The Public Affairs Magazine- Newsinsight.net

I've known Nandan Nilekani for over twenty-five years now. Or, to put it differently, for half of his life. When we first met in Bombay in 1980, he was two years out of IIT, worked for a computer firm called Patni Associates in Nariman Point, and none of us - Nandan included - had the slightest idea that he would become a household name by the end of the century. Or that he would be worth in excess of Rs 3,000 crore. In that more modest era, Nandan's salary was a princely Rs 1,200 a month. And he thought he was making good money. After all, when his father retired, the old man's salary was Rs 1,200. As Nandan now recalls, "It seemed like a very good deal to start your career with a salary that was the same as your father's at the end of his career."

The figures should tell you something about Nandan's background: solid, well-educated South Indian middle class Brahmin. But they also reveal that he came from a family that never had much money, but never minded that it wasn't rich.

By most standards, Nandan's climb to wealth and fame is an astonishing success story. And yet, in the context of the Indian IT business, it is not that unusual. Admittedly, few techies have been as successful as Nandan. But there's no shortage of success stories nevertheless. And most of the new billionaires started out as well educated middle to lower-middle class South Indian boys.

So, I'm not that surprised that an old friend from all those years ago is now so rich. Or, that the once anonymous engineer is now so widely recognised: throughout our interview, everybody else in the coffee shop where we are chatting, stops to gawk at him.

No, my astonishment is about the manner in which Nandan has transformed his personality.

-------

My first impression of Nandan and one that endured for nearly two decades was: there's more to this man than meets the eye.

He did not say much, never spoke about himself, and deflected all serious questions with an easy laugh. But even when he was not participating in a conversation, you always had a sense that he was watching closely. Even when everybody else had drunk themselves silly and Nandan appeared to be asleep and totally out of it, I always knew that he was fully alert.

This was a man who was never Off. No matter how laidback he seemed, he was always On.

Now, a quarter century after we first met, I finally confront him with this perception. Was it not true, I ask, that he prided himself on an alert detachment? That he would be part of every situation and yet not be part of it; that, at some level, he would always be an observer, watching with a dispassionate interest? Nandan Nilekani smiles. "Yes that's true," he says. "I was always very detached."

But that, I say, is the real change. Despite the millions, he is still recognisably the Nandan of old. The difference is in the manner. He is now much more willing to give of himself. He has lost that old dispassionate detachment. You now feel that you know what he thinks. A certain passion seems to emanate from the core of his being. Ask him a question, and he will give you a straight answer. There won't be the jokey deflections of old.

"That's deliberate," Nandan says finally.

Deliberate? Did he just get up one morning and say to himself, I must be less zipped up?

"I was told," he explains, "that my approach to life was too cerebral. I was told that I was too much of an observer. If I was going to lead an organisation then I needed to show passion. I needed to allow people to connect with me."

So, was it just a business decision?

"No, I think I've changed as a person. I am more willing to engage. I feel more passionately about things. And I'm able to be much more demonstrative than I ever thought possible."

And is he happier this way?

He laughs. "Yes of course. Doesn't it show?"

It does.

-------------

Nandan Nilekani is clear that he does not owe his current position or prominence to his brains. Yes, of course, he was bright. He came first in school when he was at Bishop Cotton in Bangalore. At the age of twelve, he went to live with an uncle in Dharwad and spent four years at Karnataka College in that town before finally getting into IIT, Powai.

"I had always been in the top three in my class at school. But getting to IIT, Powai, was a revelation. I studied electrical engineering which was then the most popular course so we had some of the brightest minds in IIT. And compared to those guys, I was not outstanding. I was never at the top of my class. There were people who were just so much brighter than me."

For Nandan, the real breakthrough at IIT was social. He says he spent four years away from his parents - he has never lived at his parental home since the age of twelve - because it was felt that his father would travel around and the young Nandan would have a more stable childhood with his uncle in Dharwad.

This had two immediate consequences. The first was that he developed what he now describes as a sense of independence at a young age - psychologists will probably trace the roots of his cerebral detachment to this phase. The second was that the shift from Dharwad to Powai was traumatic - in class terms.

"In those days," he remembers, "a very different kind of person went to IITs. It was all sophisticated big city guys from places like Cathedral School. They had never met anybody who had gone to school in Dharwad."

He says that the early years were difficult in social terms but that he worked on what he quickly identified as one of his core strengths: his organisational ability. "I realised that I was good at organising things. So I got involved in organising Mood Indigo and other such events. I became a quizzer and in my final year I was the general secretary of the IIT."

By the end of 1978, when his IIT term was coming to an end, Nandan rejected the standard find-a-job-abroad option because of what he now describes as "inertia and laziness." He considered applying for an MBA course but even that fell through when he was taken ill before the IIM entrance exam.

So he looked for a job in Bombay, joined Patni Systems, and met N.R.Narayanamurthy.

And his life changed forever.

------------

The history of global business is replete with stories of guru-chela relationships (what they describe as ''mentoring' in the text books), but I know of no other Indian company where a relationship between a genius and his protégé has led to such happy consequences.

In the late 1970s, Murthy headed a division for the Patnis, evolved a relationship with one of the Patni brothers, and was left pretty much on his own.

Murthy had his own approach to hiring. He preferred young people straight out of college to engineers with experience. But he didn't trust exam results alone. So when Nandan went for his interview, he was startled to find that Narayanmurthy expected him to solve puzzles and behaved like a schoolmaster conducting an IQ test.

Obviously, Nandan was good at puzzles because Murthy hired him on the spot and the two men quickly became close. But, insists Nandan, he was not the only young man whom Murthy mentored: "He has extraordinary leadership qualities and the entire division hero-worshipped him."

In 1981, the Patni brother who normally handled Murthy was out of town and another brother treated him roughly. Nandan refuses to divulge details of the disagreement but from what I remember of that era, it went like this: Murthy was asked to do something he disagreed with; he asked Mr Patni for an explanation and was told, "Tum apna kaam karo, and just do what you're told to do."

Anyone who has met Murthy will recognise that he places self-respect above everything else. So naturally he walked out. And naturally, his entire division walked out with him.

They were fed up of working for traditional bania bosses, they said. They would launch their own company.

That company was, of course, Infosys.

--------------

The origins of Infosys have now become the stuff of business legend but I suspect the story has been somewhat sanitised in the retelling.

From what I remember, the guiding motive may well have been to create an ethical, professionally managed company - as Murthy and Nandan declare in all their interviews to the pink papers - but the phrase they used in those days, has been airbrushed out of the history.

They wanted, they said, to create an 'un-Marwari company.'

By this they meant - or so I understood at the time - they wanted to run Infosys as the antithesis of the typical Marwari-bania business of that era. Employees would be treated with respect. No bribes would be paid. There would be no cash transactions. Nobody would take any money out of the company. And all decisions would be taken by a professional collective, not by sethji and his sons.

Nandan now professes memory loss when confronted with the phrase 'the un-Marwari company', but I'm pretty sure that this is how Murthy and his colleagues saw Infosys in those days.

Of the defectors from Patni Systems, there were six South Indians including Nandan and Murthy and one Punjabi, Ashok Arora.

Nandan bristles at the suggestion that Infosys represented the revolt of South Indian Brahmins against the north Indian banias who dominated Indian business at the time. "South Indians are not a monolith," he says. "Three of us were from Karnataka, two from Kerala, one from Tamil Nadu and anyway, Ashok Arora was a Punjabi."

All of which is undoubtedly true. And it is also true that of the six South Indians, one was a non-Brahmin. But it is as true that Ashok Arora did not stay the course, leaving Infosys much before it hit the big time. Had he hung on, he would be a billionaire today.

-------------

Continued Part II

Next Column