Picture courtesy: The Hindu
Veerappa Gangaiah Siddhartha Hegde unleashed the power of coffee for our benefit. The serenity of the CCD ambience was our true oasis in the urban desert. Its soothing aura, optimal lighting, and the reassuring rest rooms invariably more than made up for the monopoly and monotony of the staple beverages, sandwiches, biscuits, and cookies. For long, CCD was one of the best options to spend time or even kill it. This value prop is yet sterling in a country like India.
How could such a business be deemed a failure, notwithstanding the mounting debt, possibly flawed decisions, and even suspect fund deployments that may have collectively caused the debacle. Given a diligent founder like VG sir, a turnaround would certainly have been around the corner had the lenders cared to look beyond the obvious. VG sir's business model didn't fail, his backers failed him while his detractors made merry.
How could such a business be deemed a failure, notwithstanding the mounting debt, possibly flawed decisions, and even suspect fund deployments that may have collectively caused the debacle. Given a diligent founder like VG sir, a turnaround would certainly have been around the corner had the lenders cared to look beyond the obvious. VG sir's business model didn't fail, his backers failed him while his detractors made merry.
Scores of business ventures bleed like hell everyday but continue to run pompous ads across every form of media. Many dubious entities get acquired by the glorified big fish of insatiable appetites, and many armchair strategists regularly puke sermons on rescuing genuine value props from the eddy of doom and destruction, warming the globe while trotting it without good reason.
Why was then VG sir left alone to contemplate and commit suicide?
Especially when this investment banker-turned entreprenuer and farmer had given it all to his pioneering coffee chain of more than 1,700 outlets spread across India.
Why was he knowingly or unknowingly forced to demonstrate the truism of his tag line "A lot can happen over coffee"on a fatal note.
Had he still been in our midst, VG sir would have turned 62 on August 29. Tributes have been pouring in with unfailing regularity ever since we lost him, but the heartfelt words of IndiaPlaza founder Mr. Vaitheeswaran convey the unsaid, and continue to ring true:
"...when he stood alone on that bridge, with nobody holding his hand, he may have taken that sudden decision. He may have told himself, I have not been able to sleep for so many days, if I just jump, I can sleep in peace forever. I totally get it."