9.11 The Wrong Interview That Led to the Right Decision ft. Dr. Ashok Ganguly

What if the most defining moment of your career was the one you never planned?

In this episode of Books & Beyond, Tara speaks with Dr. Ashok Ganguly, former Chairman of Hindustan Unilever, former Rajya Sabha member, and author of We Are Our Future.

From failing in school to becoming a global business leader, Dr. Ganguly reflects on a life shaped as much by chance as by choice. He shares the idea that who we become is influenced long before we make conscious decisions; by our genes and our environment.

Tara and Dr. Ganguly moves through different defining chapters of his life: an accidental interview that ended up shaping his career, the decision to return to India at a time when pursuing a life abroad was a dream for many, and his years navigating leadership and nation-building during a transformative period in India’s history.

But beyond career and success, this episode is also a reflection of failure, the confidence instilled in him by his parents, the support of his wife, and the grief of losing her. It's really about how he makes sense of it all in hindsight.

Tune in, there’s a lot to take away here. 

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms. 

Transcript

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I got scholarships in the United States. Fortunately, Trump was not the president. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Books and Beyond. Today, I'm joined with Dr. Ashok Ganguly, who is a former member of the Rajya Sabha and the former chairman of Hindustan Unilever Limited. In We Are Our Future, Dr. Ganguly doesn't just reflect on his career as a scientist and the chairman of one of India's hugest companies, but he reflects on the forces that shape us as who we are as individuals, right? Your family, your environment, your history, your country, luck, moments, the moments when we decide who we want to be. And I really like the story because you guys know I love chronicling people's life stories. We have a nonfiction imprint, Moments by Bound, where we do exactly this and we chronicle people's lives who have built and lived through so many periods of transformation. And it's a way of remembering and building legacies. So what stayed with me, Dr. Ganguly, is how much of your journey wasn't planned, right? Being recruited by mistake, moving from science into management, and yet how thoughtfully you made sense of all these turns many years later. And it's also a history of India from someone who's within it, who's involved in the making of India, making of this nation as you were, and a reflection of 90 years of your life, which is a very special thing. I think you're one of the most senior people I've had on this podcast. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. And I'm thrilled with the opportunity of sharing parts of my life, which is all written about in the book. And I have a hypothesis which I'll share with you. That hypothesis came to my mind really late in my life. And it was, it had nothing original in it, other than that you become aware, how did you become what you become? And when did it all happen? That the whole thing actually happens when you're conceived by your parents. Because what you are before you're born, and while you're being formed in your mother's womb, is that you are the outcome of the genes that your parents carried. And not only that, but they are, they have origins, which are unremarkable in the sense that forever since the human race started. So if they're a system, when you're born, you're born with the genes that have been passed on to you. But when you are coming towards the end of your life, you realise that you are the product of what your parents have birthed. And it's a very exciting thing, because things start falling into place. For example, I was a terrible, terrible schoolboy. And I failed in metric. You mentioned in the book, yeah. Yeah, I failed in Sanskrit. So I lost a year. But that shook me up a bit, I must say. But my greatest tribute, you know, mother's love is mother's love. But the father's tolerance and love is of a different magnitude. Although my father was a very serious man, I never saw him angry. And you know, no matter how badly I did, I was in the bottom quartile of my class anyway. Never, no disappointment, nothing. And so it gave me a quality of confidence that prepared me to jump in the next jump, having set back by failure to end up my four years in university, from one extreme to the other, by becoming the Bhabha Scholar of the Year. You know, it was a sudden change. And I never asked myself, how did it happen? And then life went on. I got scholarships in the United States. Fortunately, Trump was not the president. And I did well. I'm not going to be rashful about it. And so there was a seed of being planted as an American. But after six years, I took a break after my postdoctoral fellowship, came to meet my parents. And when I saw the state of the country, and my parents, my father was still working. My parents were very happy to see me. They knew that I was on a holiday and that I would go back. But I decided that I need to do something here. But this problem I was working on would be impossible to do here at that time, other than in a couple of places in Bangalore and in West Bengal. Eventually, as you said, I appeared for a wrong interview and got selected in Hindustan League. I love that story. Please tell our listeners about it. And, you know, I had a dear, dear friend. Three of us joined together, we were selected. One was my friend, the late Kriyan Chadha, Shashi Gupta and I. They were selected as married and training. They were engineers and they've done well in Roorkee and Bengal Engineering College and all that. And here I was a scientist. The only reason I applied for the job, because Hindustan League was setting up a brand new research centre. I thought I was being selected as a scientist. I started life as a scientist. And the second most lucky thing happened to me. I got engaged and married to a distant cousin of mine, whom I had never thought in terms of ever ending up in that relationship. But that is the best possible thing that happened to me. So, you know the way that I live. Every time my sister was brought up, like out of a hundred units of how you run your life, in retrospect, I think 75 units were run by her without any noise or disturbance. And I assumed that I was the king of the place and that the whole thing was going on because, you know, I had moved on in my career. But I think it was very useful for us to spend the first couple of years abroad with Unilever. We lived in Holland, and then we moved to live in England before we came back. I was still in research. And then I was told that what really I wanted to do with my life. And that is how the other phase of my life started. So, it makes you wonder, you know, I've got all the free time now. It makes me wonder how did, what happened and why? And I will now conclude that very rapidly by saying my wife sadly died of cancer. And it coincided with the arrival of the plane. She died in 69, 70, this other thing started. The second best thing that happened to me is that I was restricted to my home without any company. Amrita was stuck in her place, my younger daughter, and Divijita was of course living in England. And that gave me enough time to think about what it was all about. So much of it, Amrita, you eventually start wondering how did this happen? Why did it happen? Why didn't I go back to the United States and lead a completely different life? And then this whole issue of the genes that you're born with, they have an overwhelming influence on you without making you subservient of that influence. That's wonderful. Yes, I want to hear more. And what I really liked, you know, is the way the whole book was structured. So in the beginning, you talk about your childhood, growing up in a Bengali family in Mumbai, I also grown up in Mumbai, and how you were a bad student and how all of that changed. And then the fabulous journey with Unilever, right from, you know, when you were in research, because that's your train as a scientist. And then one day, your chairman asked you, at that time, the chairman asked you to take charge of the manufacturing division, which is so far removed from the scientific career that you were thinking of, and you described that, I was just thrown in the deep end of the swimming pool, and I had to learn, you know. It was not that straightforward. You know what he told me? The chairman was there, the technical director was there, one Mr. Thomas, who was the chairman after the lecture. And Thomas hated research, it was a waste of time. But he didn't say a word during that conversation. Out of the blue, we had just returned from the UK. And he says, Ashok, I thought I would have a conversation with you. Because I wanted to ask you whether you knew how to swim. I said, yes, sir, I do know how to swim. He said, because we have a plan. And I even don't know how good a swimmer you are, because we plan to push you at the deep end of the swimming pool, without really knowing if you know how to swim. So I didn't ask him, I said, why are you taking this chance? I came out of the chairman's room, I went to the car, which was waiting for me. And instead of going back to my office, I went home and shared this unusual story with my wife. Yes, she was a very wise woman, my wife. So I went on babbling, you know, I said, why did they do this? And she brought me a cup of tea. And she said, I'm sure that you'll be able to make up your mind when we go for a walk. I had made up my mind. And I said, you know, it's not every day some junior chap is called by the chairman and talk rubbish about being pushed into the deep end of the pool. So we are not fools. So I said, it is really, you know, if I fail, he fails. So that's how it started. And then you found that you had a knack with people which you were not aware that you could, you could excite people with ideas, chats, and I love to talk. So I used to tell them, don't get carried away by a successful result, because you've got always hidden the martyrdom of the failure. I sort of discovered in myself the quality that you could make out people who have a sense of initiative and confidence without being pompous. You understand what I'm saying? Choosing that type of people to take more responsibility and risk, more than responsibility, risk and being successful in overcoming the risk, but not blabbering about one's achievement, where qualities which started to differentiate between those who will go far, those who go medium, and those may not be quite a fit. So that's how it started. And I really like, you know, even what you said about your wife in the book, I found it very heartwarming. And she's on sounded like such a wonderful person, and wonderful support to you. And I really liked how you know, you guys also lived in Netherlands, UK or travelled. And then you decided, as you mentioned that, actually, I want to build a life in India. And that's something that not many professionals at that time wanted to do. Because at that time, going abroad was epitome of success, it offered you a better life, better opportunity. People didn't yet know what India could offer, what was the growth story, but you decided that I want to build a life here. So can you talk a little bit more about that? Because when you came back, the country was still finding its footing, right? We were dealing with the aftermath of colonial rule, economic transition, labour strikes, it was a young nation. So what was that decision like? It was a fascinating time. So Pandit Nehru, another fantastic man, and the government of India, which is Vallabhbhai Patel, Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi said, if this country is going to be divided, I won't have anything to do with it, and he quit politics. And he told Nehru and Patel that you guys know, but the point is, I could see when I left in 1956, to get a telephone, you had to pay 10,000 rupees and wait for 10 years to get, they won't give you money back, but give you a landline. In 1962, when I came back, it was still 10,000 rupees, it was still 10 years. There were two cars we produced, we produced a Katara for an ambassador, and there was the Fiat Millicento. So I said, what are we doing? And then I saw the Indian textile industry, which was mainly Bombay, that had found out that the value of their land was much higher than the value of the goods and services they produced. There was a deal, like, shove the bills, get the land back to me, let me make more money, and move on from my next generation to new area of business. Nobody knew it. Everybody would say that Dr. Ganguly is talking rubbish. Yeah, sounds like rubbish. But the whole chain, there was, you know, Pandit Nehru had asked me in 1948, he called the Indian leading businessman and said that, what should we do? How do we start? Have you got a plan, which I can support? The first advice he got was, get rid of the foreigners, because immediately they could buy their business for cheap. Pandit Nehru understood this, but he did not get into a debate. And there used to be a fellow called George Fernandez, who threw Coca-Cola out and became a big hero. So there was a pettiness in our system. We were not prepared to be bold, free country to ride forward. So when I came back, that was the situation. I didn't think I would do anything great. I was the only son. I saw my father getting old. I saw even my mother was quite old by then. And I said, I can walk away. And surely I'll end up having an American family and living there unhappily ever after. And so there was a selfish self question. I said, what should I do? Didn't take me long to decide. I said, I'm going to be here. I'm going to try and find something that I will enjoy. So that was the, it was a combination of my only son's loyalty to the parents. And I was married to them. And my decision was that when I look around, as an individual also, I grew up in a country which is still fumbling. The Chinese have given us a rude shock. Pandit Nehru is not keeping well. Millions of people have died in the partition of the country. Ballabhai Patel passed away. Nehru was starting to fall ill. There was obviously no leader standing out. Mrs. Gandhi was looking after Mr. Nehru because he was falling ill. Nobody knew that she would become such a powerful person so quickly. So there was both a fear and excitement in the country. And my decision was mainly driven by the fact that I owe it to my parents and by that logic to the country that I will be successful in America, no problem. Make a lot of money, play golf, live happily ever after. So I decided, I said, I'll live in this country. But I actually don't know the dialogue here for a long time. Tell me about the story of the wrong individual. I think my listeners would love to know about that. You know, I was posted in the Punjab. I came as a pool officer. In those days, to stop the brain drain, Pandit Nehru said, come to the country. We'll give you 450 rupees as pocket money when you look around what you want to do. Anywhere you want to work, private sector, public sector, we'll make sure you get the job you want to do. No interviews, nothing. And I was posted in the Punjab in a government laboratory where my type of work was going on. And every Sunday, I would apply for all jobs which came. First class, trade fair, to appear for the interview and come back. And three days in a hotel in Bombay. Only Bombay. I wouldn't apply for anything else. Give a chance to meet my parents. And my sister also lived in Bombay. And so I had an old friend of mine in this country but with whom I was drinking a cup of tea when I had just come back from the US. And she had said, we are opening a new lab. You must apply for it. Which I had done. But I got called for an interview. To cut a long story short, it turned out that it was an interview for management trainees. Everybody was an engineer other than me. I was a PhD. It hit me, you see. And then I was called for a second interview. That is when the penny dropped. And I realised when they said, come to Bombay factory tomorrow. Your programmes will be good. You're on two years training. I said, what the hell is going on? And I found out that I had obviously appeared for the wrong interview. I had been selected. So I came home and said my resignation letter, that my apologies. That I appeared for the wrong interview. That there must have been some mistake. And then I told my parents that I have to go back because I need to make a little money now. Then I got a call from the company. They were very angry with me before I resigned. It was changed when I became a PhD. But he said, what do you want to do? You want to waste your time? Do research? Go and do it. So I just got back my job. That's how I got to research. I love that story. I think you're always a very bold person, which I guess the company saw later on. And that's how you... At that age, you're carefree. Yes, carefree. More carefree than bold. Yes, absolutely. That is true. And you know, what I really liked about this book is that you witnessed India's journey, which I found so fascinating. It's such a rare thing for someone to put their thoughts and their observations of how India has grown as a nation. Because you've seen it from independence to now, to becoming this emerging global power. And today, obviously, the country's younger generation faces very different things than you did when you were a youngster. We have AI, we have climate change, we have rising costs of living. But what I liked is you have said in the book that you are still looking forward to the future. So what gives you that optimism about India? You know, what is optimism? Actually, I'll tell you very briefly. Suddenly, Mrs. Gandhi found herself in power, when Mr. Nehru died. There was a bit of a split in the Congress, but she became the Prime Minister. And much later, before the second time she got elected in 1980, I was on the Science and Technology Committee. I was the only outsider. As a part of my job, I got to know her elder son, Rajiv, who was a pilot. And I used to go on a route, Bombay, Delhi, Delhi, Chandigarh, Chandigarh, Jammu, where we were building a factory. And Rajiv used to be the pilot on many of those flights. So we got to know each other. I as the chairman of the Hindustan Lever, and he as the son of the Prime Minister, till his brother got killed in that air crash. Mrs. Gandhi, neither he nor Sonia ji wanted to go to the government. And from Mr. Tandon, then the first Indian chairman of the Hindustan Lever, our only relationship with the government was, see, because we were employees, we were getting salaries, we did not have our father's money. So the only thing the government looked to us for was to get the technology knowledge and the economic knowledge on management issues without those things becoming public. We would get calls from Delhi, Narayan ji wants to meet you. We would go, we would provide that. The second thing we did is we reduced the visibility of successful Indians, which used to put the government's back up a little bit, because they were struggling. We said we will never put our photographs in the paper. And the government took a liking to us and said, you know, I got into trouble because there was enormous pressure on me during Mrs. Gandhi's time to leave the private sector and join the government. And certainly during Rajiv's time, because we were friends, but he was the Prime Minister of the country. That never went on. They never gave up that. But equally, I knew that the last thing I want to do is to be a part of this government. I said, I'm not capable. So we got into a level of intimacy, which was non-reciprocal. We didn't know them, they didn't know us, anything. But if we came up with logical ideas, they were happy to own it and then do it as themselves. So it's a fantastic time we have gone through. I'm thinking, I'm not right. What you think you can do during a lifetime to enrich the environment and others, because we have a lot of capacity, which we ourselves don't understand. But the relationship with the government, especially during those difficult days, that also we raised. Unless you become a little more liberal by opening up the economy, let the industry grow. The IT industry in India grew by unplanned stealth. And the artificial intelligence in India, nobody even bothered to ask the government. Either you do it to survive or you die. I want to speak more about your tenureship as chairman of Hindustan Unilever, because I mean, every person even now graduating from an IIT, everybody wants to work at Unilever, everyone wants to rise up the ranks. And during your chairmanship, over a decade, you faced everything from labour unrest, economic crisis, you talked about the government, expanding the company across India. So was there any specific challenge that taught you something unexpected about leadership or decision making? You know, I really believe I go back to where I started. You inherit the genes when you're conceived. And what those genes are, you can think about it to the cows come home, but you'll never find out. It is in you. It cannot be suppressed, but it can be misused. But if it finds a flowering, if, for example, suppose my father was a very tough man, he was disappointed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I would have been a totally demotivated insurance salesman somewhere. Who knows? My mother was always in a crisis. My mother caught me so many times sitting with a book turned upside down. And then she would start shedding tears, what will happen to my son and all. But my father, I think genes play a tremendous role. You can't talk about in the public forum, because it's very difficult for people to understand, comprehend, unless you have been a student of biology. Yeah, you have a comprehension because you've done past studies and all that. But I am 100% convinced. And I watch, I see my daughters, I see the characters and all that you make out. That's why I could have written a book, which was about at least three or four times this size. I said that I don't want to project you. I'm not here to educate them. I'm here to share a story for people to feel confident about themselves. I think that confidence, you know, what you said about even when you were not a good student, and your father was always had faith in you, you know, I think that's so important, because I see that, even in my husband, he was a very bad student. And even his, but his father, you know, he always had a lot of faith in him. And he's one of the most confident people I know, because of the parents constantly being like, you will do it and not be motivating them. And that's what makes them successful. So I do I see it in practicality in my own home, you know, how personal experience of what I'm talking about. Yes, absolutely. I see it. And I see how powerful it is, you know, so definitely makes a big difference. Can you tell me a little bit more about the title of the book, you said that, you know, in independent India, being born Indian was just was enough to even become moderately successful. And that is the idea that inspired your book's title, We Are Our Future. Can you tell me a little bit more about this title? We are our future. Well, I was telling you about this period when there was a pandemic in 2020. And I was just going to go to London to clear up some of the things my wife had passed away when that came. So I was stuck on this desk, which was put here by my wife. And when I asked her whether I was still working, I said, why are you putting this? She said someday you will use it. And so someday I've been using it ever since. And I like, I love Hindustani classical music. I love to read. We have a fantastic library at our home. And so but there were no programmes or anything. We have a lot of collections, listen to music. And I had this boy who came and gave me the cup of tea. And I could, my daughters could not visit, my younger daughter Amrita could not visit me. Nivedita was abroad. And for the first few weeks, you could not even go downstairs. Then you were allowed to walk in your compound and all. And that's when I asked, I was of course deeply saddened by my wife's passing away. But I could focus on the book. And when I listened to music, turn it off. I said, what the hell is this all about? And how did it all happen? Was it predestined? Or would I have ended up in the United States? I had a job already. But have I any regrets? Yeah, my regrets are the people who entered me. You know, I wish I could have written a more exciting story about why I stayed back. And therefore I wanted to encourage people. I said, hey, the board is going to hold your hand. You've got to do it yourself. And your ambition must be proportionate to your personal assessment of your abilities. You can say, I want to be this, I want to be that. You become what you are. And then you get into the issue of statistical probability, what sort of genes you're born with. I've got two grandsons and a granddaughter. I said, don't read it now. I said, read it when you really start enjoying it. So, you know, exceptional good fortune brings the peace and joy of home and the satisfaction of building something. It's a rare privilege. You never get carried away by power and position. See, you have to. I mean, lies, if you're not sensible, you're never going to be. But you grow up at home. And I've seen people who stand on their own, get it done. Not very frequently. But see, in India, I'll tell you this. I'm talking about the British. We had the maximum number of famines, food shortages, people dying in the streets of cities and villages of starvation in the British time. In order to prevent that, we are seeing that India is getting better. The government of India, if it does not want any Indian to go to bed with one meal a day, gives free rations, has to be free rations to 850 million Indians so that they don't go to bed late. So, there are still some ways to go. I'm not overexcited. But if you're not reasonably familiar with your chat GPT, then we have a problem. I agree. I 100% agree. If you're not sort of keeping up with, you know, the newest technologies, you must want to go ahead and know what's happening. And I like what you said about, you know, not letting power go to your head and coming from you because you won some of the biggest awards like Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, you've been recognised internationally with honours like the CBE, you had all these public acknowledgements. But you managed to sort of, you know, just come down. Yeah, so I love that, you know, because I think you've achieved what people really, they have the highest ambition. It's what people want in their careers. The trick is, don't look for it. If you deserve it, somebody else will look for it. That's a really good quote. No, but seriously, very seriously, I had no ambition to get this status. When the Chinese gave me that honorary professorship, possibly I was the proudest because the Chinese are very finicky. But we were fortunate. I mean, you look at the other side of it, how did you get all these opportunities? The chairman did not have to ask me whether I knew how to swim. They must have talked among themselves. I don't want to know. I'm not interested. So you've spent, you know, decades sort of contributing to India. And we've spoken about all of that. But I want to know, you know, what do you hope readers will take away from your journey and this book? I'd say my book is more for those who, you know, there is a, so there's an advertisement where the Indian captain is talking about investing in somebody else. That other fellow always bothers him by saying, Life is like that. Life is like that. And I see the point is, although we have to give, even today, to prevent people from starving, 850 million Indians would go to bed with one meal if this extra ration were not given by the government. My greatest sadness is that this is not a Hindu country. This is not a Muslim country. This is not a Madrasi country. This is not a Punjabi country. Be proud as Indians. You know, I feel ashamed of the behaviour of politicians. I mean, the one thing I did not ever want to do is get into politics. Yeah, no, but I agree. I think that what you said about, you know, like secular India, be proud to be Indian, absolutely agree. One thing about India that still surprises you after all of these years. Yeah, I'm worried about some things. So what I'm proud of, what I'm proud of that even if you go to the United States, or you go to Europe, or even if you're in India, when computing advanced and software development became the driver of wealth, Indians played an important role. When artificial intelligence is going to spread, then there are more Indian engineers with artificial intelligence than if you put the total European and Americans together, most of them are Indians. We unfortunately don't have political leaders who can convert the naturalness of the Indian mind to create more wealth and competitiveness than it does. So if you open the newspaper every morning, which I do at four o'clock, the only thing I see that the Bihar chief minister wants to become a Rajya Sabha member, some idiot is doing something else. I said, hey, I said, but you know, it might be a good thing that politics is keeping a lot of rubbish together, which is a very cynical way of doing it. But I said, what choice do we have? I'm positive about it. I'm positive. There's no question about it. People will revolt. I think what you said is right. We've been part of every sort of tech thing, the Indian mind is something special. See, when the midnight of 1999 and 2000, the midnight was going to take a switch, and I was at that time also on the board of British Airways, we were all very worried whether we should stop all the flights, because there was nothing built in that switch can take place when the whole century was changing. And the only people who could do it, in that time thousands of Indians were employed, at least for that period, to make that switch, because nobody, everybody else had forgotten that old technology, and British Airways did the same thing. So, you know, that's a great story. We don't read about it. Looking back, what do you say is one mistake that you're glad that you made? See, my wife had lung cancer in 1994. And since from 1994 to the time she died, every year we used to go to the same doctor to check. And he had told us long ago to stop coming. This was in England. But we went. But eventually, I will always wonder that did I go to heaven and earth to find somebody that might have cured her. This is what I call in the English language self-flagellation. But that's how normal, that's why I think I'm a normal Indian human being. Yeah, exactly. I think that really, that your humanity really shows through in the book. Your sharpness or your observations, you know, all of those come together. It's not only what I like about the book is it's, you know, it could have just been, all my achievements and this and that, but it was more a journey. It was more like your philosophies, you know, how you became who you are. And obviously, the sharp observations from someone who's lived through it all and seen that India transform, I think is a very rare thing for someone to, you know, put that down in such a succinct way as you have. I know that you're someone who is a man of action and who wants to have a larger impact and, you know, always wanted to contribute to building India. And I think a lot of youngsters are also resonating. I definitely resonate with you because, you know, we have that passion, we have that enthusiasm to create things, to be a part of this country. So, I think definitely it's very normal to want that. And with that, we'll end this conversation. This was a great, I have not had such a conversation in a long, long time. Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. Thank you. That's so kind of you. Hope you enjoyed this episode of Books and Beyond with Bound. This podcast is created by Bound, a company that helps you grow through stories. Find us at Bound India on all social media platforms. Tune in every Wednesday as we peek into the lives and minds of some brilliant authors from India and South Asia.