SUDHA MENON
Published by Random House India in 2013
Copyright © Sudha Menon 2013
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EPUB ISBN 9788184003949
To my parents,
my conscience keepers,
without whom my world would have been
a different place.
I love you, forever
CONTENTS
Foreword
Ajay Piramal
Amit Chandra
Capt. Gopinath
Chanda Kochhar
Deep Anand
Ganesh Natarajan
Jatin Das
Kishore Biyani
K.V. Kamath
Mallika Sarabhai
Narayana Murthy
Pradeep Bhargava
Prakash Padukone
P.P. Chhabria
Renuka Ramnath
Sanjeev Kapoor
Shaheen Mistri
Zia Mody
Acknowledgements
FOREWORD
udha’s book, a collection of letters from inspirational men and women, is a reiteration of my belief that our parents can be our best teachers—mine certainly have been for me and my two brothers. It is from our parents that we internalize the values that shape our lives.
N.R. Narayana Murthy’s letter to his daughter Akshata is a delight to read—he comes across as a doting father who is keen that his daughter benefits from the wealth of his own experience. I love the way he tells her to talk to her own daughters about their ancestors and their great accomplishments. It is heart-warming to read his thoughts about the struggles of women at work and how he is inspired by them.
Only a truly global leader like Narayana Murthy can tell his daughter to become a citizen of the world in every sense while simultaneously asking her to be a proud Indian, wherever in the world she lives.
Looking back at my own life after all these years, I can say without hesitation that I was lucky to have been born to my parents, the two extraordinary individuals who shaped my life and made me what I am today. I owe them everything that I have achieved.
Although my father is no more, he remains my strongest source of inspiration. Through my letter to my parents, I hope to convey what they mean to me.
Dearest Daddy and Mummy,
When you told me to consider brewing as a profession decades ago, it was rare for a girl to go out and even get a job for herself. All she was expected to do was complete her education and wait for a suitable man to come along so that she could get married and settle down.
Daddy, you were not the one to tread the beaten path—nor would you let your children do so. You made sure that your only daughter was no different from your two sons. After graduating in Zoology, I was wondering what I could do with my life when you completely stumped me one day by asking me to consider brewing as a profession. Being in the brewery business, you knew it had great potential in India and that I could apply my college education to my career.
Being your daughter, I soon found myself in Australia, studying to be a brewmaster—a profession that, even in a developed country like Australia, was a man’s world. It was challenging but also fun being the lone girl in a room full of men who possibly thought I was out of my mind to be in that class! That was the turning point of my life, in many ways. On my return to India, I went from brewery to brewery in pursuit of employment but soon realized that the brewing world in India was not ready for a lady brewer. This was the first time I faced failure but strangely, it made me even more determined to succeed, I might never have become an entrepreneur. Biocon would never have been born but for the fact that I refused to let somebody else’s prejudices dictate my life.
It was your faith in me, Daddy, that I would do something worthwhile with my education that laid the foundation of my own belief in myself. You were the one who showed me that gender has nothing to do with one’s dreams. You often said to me: ‘If you are intelligent and willing to work hard, you can make anything out of your life.’It was these seeds of wisdom that led me to apply my knowledge of fermentation to develop and pioneer a biotechnology-led enzymes business in India.
You also said that knowledge knows no gender divide. I know it is true today. It is completely possible to bridge the gender divide by being strong-willed, which is what I was as a young woman starting out on a singularly lonely journey into entrepreneurship. I continue to be strong-willed, heading an enterprise whose nucleus is the power of imagination and innovation—which is how I was able to transform my enzymes business into a fully-integrated biopharmaceuticals enterprise that it is today. Fermentation Science, a programme that I started with when I was studying to be a brewer, still remains at the core of our business expertize today.
I am self-assured and strong-willed thanks to the support from you and Mummy—and because you taught me to believe in myself. Had you not treated me as equal to my brothers, I may have suffered an inferiority complex being a woman and even diffident. This is what still happens in many Indian households where young women often grow up feeling they are not good enough—and it is a real pity that they were not blessed with enlightened parents like you.
The most fundamental truth that I learnt from you, Daddy, was this: you have to earn your
