Perizaad Zorabian Talks To RTN. Sameer Tapia About Chickening Out Of Films
You had a wonderful and brief journey in Bollywood, but you made a mark; how did you stumble upon this path?
Even as a little girl, I enjoyed the performing arts. I did ballet for 12 years, elocution and was always on the stage in school. I never realised I would be an actor. It happened instantly when a model co-ordinator called Mona Irani offered me a Fair and Lovely ad.
Then she asked me to audition for Bollywood Calling. I happened to be at the right time at the right place and was fortunate to have off-beat movies which had just started at that point of time. Most of my films were in English, so thank god for that.
I had a great set of parents who let me pursue my dreams. I went to the US and got an MBA and then, when I told them I want to do a movie, my dad honestly said, ‘haan haan jaa ne, ek picture karine aao’, not realising that I would have a career as an actor. I took one day at a time, worked on films that I really connected with, and it was fantastic. I did 13-odd films, didn’t do any major Bollywood numbers. Of course, Joggers Park is now a Bollywood classic.
You worked with veterans like Om Puri, Shabana Azmi, and Mr. Bachchan, of course, in Ek Ajnabee. How was that experience?
My first film was with Om Puri and he was one of the most iconic actors. Just being with him on the sets was a learning experience. You always thought that Om Puri was this artsy actor but when I worked with Mr. Bachchan and I saw the same kind of process, discipline, structure that he put into his character, and the same kind of effort he put in Ek Ajnabee, it was a huge learning experience. It was the same with Shabana Azmi, the way she rehearsed, worked on every line, the effort they all put in. Everyone thinks being an actor is about looking glamorous and having some bare skill set but to be an actor you need to have so much more. And, discipline with your craft plays a really important role.
How was it to see yourself on a hoarding in the city for the first time?
It was strange. For Bollywood Calling, Homi had Om Puri on the poster, as Nagesh had planned it. Then Pritish Nandy looked at it and said, ‘no, no, where is the girl? We need the girl!’ And he changed the creatives at last minute. We shot a portfolio picture of mine and kind of flashed it on the poster. Om Puri didn’t stop teasing me about it but it was awesome it was to see it all across the city, bus backs, posters, everything had my face on it. It gives you a huge high.
You mentioned that it was a glamorous career and then suddenly you entered your father’s poultry business, how did that happen?
If at the age of seven you had asked what I wanted to be, I had an uncle who did MBA in Cornell, and so I would have said entrepreneur. I idolise my dad and I wanted to work with him and that is why I went to the US, did my MBA and every entrepreneurship course of anything.
The dream was always to join Zorabian; acting kind of came in the way of that. Once I was married, Zorabian was going through a rough time so I took that opportunity to come in. What started as a small assignment to design packaging for Zorabian to kind of turn into a full-fledged job with launching a retail business. I had only stepped in to help dad because we were on the verge of bankruptcy. I was pregnant and I just couldn’t bear being a housewife at home. So I stepped in and it was the most game-changing move of my life.
Did you leave Bollywood immediately or did you do both for a while?
After I got married, I continued doing television and I did theatre but I stopped acting in movies the day I got married because I was expecting two months later.
And then Boman said no more movies?
He planned it perfectly. Boman and me were clear that the only way to pin me down was to ensure we started our family soon enough. Of course, I had gotten married late so that was my priority and yes, I started working with Zorabian after my son was born. It has been an 12 incredible years.
To kill big brands or bring Zorabian neck to neck with them, tell us a little about that.
When I stepped in, Zorabian was facing the toughest time. All the mid-sized powers were – it was tough to survive in a market where we can no longer play the game, the large economies have scaled, the larger companies that came in offered chicken at such a great price in comparison to us, it was really tough to survive. The only way to beat the odds was to launch ourselves in the retail space where the consumer would know us and pay for the quality that we were offering.
Quality was the only thing that set us apart. We have completely vertically integrated farms where we grow our birds, we know what we are feeding our birds, it is like the best quality chicken. When it goes to a consumer’s home, they want a great quality product because they see it, cook it, feel it, they know how good it is and I think because of Dr. Darshan from Reliance, we took that step down to enter the retail space and it has been an addictive journey.
Like an actor gets fame and success, once your consumer loves your product, it is like a high. It is never ending. We have to grow it. Now, no one looks at me and asks why I don’t come back to the movies. They are all like, Perizaad, and I am looking at them with a twinkle in my eyes, thinking that they will say something nice, and they say ‘We love your chicken, it is so good’.
Nobody misses the actor; everybody loves the chicken. And we have done great work at Zorabian. We try to bring delicious ranges; we have a great culinary background with baba still there on the Parsi food. We have used all our strengths and tried to become successful. We have stood apart because of our unique offerings.
The poultry business has two aspects of it, one is the layer farm with birds that lay eggs and the other is the broiler farm with broiler chickens that are not very hardened and tough like the ones that lay eggs. What sort of farm do you have?
We only have a broiler farm. We have our parent birds, hatchery, feed mill, processing units, ready-to-cook plant and we do all our own distribution. We don’t do eggs, we only do chicken but we have an entire chain in our control and that is when you can use your own preservative, that is ensure your birds are not pumped with vaccines, you can give them feeds that are natural and everything is under your control. When you have your bio-security in your hand, only then can you claim to not put any additional medicine in their feed and try and keep it all natural. Otherwise, with livestock, it is very difficult to do it as clean as us. If you don’t have the entire chain in your hand, it becomes really difficult.
A quick line on your work life balance.
There is no work life balance, there isn’t. my husband will always say that for Perizaad, it is her children. Of course, I am a tiger mom with their grades and exams, they are all so important to me. They are in a great school and I feel I am so blessed, I push them even harder. So, Boman says it’s my children, then Zorabian and Boman kind of comes on number three which is not true but he believes that. So, I don’t strike a good work-life balance, I am not someone who is able to spend time with my friends as much, I am always socially terrible, I am never there at most things because I am too tired and exhausted. My health kind of took a beating last year, through Covid and stress, and I put on a lot of weight. I think I have to heal, get my act together, strike a work-life balance.
No withdrawal symptoms from Bollywood?
Give me the time! The kind of stress the chicken is giving me. Gosh! I should have been an actor. I just wish I had time; I think I need to delegate more.
Given that you don’t have time, we are going to treat you like an actor for the next round. You have to answer these questions in five seconds.
Box office or box chicken?
Box office.
Aapri raani ki aapro piano?
Aapri raani.
Your dream character role?
Bridges of Madison County, Meryl Streep.
The one word that describes you best?
Passionate.
You get high on?
Hard work.
The last movie that made you cry?
The Sky Is Pink.
What message you would like to give budding entrepreneurs?
There is no magic formula, it requires a lot of hard work, to imagine that there will never be adversity. You always think you will achieve this much success and then the life will get easy, but it never gets easier. The higher you climb the tougher the blows you get and it is just something that you have to deal with.
A little bird says you like to read a lot, what will you name your autobiography?
Queen Murgiwali.
Name your best film to date.
Jogger’s Park.
Favourite co-star?
Amitabh Bachchan.
A law you would like to break if you could get away with it.
I wish I could eat and not become fat.
ROTARIANS ASK
They say there are creative pursuits however acting is cut and paste and even business in India is full of bureaucratic approval. So, are they really creative professionals – acting and entrepreneurship?
Being an actor is definitely not a cut and paste because the same character can be played by two people very differently. You always bring a part of you to every performance that you give. It can be edited, and I think the edit always messes you up, it is tougher, in fact. It is easy to be an actor on stage, you can go in one flow.
In terms of entrepreneurship, everything that you do reflects your choices and the person that you are. So, lots of people sell chicken but the way we choose to sell ours, choose to grow our chicken and the way we do all that is definitely different. So, I think there is an individual voice to that as well and I definitely don’t think that in either of the two professions anything that we do is cut-paste. The way we communicate and function is very different.
Perizaad, you are really inspiring, I loved how you transitioned so smoothly from being an actor to entrepreneur. And I must compliment you on your chicken, it is a Saturday staple for us, my son and I love it. they are the freshest and juiciest.
I love it, you made my day because we are going through such rough times presently. We have had the floods situation lately, when we came back our customers took us on with so much love and it feels so great to hear it from you because we walk a tough path and to be appreciated is so great.
So, once you have tasted the real meat, what is your take on plant-based meats?
Everyone is telling me to look at alternative plant-based meats because it will be a threat to the industry at some point of time. I am not a big fan of anything synthetic, it cannot be meat but has so much stuff added on to it. In fact, my brother who runs the farm is vegan and his take is if he were ever to do something vegetarian it will be real food, it won’t be synthetic substitute food. As a company the choice is very clear. We will do chicken and Shehzaad would love to have a pack. He is like if you want to feed someone, feed someone in terms of a vegetarian line. And he handles the production line so he is definitely not going to do that. He has his views and I am going to respect that.
We went through a tough time recently with floods in a factory – how did you deal with this tough situation?
We were flooded on July 22nd this year and it was tough because there was no fresh chicken for one week in Bombay to any of our suppliers or partners and we were their sole vendor. In times of adversity, you find some of your greatest learnings, of how people stand by you and how relationships and karma – all comes right back. We had people like Big Bazaar and big malls, without me even asking, giving and releasing their funds in advance just to support us in time. Our customers were rock solid, there were fake rumours about our products being contaminated but our customers stood tall. I had the CEO of Nature’s Basket saying ‘listen Perizaad, we are standing by you’. So, I think my greatest learning through all the adversity is that when you do good, good comes back. I am the biggest believer in that.
Anti-biotics in chicken – how do you prevent bird-flu if you don’t inject your birds?
So, that is the beauty of having your own parent farm right. We have our own breeder farm. So, disease comes in when you buy the egg from outside and you don’t know what disease the parent is holding and then to take care of your flock you have to put some anti-biotics in their feed. But when the parent is yours, you have the control. Even day 1 chicks can get disease, diseases can come in at the hatchery level. That, again, is something we have of our own. So, when you have an entire chain and the hatchery, I have not stepped in it for the last 12 years because nobody can enter it. I cannot go to the breeder farm and the broiler farm on the same day. They are all separate farms. When you have these bio-securities in place, you can afford to not be putting anti-biotics in your feed. When you have your own distribution, you have a whole chain under your control, we have our own vans going all across Bombay. So, our chicken doesn’t have to sit in something called STTP which is a government-approved preservative to just keep the freshness of the chicken alive. We have our own ice plants where even the ice that the chicken sits in to get chilled to the right core temperature, even that ice is made by us. So, it is not sitting in some junk ice made by someone else where the water is contaminated which can go in the chicken. So, that is the madness of my brother Shehzaad who runs the farm and that is why Zorabian is at a relatively higher premium because of all the stuff that we do. That is what makes it different.
Why are you then not projecting more of that?
Arre it is everywhere. It is on the packet, it is on the branding, it is on every single place. Everybody else is like cut-copy-paste and I am like, really? Do you even grow your own chicken? We have it across everywhere. Even if you pick a Zorabian tray pack, it is on the tray – preservative free, anti-biotic free, hormone free. Shehzaad won’t even give a weight gainer besides soy and corn. Because in the end what you eat is what you are. It is my brother, he is such a purist, he hates killing animals, so he is like if you are taking a life, it better be good quality meat. He is like the Buddha; his high is doing things right.
You started to do other products as well, right?
We have our ready-to-cook range as well and that was my father’s dream. So, the sheekh kebabs, sausages, salami, burger patties. everyone loves the product, we have a whole ISO certified unit, it started so small and has grown into such a phenomenal unit. It got flooded, every machine we bought, after so much work. We are working towards getting all that back on track.
So, we are not going to see Perizaad in the movies?
My kids want me to do. Boman is like you should do one movie a year, if only it was that simple. But it is tough starting again. Honestly, I have taken a long break and it requires a different skill set. So, if something comes in my lap, I would look at it but if it is some chichar-pichar role, I won’t do it, I have more happening and more at stake with me at Zorabian. But I think if something spectacular comes my way, I would. I am open to it, but am I pursuing it? Do I have the courage to go out there? No.
How did you lose so much weight?
I lost a little weight. I joined gym in April and I have a teenage daughter. Boman said that she is watching you, that I am not setting a right example. And I was not a happy person being 13 kg heavier, I didn’t look like I used to look like, I was low, I was menopausing, depressed with my weight. So, finally, on September 1st, I did this Economic Times Award which I hosted with Boman Irani and I was such a cow and I insisted that I will only do it if I have the podium covering half my body and I had my hair cover all the fat on my shoulder. I saw myself on the screen after so long and my face looked hideous. We won the most trusted brand and I went on stage and the only thing I could wear was jeans and one aunty-like white shirt and I was just like I am on stage with an award and I look like a pale version of who I was. And both those events back-to-back and Boman told me about Zaha, everything came in together and I took my health in control. I lost some weight.
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