A brother’s tribute

Adi is my elder brother,
For good advice, there was no other.
He always took the greatest care
And in all things was very fair.
At school he was extremely smart,
Excelled in all, except for art.
For fame he never seemed to hanker,
In SSC he was first ranker.
Then Xavier’s College up to Inter.
Then he had to contend with winter
As his next step was MIT,
Where, when just twenty-one, you see,
He was both Bachelor and Master.
And few have ever done it faster!
Once back home he started work.
No matter what, he’d never shirk,
Just two crore was then the size.
Adi set out to modernize —
MBA’s were soon recruited
And cars for managers were mooted.
The marketing was revamped,
And those who couldn’t change decamped.
He introduced cost accounting
And soon the sales started mounting.
But hair dye was his greatest coup
And over the years, it grew and grew.
The nineties then brought quite a change
The landscape now seemed very strange —
With multinationals at the door
We hardly knew what was in store.
Pepsi and Coke bought all in sight.
Should we sell or should we fight?
We chose a path that’s in between.
In hindsight now it can be seen
That Indian firms that learnt to hone
Their skills, easily held their own.
But then we thought that we should seek
Strong partners or we would stay weak.
And so we formed the odd joint-venture,
Which proved to be quite an adventure,
We learnt a lot and that’s for sure.
It helps us still to endure.
But when we got our business back
We were rather off the track.
But he was ready for the fight.
And very soon he set things right.
Though Godrej Soaps began to soar
On market price we couldn’t score.
Then our advisors thought it fit
That Godrej Soaps should be split.
GCPL came in to being.
And Adi, very quickly seeing,
The trend for better governance,
Put into place all at once,
With lots of help from CII,
Best practices that surely vie
With the very best in the world.
When our new stock was unfurled,
It very soon began to fly
And to this day it still stays high.
Is his success because of skill,
Or is it more his iron will?
For Adi was always organized
And punctuality was prized.
By dusk his desk is very neat,
His paperwork is all complete.
Not agonizing is the trick,
Decisions must be very quick.
Although it now seems like a steal
When Kotak offered him the deal,
At no low price, but eighty crore,
He had a week, no less no more.
There was no time for diligence.
With courage and intelligence
He very quickly clinched the deal,
Relying on his good gut feel.
Not that he threw away all caution.
He took the brilliant precaution
Of ensuring he bought good wares
By selling a small chunk of shares
To Kotak and the firm’s MD
Ah! What a clever strategy!
And with this move so swift and bold
The company came in our fold.
And over time this company
Well known as Godrej-Sara Lee
Became a star within the group.
For Adi this was such a scoop.
And by and by when Sara-Lee
Decided it would like to be
An exclusively food company
We bought the shares of Sara Lee.
We called it first GHPL,
Soon merged it with GCPL.
Since we had made a beeline
To very quickly buying Keyline
We got to know of other firms,
Whose selling owners liked our terms.
So Rapidol came in our fold
And that success made us quite bold.
All over Africa we spread
With Darling we now forge ahead.
And very soon our eyes went starry
And so we bought Megasari!
And LatAm also came our way
With Argencos and Issue.
The developing world’s our playing ground
A strategy we find quite sound.
And Adi never seems to tire
With frequent visits to the empire!
Adi can’t stand the status quo
All novel things he wants to know.
And if he thinks that it is right
He puts in all his will and might
Behind the new initiative
And with support that he can give
We quickly learn the latest ways,
Make sure the group sees better days.
But while he strives for the group
The industry is in the loop.
He’s always ready to lend a hand,
Be president or take a stand
With government on policy
And he’ll persist till industry
Gets exactly what it needs.
Last year he headed CII
And made sure that it would fly quite high.
And anybody that you ask
Will state this is no easy task.
Requiring traveling incessantly
And persuasive advocacy
How he survived I’ll never know
In fact he had a cheery glow.
And I am sure that we’ll soon see
A well thought out GST,
A cause pursued relentlessly
Almost monomaniacally.
And for this selfless contribution
He deserves his Padma Bhushan!
All who see him are inspired.
For all he does, he’s never tired
Where does he get the energy?
It’s really not a mystery,
Adi of course, is very fit.
He doesn’t seem to want to sit.
There’s not a sport he hasn’t tried
For he can even paraglide.
He really loves to water-ski,
Not on a lake but on the sea.
And on a trip to Mt Kailash,
Although conditions were quite harsh,
The mount was circled in a day.
Most folks his age would say, "No way.”
And none of us can fail to see
That he is full of energy.
He has set a rapid pace
As he leads us in the race.
Though all of us most surely know
That we have many miles to go
But still we’re sure it can be done.
Indeed this race must be won.
And if we stay on the proper way
And never let our values sway,
If all of us fulfil our roles
Our Group will surely reach its goals.
A billion Indians, we can say,
Will use our product every day
And every where it will be seen
That the Group is good and green.
Now hearing praise can be quite tough,
I’m sure by now he’s had enough.
But all the same why don’t we stand
And then give him a rousing hand?