Often, in living our everyday lives, we get carried away so much that we stop noticing our weaknesses. I never went to school and so, I cannot write, don’t know my spellings, and it bothers me constantly. Your weakness is the penchant to get much too involved in your work. Learn to delegate. As you grow, it is impossible to keep control of everything yourself. Learn to detach yourself and to stop micromanaging. The body and the soul gets burnt up from too much activity, so learn to rejuvenate by doing something that you like.
Wake up early every day, go for a walk. I have done that every day of my life and I can tell you that there is great merit in working all day and sleeping early. When you wake up early, you experience a freshness of spirit. I believe that when you walk alone in the morning, nature acts as your companion, walking and communicating with you. It is the time of the day that brings fresh ideas, energy, and the courage to follow up on doing the things that you need to do. In the end, I simply want to tell you that I am immensely proud of you.
God bless you,
Papa
Renuka Ramnath
t 33, Renuka Ramnath was sitting pretty with a successful career in a reputed bank, an adoring husband, two lovely children, and a picture-perfect life till fate dealt her a cruel card one day that brought her life crashing around her like a pack of cards.
In a minute, a callous truck driver coming down the wrong side of a hairpin bend on a narrow mountain road had crashed his massive vehicle into the car that carried Renuka’s happy family on their way back from a precious holiday, snatching away her beloved husband. Suddenly, the man whom she had depended on for everything was no longer around her to lean on, taken away by a cruel twist of destiny.
‘Sitting on the embankment, a few feet away from the mangled car in which my husband lay dead, the message came to me from somewhere above that I had to find a way to get over this setback and be back on my feet. Cutting through the noise of my three-year old daughter’s frightened wailing, a message came to me that it was now my job to step in and give my children everything that their father would have given them. I would never be able to bring him back but I would do everything humanly possible to make sure that they lacked for nothing else in life.’
Sitting in the cozy comfort of her sprawling farmhouse high up in the smoky blue Western ghats, as the incessant rain beat on the French windows, Renuka Ramnath poured her heart out, talking about the ups and downs of her life, the things that shaped and made her the woman she is today, the people who held her hands along the way and helped her remain committed to her calling despite a setback that would have paralyzed many ordinary human beings.
There were no commas or full stops in our conversation, and no subject that she shied away from. That is how she lives her life too: no holds barred and no brakes to stop her from getting to her destination. Renuka Ramnath is a woman of extraordinary grit and determination. If you were to box her into a compartment—something she is intensely averse to doing since she does not believe in compartmentalization—she would be in the box on which immensely successful women are labelled ‘power woman’. Only a couple of years ago, after spending 23 years at India’s second largest private bank as the head of its private equity firm, ICICI Ventures, Renuka quit and decided to chart a different journey, on her own terms. Within months, she was back in business, heading the affairs at MULTIPLES, an equity fund that currently manages $450 million of investors’ money put largely on her reputation in the business.
But cut through all the adjectives that describe her name, and the woman who you find underneath is a simple, caring, unbelievably positive woman with a joie de vivre that is rare to find in a world that is increasingly like being on a treadmill to nowhere. Meeting her convinced me in many ways that the human mind and its indefatigable spirit can indeed conquer everything that life delivers at our doorstep.
When I landed up at her home that morning, my teeth were chattering from the chill of the morning air. I was welcomed in by her aged parents with warmth and care. Her father was busy with his morning prayers while her mother was bustling around in the kitchen, preparing a meal for us. When I finished the interview, I was led into the open kitchen that looked over mountain peaks hidden under dense monsoon clouds, a lazy river snaking its way in the distance, and it all seemed somehow surreal that I should be sitting there eating a simple South Indian meal prepared with love and care by a woman well into her seventies, assisted by her daughter who is a frequent inhabitant of the list of the country’s most powerful women.
When you meet them, it is not difficult to imagine where she got her caring nature and her endearing simplicity from. At her current position in life, Renuka can afford a lot of things that money can
