This, Too, Will Pass
Hon. Rtn. Ajay Piramal shares his personal experience of fighting challenges
I WANT TO BEGIN WITH
an experience that all of us have had, regularly, that is taking a flight. When you take a flight, you sit on your seat and what happens during take-off and landing is that the pilot is in control. You may find turbulence during the flight and different people have different reactions to this. During severe turbulence, some take out their maalas and start praying, some just sweat – worried, some enjoy a movie, or sleep.
While the turbulence is for all of us, nothing is in our control. The only thing you can control is the way you react to the situation. We cannot control what is happening around us, we cannot control Covid but how we react to is important. Are we the ones enjoying the flight, eating food and sleeping or are we the ones who are stressed and worried about the whole world?
Here is another example: an aircraft parked in front of you and looks huge just while boarding. But as it climbs in altitude, it becomes smaller and smaller to the people on the ground. The problems we face in life are similar: they appear much bigger at a single point of time than they do over a period. That gives us faith and hope.
This is not the first time we have faced a challenge; there have been many. Remember the last big challenge you went through to now. What did you see at that time and what do you feel today? You will find that challenges that were big and unsurvivable do not seem to be that big today.
I was only 24 years old when my father passed away suddenly. We were in the textile business and soon after, my brother and I faced the longest textile strike in the history of the world, which lasted 18 months. Textile is a high, fixed capitalintensive business and if it is shut down for 18 months, it is difficult to survive. My 33-yearold
brother who was elder to me and chairman of the group developed cancer during the strike, even though he had been a fit person. He died in a year as there was no cure for cancer in those days.
On the one side, the business was facing bankruptcy and on other hand, my brother who had three sons (the eldest 11 and the youngest was 3), died. At that time, we wondered how we would survive but looking back, it passed by, because humans can fight, if we allow ourselves to. We realise that every problem is not as big as we, ourselves, are and also human nature. This, too, will pass and we must fight to get to another day.
So, what should we do in this environment? Remember that none of our problems are bigger than us. When we look back after a few years, we will realise it was a challenging phase, but we came out. When I look back now, if it had not been for the strike in textiles we would have not gone into pharmaceuticals and that is where the challenge became
an opportunity.
Sometimes, adversity opens doors for opportunity. We must be there to grab these opportunities. Even in these times, sometimes it may look difficult, but we will have the opportunity to go ahead.
The priority is simple: look at your own health, like the air hostess who tells you to wear your own oxygen masks during an emergency before helping others. Secondly, look at your family. There is so much uncertainty, it is not easy be it in business or home. Value your family. We read about the death of Sushant Singh Rajput but I realise that he lived alone, and he did not have the support of the family, that all of us have.
Focus on liquidity. There are challenges, you may not have sales, you may not have revenue, but you still have expenses so how do you ensure you have liquidity? We have to be ruthless to ensure that costs are cut to the minimum and we have to ensure that there is no capital expenditure. See how you can raise money, from banks or equity or diluting equity. Liquidity is very important. Not all will survive this crisis but there will be many opportunities when we come out of this. So, it is the survival of the fittest, but the fittest will have a bigger market opportunity.
Then, there are many ways to relook at your business. Can you do something new? For example, when the Taj Mahal hotel realised that nobody was going to be living in the hotel for a while, they started serving food from their kitchens. So, think of looking at your business differently, challenge your business.
Get digital. For people in the real estate business, potential customers are unable to visit the property but sell them by virtual walks and through digital use. Lastly, relook the way of doing business. Work from home and the fact that we can work during the lockdown has given rise to a different mindset. You may not need as many people; you may not need everything you were doing and which you thought was essential. So, let us relook existing businesses to survive.
If someone had told me, in February, that I would be in my house for two or three months, and that I would not be able to go out, meet my friends and family, no restaurants or movies, I would have said it was impossible. But time has gone by and I think we have been able to manage.
I would like to talk about Victor Frankel, a doctor during the Second World War, who saw so many family members, friends and associates killed in front of him. And yet, what did Victor do? He started serving people, doing all he could to support them through their depression and help them to think positive. That gave meaning to his life, he survived the holocaust and came out as stronger. So, can we also give back during this period in terms of money, time, talent, and effort. If we do, it will mean a lot to people. Helping migrants and daily wage workers will add meaning to our lives, too.
As we end, something that I found very good: Prime Minister Modi has identified 115 districts in India which are the most backward in terms of human development – aspirational districts. We realised that there is a big difference between the India of the aspirational districts and the India which many of us live in. We realised that during this time, there were many older people about the age of 60 living there and were lonely. So, with NITI Aayog and Government of India, we started a programme called Dada-Dadi Nana-Nani Suraksha Programme for people above 60.
We have reached out to 28 districts already where there are about 29 lakh people with approximately 30,000 volunteers phoning them and understanding their needs and worries. Many don’t know to get access to medicine, where to get ration. It has had a big benefit and the Prime Minister wants to replicate it across the country. These are things all of us can do in one way or another, small or big doesn’t matter. We will get past this crisis and emerge as something great. The dawn before sunrise is the darkest hour and I am sure there will be a dawn coming by.
ROTARIANS ASK
If you are the Prime Minister or the Finance Minister, what would be your impetus to getting businesses back with policy directions?
We have to live with parts of the lockdown. We have to provide liquidity to society. I feel that the government has announced many measures but they have not flowed down. The urgency is not there to ensure the supply chain and you have to increase demand which means you have to put money in the hands of people so that they can buy. I think there is a big opportunity in this Aatmanirbhar Bharat. The amount of things we import is huge. We import the smallest of things. Instead, we should be able to get them in India, which is a great opportunity for locals.
What should we do to bridge the systemic gaps of today so that tomorrow we do not see another today like this?
One of the main things is that the kind of investment that has been done in the healthcare in our country and around the world has not been enough. We have not spent time in developing health infrastructure. We cannot spend just one and and half per cent of the GDP on health. Urban planning, too, is very important.
What happens to art, music and culture during times of crisis?
What do art, music and culture do? They satisfy the soul and when I say you have to look after your health, it is not only physical but also mental health.
If you don’t have art and culture you will not be able to survive. So, it will evolve, the best works of art and poetry will come out.
When the migrants start returning, how do we quarantine them and where do we do it?
They will come back when the virus is washed off, maybe you will have to do some basic tests and then bring them. There is no place to keep so many people quarantined. So, nobody has the right answer.
From a long-term perspective, should the country move towards making rural India self-sufficient? They have their own issues so what, according to you, is a long-term solution?
We cannot have so much migration to our cities. The more we support rural life, that is the way forward and that also lies in the government’s efforts of aspirational districts. The investment in rural infrastructure is significant and agricultural reforms will open opportunities for farmers. We are one of the most fertile lands in the world and we can use it to create income for people. We have to take a lesson from what is happening today.
