Page 37 - Seniors Today - June 2021 Issue
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a large degree of uncertainty. He once
privately explained to me over a cup of
coffee that when someone used the word
‘about’, he or she wasn’t sure of what he was
saying. Then he pointed to the coffee table in
front of him and said: ‘If I want to know the
diameter of this table and someone says it is
about 3 feet’, I can’t take that for an answer.
He continued: ‘Is it 3 feet and 1 inch or is it
an inch short of 3 feet?’. “In my profession, Celebrating Holi with Mike at the Mela Restaurant in
I need to be exact, I can’t be vague,” he Mumbai. LtoR Prabhakar Mundkur, Ivan Arthur and Mike
said. I was impressed by that little piece Khanna
of philosophy from Mike and to me that grew by leaps and bounds. He would make
was one of his keys to success. Over the regular trips to Bangalore to meet my clients
years, I found that I could satisfy his need and review the performance of the office.
for accuracy in everything I did including Dinner was always at the ITC Windsor.
writing the perfect minutes of a meeting, Mike liked good food. Then on one of his
normally considered a mundane task. visits I tentatively told him that Bangalore
For a long time, I was in awe of him, and was called the ‘pub city’ and during one of
I think our relationship was still a little his visits we should visit a pub. This was
distant when I was still a junior. But when I way back in 1992. He looked doubtfully at
grew in seniority, he finally posted me as the me, and asked me what we would eat there.
head of HTA Bangalore and our relationship I told him that we could have a something
called the ‘pub dinner’. He was intrigued but
Mike was adventurous enough to want to
go to a pub that night. So we sauntered off to
Pub World on Residency Road which was
the hot favourite those days in Bangalore.
Mike looked uncomfortable with the seating.
After all pub stools are not ergonomically
designed for comfort. But before he could get
too uncomfortable, we had our key Unilever
client walk in for a beer with his superboss
from Unilever, London. All of a sudden, this
was a great opportunity for Mike to interact
with the top brass of one of our major clients.
I believe when Mike got back to Mumbai, he
expounded on pub life in Bangalore to the
HTA folks in Bombay.
Mike was quick thinking. At a very
important pitch, a client who sold the most
Mike touching base with his people at a party. On the popular beer in the country once posed a
right is the late DK Bose difficult question for him. Said the client:
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #24 | JUNE 2021 37
