Business
No reservations, we’re Parsis
Anu Aga, (pictured) former chairperson of Thermax Industries, parliamentarian and social worker, believes that it would be unfair for the Parsi community to seek reservations. Quoted in The Economic Times of April 3, 2016, the Poona based head of Teach for India says, "We have not faced generations of discrimination and are a prosperous community.” She stated that some people "would like some seats reserved at university level, but I am not for it.”
A nominated member of the Rajya Sabha since 2013, Aga said that "as much as we need economic development, we also need to preserve our culture of secularism, pluralism and diversity.” She believes that is India’s strength and that (Zoroastrians) are a great example of that. "Look at my community. We arrived here, more than 1,000 years ago, and flourished in this country because we were encouraged and not discriminated against.”
In an interview with yourstory.com dated March 27, 2016, the ex-chairperson of Thermax Limited, the Rs 5,000 crore engineering giant based in Poona, states that "I was and am very ordinary.” Narrating the story of her life, she states how important it is to "share your stories so people can follow your example.”
Revealing the anger and indignation that husband Rohinton felt when he suffered a heart attack at a relatively young age while in his 40s, she states "anger mobilizes. It took a toll on him, but he got back on his feet and even wrote a book during his recovery.” Around that time, Anu’s family insisted she take more interest in the workings of the company that her father A. S. Bhathena had started, and in which Rohinton succeeded Bhathena as chairperson. That was when she joined the human resource department of Thermax. "Keeping our employees happy was at the heart” of this key challenge to retain the brand image the company had built as an innovator, and "also capitalize on it and grow.”
Bleak times were ahead when, after a visit to the UK to help her daughter Meher through a delivery in 1996, on arrival she was greeted with the news that Rohinton had suffered another heart attack, this time fatal. The company executives met on the next day and looked to Anu for leadership. "I just wasn’t ready. I kept devaluing myself and thought that I was only being invited to take over because we as a family own this business. I really felt miserable, missing my husband, yet, having to assume his role,” she told yourstory.com.
Seeking for answers, she turned to Vipassana, the Buddhist method of meditative penance, in which one silently reflects for 10 days. This helped her, as she says it led to the realization that "all I was expected to do was my best, which may be different from my husband’s best.” About the passing away of son Kurush in a car crash, 14 months after Rohinton’s death, Anu says "pain is inevitable, but suffering comes out of not accepting why something happened to you.”
The start of Anu’s leadership at Thermax came at a delicate time in the fortunes of the firm. A year before Rohinton died, Thermax had gone public, and now their share price had fallen from Rs 400 to Rs 36. "I didn’t know hardcore business, and I was terrible at finance. Being at the helm of a capital goods company, I had to know both.” At that time, the Indian economy went for a downturn.
She surrounded herself with people who could guide her and "wasn’t afraid to show vulnerability, and seek help without qualms.” That helped tremendously, she acknowledges. Anu took some bold decisions that resuscitated the company, although her team was against her course of action. "I wanted to appoint the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to do some damage control, but our team insisted that we simply wait for the economy to stabilize,” she shares.
"Until then, I thought the ones most affected by this would be me and my family, as we were the owners. But I received an anonymous note from a shareholder, saying we had let him down. For my husband and I, letting someone down was a dirty word. I couldn’t sleep for days.” She decided to hire BCG anyway, and made some brave business choices for the company, like divesting non-core areas.
She stepped down from the chairmanship of Thermax in 2004, a position now held by daughter Meher Pudumjee. Anu devotes time to Akanksha, the NGO (nongovernmental organization) that works in the field of education, and to Teach for India, the fellowship program that recruits college graduates and working professionals to serve as full-time teachers in low-income schools for two years. As a Member of Parliament in the upper house, she serves on the committee for personnel, public grievances, law and justice, and has been, in the past, member of committees on child welfare and women’s empowerment.
The Padma Shri winner (2010) and once the eighth richest woman in India told Forbes magazine in an interview in late 2013: "I think some of us have been blessed with wealth… some of it we deserve but some of it is due to luck and the hard work of many others. I cannot create my own wealth. I depend on so many others.”
A nominated member of the Rajya Sabha since 2013, Aga said that "as much as we need economic development, we also need to preserve our culture of secularism, pluralism and diversity.” She believes that is India’s strength and that (Zoroastrians) are a great example of that. "Look at my community. We arrived here, more than 1,000 years ago, and flourished in this country because we were encouraged and not discriminated against.”In an interview with yourstory.com dated March 27, 2016, the ex-chairperson of Thermax Limited, the Rs 5,000 crore engineering giant based in Poona, states that "I was and am very ordinary.” Narrating the story of her life, she states how important it is to "share your stories so people can follow your example.”
Revealing the anger and indignation that husband Rohinton felt when he suffered a heart attack at a relatively young age while in his 40s, she states "anger mobilizes. It took a toll on him, but he got back on his feet and even wrote a book during his recovery.” Around that time, Anu’s family insisted she take more interest in the workings of the company that her father A. S. Bhathena had started, and in which Rohinton succeeded Bhathena as chairperson. That was when she joined the human resource department of Thermax. "Keeping our employees happy was at the heart” of this key challenge to retain the brand image the company had built as an innovator, and "also capitalize on it and grow.”
Bleak times were ahead when, after a visit to the UK to help her daughter Meher through a delivery in 1996, on arrival she was greeted with the news that Rohinton had suffered another heart attack, this time fatal. The company executives met on the next day and looked to Anu for leadership. "I just wasn’t ready. I kept devaluing myself and thought that I was only being invited to take over because we as a family own this business. I really felt miserable, missing my husband, yet, having to assume his role,” she told yourstory.com.
Seeking for answers, she turned to Vipassana, the Buddhist method of meditative penance, in which one silently reflects for 10 days. This helped her, as she says it led to the realization that "all I was expected to do was my best, which may be different from my husband’s best.” About the passing away of son Kurush in a car crash, 14 months after Rohinton’s death, Anu says "pain is inevitable, but suffering comes out of not accepting why something happened to you.”
The start of Anu’s leadership at Thermax came at a delicate time in the fortunes of the firm. A year before Rohinton died, Thermax had gone public, and now their share price had fallen from Rs 400 to Rs 36. "I didn’t know hardcore business, and I was terrible at finance. Being at the helm of a capital goods company, I had to know both.” At that time, the Indian economy went for a downturn.
She surrounded herself with people who could guide her and "wasn’t afraid to show vulnerability, and seek help without qualms.” That helped tremendously, she acknowledges. Anu took some bold decisions that resuscitated the company, although her team was against her course of action. "I wanted to appoint the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to do some damage control, but our team insisted that we simply wait for the economy to stabilize,” she shares.
"Until then, I thought the ones most affected by this would be me and my family, as we were the owners. But I received an anonymous note from a shareholder, saying we had let him down. For my husband and I, letting someone down was a dirty word. I couldn’t sleep for days.” She decided to hire BCG anyway, and made some brave business choices for the company, like divesting non-core areas.
She stepped down from the chairmanship of Thermax in 2004, a position now held by daughter Meher Pudumjee. Anu devotes time to Akanksha, the NGO (nongovernmental organization) that works in the field of education, and to Teach for India, the fellowship program that recruits college graduates and working professionals to serve as full-time teachers in low-income schools for two years. As a Member of Parliament in the upper house, she serves on the committee for personnel, public grievances, law and justice, and has been, in the past, member of committees on child welfare and women’s empowerment.
The Padma Shri winner (2010) and once the eighth richest woman in India told Forbes magazine in an interview in late 2013: "I think some of us have been blessed with wealth… some of it we deserve but some of it is due to luck and the hard work of many others. I cannot create my own wealth. I depend on so many others.”
◆ ◆ ◆
From the archive