Legacy: Letters from eminent parents to their daughters (24 page)

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 23
^rd
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 during its $6 billion plus acquisition of Atlantis-based aluminum maker Novelis and later, Tata’s takeover of Jaguar Land Rover.