Reminiscing on the roof

The launch of Vijitatma, a monograph on the life of pioneer-founder Ardeshir Godrej, celebrated "another sensitivity, another age, another time when feelings for the country and (moral) values were placed by individuals before themselves and their (personal) sense of comfort,” as noted compere Vijay Crishna, director of Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Company Limited. The distinguished audience participating in the celebration on the Godrej Bhuvan roof garden on January 10, 2004 learnt that author Burjor Karanjia’s latest addition to the Godrej saga — the fifth in the series — was based on new material discovered in the family archives.

Welcoming the gathering and complimenting Karanjia’s painstaking research, Adi Godrej, the third generation head of the House of Godrej, noted that Ardeshir had aborted his legal career on a matter of principle. His "economic philosophy was based on self-reliance for the country and his political philosophy was swaraj.” Eldest in the family, Ardeshir was the fountainhead of the inventions that his youngest brother, Pirojsha — grandfather of the generation controlling the group today — consolidated into "branded consumer products” synonymous with the family.

"My uncle Sohrab, before he passed away, constantly talked about Ardeshir’s influence on him. As a family, as a company, we owe an enormous amount to our founder,” acknowledged Godrej and Boyce managing director Jamshyd Godrej as he released the book, adding that 100 years later Ardeshir’s design of the Godrej safe remains the bedrock of current production. "Our reputation was built by Ardeshir... We, as a family, have learnt from his example,” noted Jamshyd, describing his grand uncle as the "original globalizer” who had "to forge his way” through trade and non trade barriers imposed by the colonial master, "struggle to get banks to buy his safes... He fought for acceptance in his own country. The same situation continues today... Recently we’ve been struggling (to market) high-tech products. We have not been able to sell here but have got an order from the US!” Jamshyd was legitimately proud of India’s exemplary success in space launches where his father, the late Naoroji Godrej, an untrained but innate genius at engineering, had had a substantial role to play in the initial years. "From law to lock making to launchers has indeed been a journey!” he noted.

Clockwise from top left: Adi, Jamshyd, Crishna, Kumana, Abraham, Karanjia and Nadir

"It is a strange paradox of human nature that we happily mouth sayings like ‘Facts are stranger than fiction,’ yet when confronted in real life with such strange facts, we refuse to accept them as such and relegate them to the realm of fiction. In other words, we refuse to accept as truth anything that does not fit in with our set, accepted notions of what is true or false, what is possible or impossible... In the case of an unusual man like Ardeshir Godrej, who did the most unusual things, sometimes making even the impossible possible, I faced the very real problem of credibility,” confessed Karanjia. Calling Ardeshir "a riddle of a man,” describing his "quietly tumultuous life,” Karanjia wondered, "Who would not be puzzled that a young man with a promising career in law would give up the profession because of his refusal to twist the truth ever so slightly? How many of our lawyers, today’s jesting Pilates, would follow such an example?... That a young man who lost his wife in singularly tragic circumstances within less than a year of their marriage would refuse to marry again in order to preserve her precious memory?... That a successful industrialist would, at the height of his career, switch from industrialist to farmer?... Or, that he whose many inventions made it possible for his successors to create enormous wealth for the nation would himself die indebted?... Or, that in the evening of his life he would shed worldly concerns to take to the spiritual path in the footsteps of Sri Aurobindo?”

Trying to understand Ardeshir, the man, Karanjia had sought inspiration from the Bhagwad Gita and found that "the distinguishing characteristics of greatness are a rigid self-discipline and a quite extraordinary self-control... Vijitatma (is) a man who has conquered himself.”

Thomas Abraham, CEO of Penguin Books India (Private) Limited who have published all the Godrej series, found it "very very chilling” to learn that Karanjia, who has also written six other books, considers this biography of Ardeshir his final offering as an author. Happy to "portray the achievements of a towering family,” Abraham observed that the Godrej saga showed "how a standing business has adapted to changing times.”

Selected passages from the book, read out by Karanjia’s daughter Delshad Kumana, wafted through the rooftop trees — an ambience very different from that of the early Godrej establishment described by Karanjia. The audience tittered in happy appreciation as Godrej Soaps’ CEO Nadir Godrej rhymed his witty vote of thanks, lightening the mood in favor of the cocktails and sumptuous dinner which followed.