening races. As Rajni and Amy walked around the course, they noticed a man attending to an injury of his horse in a large enclosure. The horse had apparently hurt itself in the hoof. The man was clearly worried by this. Amy was concerned too and went closer to the wooden fenced enclosure.
“Hi sir! Is there a problem? Is that your horse?” Amy asked politely.
“No, there is no problem. I am the biggest stud farm owner in Bangalore and I can manage such contingencies easily.”
The stud farm owner was speaking to Amy but was looking at Rajni.
“Do I know you?” he asked Rajni.
“I don’t think so, sir. But I also think I know a limp horse when I see one,” Rajni replied in a tone that was both sympathetic and sarcastic. The stud farm owner looked at Rajni again and thought for a while. He then just ignored both Amy and Rajni and got down to work.
After a long walk along the race course, Amy was feeling hungry.
“Let’s go for a traditional Bangalore lunch somewhere, Rajni? But somewhere quiet and amidst nature?” Amy requested her guide.
“Sure, there is a place like that quite close by. I will take you there.”
Rajni had not planned a lunch in her itinerary for Amy, but she was confident that Amy would enjoy her impromptu choice of place.
After a ten-minute drive, Rajni was at the entrance of a famous resort in Bangalore, which served authentic South Indian food. As the security guard at the gate came towards Rajni with a diary in his hand, Rajni felt a bit dizzy. Amy noticed that immediately.
“Everything fine Rajni?”
“Yes Amy, just a little unwell today, I guess. Maybe my stomach is not too well.”
“Are you sure you want to have lunch here then? Maybe we could have something very light and simple elsewhere.”
“No Amy. You have your meal here. I will wait.”
“No way! Now I don’t want to eat here too. I don’t like the feel of this place. Let’s move on and grab something from a Subway.”
“Okay Amy, I agree. This place looks very different now, somehow…”
Rajni reversed the car. Amy saw a big arched gate at the entrance with the name of the resort engraved in big bold letters on the arch. REDDY GROUP OF RESORTS.
PART II
DESTINED CHEMISTRY
11
Niraj Roy had started a new company. He was now providing customised and one-time security services to middle class individuals and societies. He also did pro bono work for the government. He was much happier now in the role of a true ‘protector’ of the common people than in his earlier role of being a ‘security showcase’ for the rich and famous. The common man showed gratitude towards Niraj and not attitude like the rich and famous. The common man paid on time, sometimes before time. They could sleep better knowing that they did not owe a single rupee to anybody. The rich and famous could not sleep properly if they paid their creditors and vendors on time. They would think of the interest lost by paying on time. Many of the rich were so lazy that they did not want to work for money, they wanted their money to work for them.
Niraj was sitting in the house of a young couple who had been harassed by their neighbours, relatives of a powerful politician in the city. The reason was simple. The couple parked their car in front of their house, but their neigh
bours wanted them to park the car inside the house so that they could have more parking space for their three cars. Niraj was called by the young couple after they got no help from the local police station. The neighbours had threatened to enter their house and beat them up if they did not remove the car from the front of their house.
Niraj asked the couple to park their car, as usual, in front of their house. And then they all waited patiently inside the house.
The neighbours, two men and a woman, came in after an hour.
“I told you to remove the car! Do you want to get thrashed?” one of the men barked.
Niraj got up from his seat and stood in front of the group.
“Sir, who would want to get thrashed by strong people like you?”
“I don’t know who you are. But do you know who I am?” the other man said menacingly.
“Sir, you must be a very successful businessman to own three cars. I am sure this young lady’s uncle in the Income Tax department would be keen to know where you got your cars from? Wouldn’t he?” Niraj turned towards the lady sitting timidly and winked at her.
“Yes, yes, of course…” The lady was quick to take the cue.
The neighbours looked at each other and then went into a huddle in a corner of the room. They whispered among themselves. Niraj could hear an argument between the two men. He knew what was going on. His reading of human psychology and experience of doing background check on the people he dealt with came to his aid. Niraj knew that the two men were brothers in blood and brothers in crime too. Both ran a joint business and never paid their taxes. The cars were not even in their names. Their driver, cook and maid were the three owners of the three cars. One of the brothers was already facing an investigation by the Income Tax department. He was trying to convince the other brother to just drop the matter and make peace immediately. His views prevailed.