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Anu Aga turned into an entrepreneur amid personal crisis. She is the retired chairperson of energy and environment engineering firm, Thermax.
“Do I ever cry? Of course, I do. But have I healed? Yes, I have.”- Anu Aga.
In life as well as business, there will be times when negative, perhaps unthinkable, situations arise, and we are forced to think fast and make our move, despite the pain we might be enduring personally.
Often, people in these situations fall victim to curling back up in there to avert further distress, by any means necessary. On the other hand, true leaders, go deep within themselves, resolve, accept the loss, dust themselves, and get right back into the game, sometimes with even greater vigour.
Here’s sharing the story of Anu Aga, who turned into an entrepreneur amid a personal crisis. Anu Aga is the retired chairperson of energy and environment engineering firm, Thermax.
The company was started by her father. Her husband, Rohinton Aga, transformed it from a family-run, small business into a professionally run engineering organization of formidable repute. Later, Rohinton Aga died of a massive stroke.
However, Anu had no time to grieve. The board met in two days and suggested she be the chairperson. She wasn’t comfortable assuming this responsibility, as she kept feeling that it is the 62 per cent shares that she had that had given her this position, and not her merit. They had gone public a year earlier and their share was quoted at 7 times the issue price. Rohinton had done a superb job.
But then came the downturn. The company didn’t do well at all. Her executives kept saying that when the market was down, they’re bound to be affected & she went along with that until she got an anonymous letter.
‘I do not know about your finances, Mrs Aga — you may have enough or may not care for money, but you have let your shareholders down.’ (Rao, T. V., 2016)
That was her wake-up call. Though they were a public limited company, it hadn’t dawned on her that she had a responsibility towards other stakeholders. Post that, Anu Aga started a full-scale reform, aided by Arun Maira of Boston Consulting Group. A series of tough decisions were required and she gave her best.
There was greater pain in store. Barely a year after Rohinton’s death, her mother-in-law & the family pet died. Later that year, while driving back from Bangalore after fixing a customer’s faulty boiler to regain a lost order, her son Kurush met with a fatal accident. Aga mourned for three weeks and returned to work.
Between 1996 and 2004, Thermax shed its unrelated investments in areas from software to drinking water, it dramatically reconstituted the board to bring in a fresh new perspective, and went on an enviable growth spree led by a fragile-looking woman in a male-dominated, engineering world.
So, where did she find her strength? In a Forbes interview, she acknowledged how meditation helped her heal through Vipassana(Vipassana is a form of meditation the Buddha taught, which requires complete silence).“In my deeply personal way, I learned to deal with death, and today, I am completely at peace with the idea of death.”
That is how her crisis ignited a sense of entrepreneurship within her. I would like to conclude by stating that my takeaway from her story is that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional and that if we learn to channel our emotions properly, we could explore our potential on a different level. But before that, we must be at peace with our crisis.
References : Rao, T. V. (2016). IIMA – Managers Who Make A Difference: Sharpening Your Management Skills. Random Business.
Image Source: Wikipedia
Sukanya Basu Mallik's works have been featured in Reader’s Digest, Times of India, Sahitya Akademi, Writer's Life, UK, AIPF Int. Anthology ( Diverse City Youth Contest, Austin, US), etc. Bestowed with Best Manuscript read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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