The journey from being an electrical switches and ceiling roses salesman to a businessman trading electrical cables and wires led him to become a defense and government supplier. At each stage, the confidence that he got led him to eventually set up his own cable manufacturing business, Finolex Cables, in 1958. The Finolex group of companies today boasts of multiple companies and eleven modern manufacturing facilities across the country. It has won several national and international awards and has been acknowledged as one of the country’s most quality conscious groups and wealth creators. It also has the distinct honour of being the number one manufacturer of cables in the country.
Such an arduous journey to the top of the charts has taught him about the value of being kind and cordial to people, because his own life was built brick by brick on the foundation of unexpected kindness of other people, some strangers, some even more poor than him.
Which is why, to this day, he makes it a point to make time for the humblest of his staff on the shop floor, stopping to listen to and sometimes take feedback from the watchman or the peon who have devoted decades of their lives in his service. It is a matter of great pride to him that the children of some of these loyal workers now hold positions in his group.
His one regret in life continues to be the fact that he never went to school after the age of 12. It was the fact that he was unlettered that relegated him to menial jobs for a large part of his life and while he painstakingly taught himself to speak and write in English, one of the requirements for his job as a door to door salesman, he continues to regret that he could not complete his formal education.
The Interntational Institute for Information Technology (IIIT), Pune, an educational institution that he set up in Pune, now run by his only daughter, Aruna, stands testimony to his belief in the redeeming power of education. IIIT has grown to be a widely respected institution of learning for cutting-edge developments in Information Technology and other high-tech areas.
My own memories of PP saab go back to the early nineties when I would run into him and his walking group at the thickly wooded, colonial era campus of the University of Pune. I was a struggling young mother trying to balance the competing demands of a toddler and a cherished career as a journalist. Early every morning I would head for a walk in the magnificent woods of the university campus. That was the one hour in the day that belonged to me, when I could regain my calm by breathing in the fresh morning air with the sounds of birds humming. Sometimes I would run into PP and would exchange pleasantries with him. On a few occasions we found ourselves heading towards the University at the same time so I would walk with him, often having to almost run to keep up with his fast pace and we would exchange notes about life and work.
At 82, PP continues to live and work with a discipline that few of us can match. He continues to remain true to his morning walks.
‘All my life, I have followed the practice of waking early, working all day and sleeping early. To wake early is to experience a freshness of the spirit. When you walk alone in the fresh morning air, nature walks with you and speaks to you, bringing ideas, energy, and the courage to make quick decisions. My association with the sky continues to fuel me with the power to envision and strive.’
(Taken from his autobiography,
There’s No Such Thing as a Self-made Man.)
Here, he writes a touching, surprisingly candid, and infinitely wise letter to his daughter Aruna Katara, herself a mother of two today. Aruna steers the growth of IIIT, her once-upon-a-time-unlettered father’s ode to the benefits of formal education.
Dear Aruna,
I know this is letter that has been long in writing, a letter that I should have actually sent you years ago when you were a young girl growing up with dreams, hopes, and aspirations. You are a mature woman now but I want you to know that this has been a letter I have been writing to you in my mind for many, many years. And, like they say, it is never too late for anything. I know the best years of your life are yet to come and I can see from the way you lead your life now that your dreams are about to take flight.
Aruna, I don’t know if I have told you this before but through this letter, I want to tell you how precious a gift you were to your mother and me from the day you were born. You were a kind, gentle, studious little child who quietly bore being left alone to grow on her own when your mother and I focused on your sister as she struggled with a fatal illness. Not once in all those years that we paid little heed to you and your brother, did you complain or rebel against our continued absence from your life. Your sister passed away and when we recovered from our grief, you had already become a self-sustained person who had learnt to live life on her own.
Dear child, looking back today, I confess I never realized when and how you grew up. Back then, I was still a
