Anjali Gopalan won the battle against India’s homophobes this year
by Elizabeth Flock | Dec 26, 2009
Read it at Forbes
She is: The founder of the Naz Foundation
Work: Has given HIV positive people a chance to live with dignity through Naz
Big day: Campaigned for homosexuality to be decriminalised in India. After eight years, she achieved a victory when the court said the law did not extend to consenting sex between adults
Anjali Gopalan has been thrown out of court, out of women’s groups, and out of NGOs for children. She’s been told she’s not gay or lesbian and so homosexual harassment wasn’t her problem; that she was wasting her time working in the fields of HIV and AIDS; and that condoms weren’t necessary.
Eight long years were spent challenging the Section 377 of the Indian penal code, which had been used by the police to go after same sex behaviour among consenting adults. As a result, Gopalan received threats from people around the world bearing the same message: You’re destroying the fabric of society.
“Anyone else would have given up. But she has this incredible persistence, and she took up the case on behalf of the organisation,” says Anuradha Mukherjee, who left a 13-year-long stint at the Center for Advocacy and Research to become programme manager at Gopalan’s organisation, the Naz Foundation.
“With Anjali, even when what she says goes against what many others say, somehow, eventually everyone finds that they agree,” says Mukherjee.
It was 1994 when a man came into Gopalan’s office in Delhi and abandoned his HIV-infected nephew there, saying there was nothing he could do for him; Gopalan’s response — “Well, this is it, now we start a care home.” And so was born
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Phoenix Rising
A year after 26/11, the Taj Mahal Hotel is not just reclaiming a past, but also creating a new identity — room by room
by Elizabeth Flock | Dec 11, 2009
Read it at Forbes
When terrorists entered the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower heritage wing and sprayed the grand staircase with gun fire, the Sea Lounge and Ballroom on either side were devastated. In the centre of the staircase, the iconic hotel’s founder Jamsetji Tata looked on stiffly. But throughout the entire ordeal, the marble bust of the man remained unscathed.
“If you had seen what the place looked like, you would not have believed it,” says Ajoy Misra, senior vice president, sales and marketing at Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), Taj’s parent group. “There are many legends among the staff that Tata is the protector and preserves the Taj. The bust adds to that legend.”
While Tata’s bust was left untouched, most of the rest of the Palace heritage wing was decimated on 26/11 and the days after. The hotel that had withstood a great earthquake in the early 1900s, a fire and bomb in the port areas in the early 1940s, and acted as a hospital during the First World War could not withstand this sort of attack.
Historic Moorish and Florentine architecture, hundred-year-old and 1960s art deco design, as well as notable artworks were damaged beyond recognition. The country’s first licensed bar, first Sichuan restaurant, and most iconic sushi joint were badly hit. The art deco ballroom, elaborate suites given to top industrialists and heads of state, and the sixth floor that housed the general manager, too, were burned or otherwise destroyed.
The Taj senior management’s first reaction:
by Elizabeth Flock | Dec 11, 2009
Read it at Forbes
When terrorists entered the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower heritage wing and sprayed the grand staircase with gun fire, the Sea Lounge and Ballroom on either side were devastated. In the centre of the staircase, the iconic hotel’s founder Jamsetji Tata looked on stiffly. But throughout the entire ordeal, the marble bust of the man remained unscathed.
“If you had seen what the place looked like, you would not have believed it,” says Ajoy Misra, senior vice president, sales and marketing at Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), Taj’s parent group. “There are many legends among the staff that Tata is the protector and preserves the Taj. The bust adds to that legend.”
While Tata’s bust was left untouched, most of the rest of the Palace heritage wing was decimated on 26/11 and the days after. The hotel that had withstood a great earthquake in the early 1900s, a fire and bomb in the port areas in the early 1940s, and acted as a hospital during the First World War could not withstand this sort of attack.
Historic Moorish and Florentine architecture, hundred-year-old and 1960s art deco design, as well as notable artworks were damaged beyond recognition. The country’s first licensed bar, first Sichuan restaurant, and most iconic sushi joint were badly hit. The art deco ballroom, elaborate suites given to top industrialists and heads of state, and the sixth floor that housed the general manager, too, were burned or otherwise destroyed.
The Taj senior management’s first reaction:
Blades of Glory
From Switzerland to Colaba, the Swiss Army Knife has come a long way
by Elizabeth Flock | Dec 1, 2009
Read it at Forbes
Open a beer bottle. File your nails. Even tighten a screw. The Swiss Army Knife, born 125 years ago from one man’s nationalism, has since been widely used by armed forces, boy scouts and the common man alike. Celebrated for its ability to function in a hundred different situations, a single knife tool soon evolved to include a screwdriver, magnifying glass, and some ten other tools. Today, one avatar includes an MP3 player, USB flash drive, digital altimeter, LED light, and digital clock.
That’s a far cry from where the knife started. Before World War I, a lowly surgical equipment maker in Switzerland, Karl Elsener, found out that the Swiss army’s pocket knives were made in Germany. Elsener’s patriotism was offended and he decided to manufacture his own from Switzerland. He chucked out many of his original models until he found a spring mechanism — the pivot point — which allowed double the tools to fit inside that just nine centimetre-long red handle. The first knife had a wooden handle, large blade, screwdriver, can opener, and reamer. The Swiss armed forces loved it.
When Elsener’s mother Victoria died two decades later, he decided to name the company that soon manufactured not just knives but also travel gear, cutlery, and watches, after her. And because the knives were made of stainless steel, or ‘inox’, the company was aptly christened: Victorinox. The knife itself originally had a name that was much harder to pronounce — Schweizer Offizier Messer. US soldiers couldn’t say it, and simplified its name to just the Swiss Army Knife.
When World War II rolled around, the knife became a turncoat. Elsener found himself
by Elizabeth Flock | Dec 1, 2009
Read it at Forbes
Open a beer bottle. File your nails. Even tighten a screw. The Swiss Army Knife, born 125 years ago from one man’s nationalism, has since been widely used by armed forces, boy scouts and the common man alike. Celebrated for its ability to function in a hundred different situations, a single knife tool soon evolved to include a screwdriver, magnifying glass, and some ten other tools. Today, one avatar includes an MP3 player, USB flash drive, digital altimeter, LED light, and digital clock.
That’s a far cry from where the knife started. Before World War I, a lowly surgical equipment maker in Switzerland, Karl Elsener, found out that the Swiss army’s pocket knives were made in Germany. Elsener’s patriotism was offended and he decided to manufacture his own from Switzerland. He chucked out many of his original models until he found a spring mechanism — the pivot point — which allowed double the tools to fit inside that just nine centimetre-long red handle. The first knife had a wooden handle, large blade, screwdriver, can opener, and reamer. The Swiss armed forces loved it.
When Elsener’s mother Victoria died two decades later, he decided to name the company that soon manufactured not just knives but also travel gear, cutlery, and watches, after her. And because the knives were made of stainless steel, or ‘inox’, the company was aptly christened: Victorinox. The knife itself originally had a name that was much harder to pronounce — Schweizer Offizier Messer. US soldiers couldn’t say it, and simplified its name to just the Swiss Army Knife.
When World War II rolled around, the knife became a turncoat. Elsener found himself
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Big Goa Land Grab
Foreigners came seeking paradise; they’re now in a complicated legal hell
by Elizabeth Flock | Nov 11, 2009
Read it at Forbes
Last December, Nicholas Papa and Michael Cooper got an early Christmas present: A show cause notice from the Directorate of Enforcement (DoE). It carried two messages: Your home may soon be confiscated; you will be fined three times the land’s value.
Papa and Cooper (Nick and Mick, as they call themselves) moved to Goa from the UK nine years ago. In Aldona, a few kilometres from the beach, they bought a bungalow for Rs. 30 lakh and spent another Rs. 18 lakh renovating it, intending to retire there on Cooper’s pension fund. Under the stress of possibly losing their life savings and home, Cooper, 65, had a mental breakdown this January. “They want us to leave,” says Papa, “but won’t let us sell our house, won’t let us gift it. We gave up everything to come here, and now we will lose it all.”
More than 400 foreigners — mostly British — have received similar notices from the DoE.
Paradise Lost
The story of Westerner’s choosing Goa as a place to settle down began when Western hippies first discovered Goa’s beaches. Certainly, laid-back North Goa lured many smitten visitors to set up home there. From 2000 to 2005, the number of foreign landowners swelled. Many were Britons who planned to retire there, on pension or dole money.
By 2004, land values — and tensions — were rising. Many
by Elizabeth Flock | Nov 11, 2009
Read it at Forbes
Last December, Nicholas Papa and Michael Cooper got an early Christmas present: A show cause notice from the Directorate of Enforcement (DoE). It carried two messages: Your home may soon be confiscated; you will be fined three times the land’s value.
Papa and Cooper (Nick and Mick, as they call themselves) moved to Goa from the UK nine years ago. In Aldona, a few kilometres from the beach, they bought a bungalow for Rs. 30 lakh and spent another Rs. 18 lakh renovating it, intending to retire there on Cooper’s pension fund. Under the stress of possibly losing their life savings and home, Cooper, 65, had a mental breakdown this January. “They want us to leave,” says Papa, “but won’t let us sell our house, won’t let us gift it. We gave up everything to come here, and now we will lose it all.”
More than 400 foreigners — mostly British — have received similar notices from the DoE.
Paradise Lost
The story of Westerner’s choosing Goa as a place to settle down began when Western hippies first discovered Goa’s beaches. Certainly, laid-back North Goa lured many smitten visitors to set up home there. From 2000 to 2005, the number of foreign landowners swelled. Many were Britons who planned to retire there, on pension or dole money.
By 2004, land values — and tensions — were rising. Many
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The Different Ways to Make ESOP work
Two different ways of making ESOPs work
by Elizabeth Flock, N.S. Ramnath | Nov 3, 2009
Read it at Forbes
Axis Bank
UTI Bank, which changed its name to Axis Bank in 2007, was one of the earliest in the banking sector to experiment with employee stock options. It launched a scheme as early as 2001, starting with the unreserved objective of covering all employees, based on performance.
Over the years, the scheme has undergone changes, teaching the bank an important lesson: Not everybody in the organisation wants ESOPs and even for those who do, the current market price is an important consideration.
When Axis Bank first designed the ESOP scheme, there was much debate about how broad-based it should be, says Snehomoy Bhattacharya, president of human resources.
The bank chose to include all employees except the poorest performers. “In surveys, we were below our competitors on cash performance bonuses. Also, we did not have an aggressive variable pay plan. So, we decided ESOPs would be a good way to compensate employees, even at lower levels,” he says.
At first, employees didn’t take well to the new plan. Only when the stock price started climbing, they saw the point and embraced the scheme. The first major change came in 2004. Axis Bank had been accounting the difference between the price at which options were granted and the prevailing market price as an expenditure on the books. “We noticed we were taking a hit,” says Bhattacharya. So, the company changed the formula for pricing the options.
It switched from the 52-week average to the previous day’s close as the basis for the grant price. This helped the company eliminate its accounting expenditure, and also wiped out the arbitrage the employees enjoyed between the two prices.
The next year dealt a bigger blow to ESOPs. The government brought them under the ambit of fringe benefit tax (FBT). Any difference between the fair market value and the vesting price came to be taxed at 33.99 percent. The industry was enraged at what it saw as an unfair levy, but the government did not budge.
At Axis Bank, the management decided to pass on the FBT burden to employees, taking advantage of a clause in the tax laws. This and the new pricing formula had a telling impact on the popularity of ESOPs. Employees have exercised far fewer options from 2005 to the present than they did in the first four years of the plan. In April 2004, more than three million options were exercised, up from one million at the start in April 2001. However, in April 2007, that number had dropped to less than 3 lakhs. The amount of wealth created had exceeded Rs. 100 crore in April 2004, but had dropped to just Rs. 10 crore in the same month three years later.
The year 2008 saw a big shift in Axis Bank’s ESOP strategy. In April, the company decided to narrow the scope of the plan to only employees in the middle management and above. Staff in the
lower rungs was excluded.
There were two reasons for this. Previously, the company was growing at an exponential rate, but growth slowed down and they could not give options to everyone anymore. Also, lower level employees appreciate a cash bonus more than an ESOP. The bank had looked at the plan as a long-term wealth creating exercise, but the employees didn’t.
Axis is now toying with ideas such as phantom stocks and restricted stock units. “These options may result in cash outflow. We want wealth creation without impacting the bank. But in these conditions, we may be forced to explore options for better compensation of employees,”
Bhattacharya says.
by Elizabeth Flock, N.S. Ramnath | Nov 3, 2009
Read it at Forbes
Axis Bank
UTI Bank, which changed its name to Axis Bank in 2007, was one of the earliest in the banking sector to experiment with employee stock options. It launched a scheme as early as 2001, starting with the unreserved objective of covering all employees, based on performance.
Over the years, the scheme has undergone changes, teaching the bank an important lesson: Not everybody in the organisation wants ESOPs and even for those who do, the current market price is an important consideration.
When Axis Bank first designed the ESOP scheme, there was much debate about how broad-based it should be, says Snehomoy Bhattacharya, president of human resources.
The bank chose to include all employees except the poorest performers. “In surveys, we were below our competitors on cash performance bonuses. Also, we did not have an aggressive variable pay plan. So, we decided ESOPs would be a good way to compensate employees, even at lower levels,” he says.
At first, employees didn’t take well to the new plan. Only when the stock price started climbing, they saw the point and embraced the scheme. The first major change came in 2004. Axis Bank had been accounting the difference between the price at which options were granted and the prevailing market price as an expenditure on the books. “We noticed we were taking a hit,” says Bhattacharya. So, the company changed the formula for pricing the options.
It switched from the 52-week average to the previous day’s close as the basis for the grant price. This helped the company eliminate its accounting expenditure, and also wiped out the arbitrage the employees enjoyed between the two prices.
The next year dealt a bigger blow to ESOPs. The government brought them under the ambit of fringe benefit tax (FBT). Any difference between the fair market value and the vesting price came to be taxed at 33.99 percent. The industry was enraged at what it saw as an unfair levy, but the government did not budge.
At Axis Bank, the management decided to pass on the FBT burden to employees, taking advantage of a clause in the tax laws. This and the new pricing formula had a telling impact on the popularity of ESOPs. Employees have exercised far fewer options from 2005 to the present than they did in the first four years of the plan. In April 2004, more than three million options were exercised, up from one million at the start in April 2001. However, in April 2007, that number had dropped to less than 3 lakhs. The amount of wealth created had exceeded Rs. 100 crore in April 2004, but had dropped to just Rs. 10 crore in the same month three years later.
The year 2008 saw a big shift in Axis Bank’s ESOP strategy. In April, the company decided to narrow the scope of the plan to only employees in the middle management and above. Staff in the
lower rungs was excluded.
There were two reasons for this. Previously, the company was growing at an exponential rate, but growth slowed down and they could not give options to everyone anymore. Also, lower level employees appreciate a cash bonus more than an ESOP. The bank had looked at the plan as a long-term wealth creating exercise, but the employees didn’t.
Axis is now toying with ideas such as phantom stocks and restricted stock units. “These options may result in cash outflow. We want wealth creation without impacting the bank. But in these conditions, we may be forced to explore options for better compensation of employees,”
Bhattacharya says.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Princess Diaries
Shahnaz Husain converted her teenage passion into a thriving beauty business. Now she must let it move on beyond her
by Elizabeth Flock | Sep 29, 2009
Read it at Forbes
Shahnaz Husain is larger than life. And that has been the beauty secret of her brand of Ayurvedic products that promises to not only care but also cure. It’s not just the imposing figure she cuts, with her sweeping Louis Vuitton robes, lion mane of hennaed hair and the massive diamond studding her nose. It’s not just the bowing servants calling her Princess, the house decorations fit for royalty and the photographer and videographer trailing her at all times. It’s the fact that at 65, Husain is still spending 20 hours a day rushing from press conference to factory to office to press conference again (often in other countries) with the same gusto and conviction, despite the younger generation clawing to take over.
“If it bears my name, it catches on,” says Husain, the lady who turned her teenage passion into a Rs. 250 crore a year company, Shahnaz Husain Herbals (SHH). Today, branded Ayurvedic products are dime a dozen, but in 1970, Husain was the first to take age-old beauty treatments largely practiced at home, and sell them across the counter. Over the past four decades, she has franchised out 400 beauty parlours where well-heeled women gather for beauty treatments made from extracts of diamond, gold and rose petals.
“If it bears my name, it catches on,” says Husain, the lady who turned her teenage passion into a Rs. 250 crore a year company
She never advertised but made sure no product went without her face. SHH expanded to more than 100 countries as a result of Husain’s constant wooing of the media around the world.
But today, after being synonymous with beauty care for four decades, Husain’s business is showing signs of greying. The things that made SHH work — niche, expensive, unadvertised brand — might now be the chinks in its armour.
On the one hand, international brands such as Clarins, The Body Shop and L’Oreal are taking away the attention of the younger generation. On the other, beauty treatment has spread beyond the elite and embraced the mass market. But SHH has stuck to the formula it developed in the 1970s and 1980s. Its old world charm is not able to attract new-age customers. Ask Husain about it and she brushes off her competitors: “We don’t have any competitors. Dabur is into health. Clarins doesn’t do cures. No one does cures but us.”
But her salons in Delhi are populated by ageing women who are ever in need of her anti-wrinkle cream, and are noticeably absent of teens who might use her kajal. “The company is losing its sheen, whether Shahnaz is around or not. There are now so many mass market products and so many options. It needs a more focussed way of getting to the consumer,” says Sonam Udasi, vice president, research and group head - consumers at Brics Securities.
The Right Mix
In 1958, when Husain got engaged, she was all of 14. By 16, she had her daughter. The young mother was quite bored and wanted to do something new. “Mr. Husain was posted far away. So I started mixing in my house…” For about 10 years, she ran the business informally from home. But when she saw the success of a friend’s parlour, which she had help set up, she wondered why she couldn’t do the same.
In 1970, she opened a small salon in Delhi. Funding was not a problem as she came from an illustrious family. “My father and grandfather were chief justices. On my mother’s side they were commander-in-chiefs,” says Husain. But it was not the money that made it work; it was the idea of branding Ayurveda. The potions she had concocted at home established her as one of the most well-known brands in India. That was the situation until now.
But Husain is ageing and may not have all the answers to the company’s problems in the future. She must find a successor to carry on after her. Unfortunately, her son Sameer who could have inherited the business, died last year. Husain isn’t willing to discuss her alternatives. “I’ve had no thought of teaching or planning a takeover,” says Husain.
What she does not say is that the company is already able to operate without her. Ever so slowly, Husain has — unwittingly or not — primed more than a few people to be able to take over and they are bucking at the reins to do so. They are already changing the face of SHH, perhaps for the better.
At first glance, the likely heiress is her daughter Nelofar Currimbhoy, president of SHH, who sports a similar lioness head of hair, husky voice, and glamourous animal print clothing. Currimbhoy, who handles local distribution, business expansion and research and development, grew up knowing just her mother’s business.
“I can’t think of a point when I joined the business. I was born and will melt away into Shahnaz Husain Herbals,” she says. Currimbhoy has made significant contributions to the company, such as conceptualising three of Shahnaz’s most popular lines — gold, pearl, and flower power. But she admits she doesn’t have the same fervour as her mother. Nor does Currimbhoy have the star power her mother has.
While Shahnaz Hussain does not declare her grandson as heir Sharik Currimbhoy says,
Image: Amit Verma
While Shahnaz Hussain does not declare her grandson as heir Sharik Currimbhoy says, "Well, I am the inheritor."
Chips off the Old Block
But there was someone else who would have been the successor to SHH and was in many ways Husain’s own facsimile. Sameer, Husain’s son, was a relatively well-known rapper and loved the limelight as much as his mother. Though Sameer Dada was “very much into becoming the next Michael Jackson,” according to Husain, that was just a hobby in comparison to his dedication as president of the company. But in January 2008, Sameer died after falling from the third floor of his in-laws’ flat in Patna.
A law suit was never settled over whether Sameer had jumped to his death or was pushed.
There is one more member of the Husain family who can hold the limelight. “My mother works only by instinct. Some people just have the business instinct. I don’t,” says Currimbhoy. “My son does.”
When asked about her succession plan, Husain does not mention her grandson. But it is clear the 28-year-old is already very much in charge. One of the first sentences out of Sharik Currimbhoy’s mouth is, “Well, I am the inheritor.” The mix of pride and fearlessness is the same as his grandmother’s. It’s also clear he is the only one who can turn around the company.
After studying at Columbia University in New York, Sharik started an infotech company. After selling the company in 2003, Sharik came back to India in search of something else. “One day I was sitting with my grandmother and she said ‘why don’t you take over the franchisees?’ I thought, why not? I’ll do that to keep myself busy and decide what I want to do next. But then I found out I was really good at what I was doing like selling things to people.”
Sharik didn’t just take over the franchisees. He also took over the entire export business, hiring, marketing and pricing. Husain does concede this much: “He has new ideas all the time, and the ideas are visionary. He is a tomorrow child.”
For one, Sharik overhauled pricing internationally. When he started, SHH was pricing products the same in every country and a shop would mark it up however it liked. Now, Sharik looks at the end price and works backwards, so that a product is not sold for the same price in the Middle East as it is in the UK.
Sharik has other ideas that go directly against the SHH modus operandi. One such idea is to take the niche brand mass-market. But, Husain insists this was her idea. Two years ago, she claims, a girl chased her down in Delhi, nearly killing herself running across traffic. “She wanted my autograph and I said do you use Shahnaz? She said no, it’s too expensive. And from that moment on, I decided to do mass marketed products, to make products for her.”
Old ways of mixing by hand will give way to automated processes at SSH
Image: Amit Verma
Old ways of mixing by hand will give way to automated processes at SSH
But over the last two years that product line hasn’t come out. “We’ve been hearing rumours about Shahnaz Husain Herbals going mass market for years,” says Vikas Mittal, vice president of marketing, at Dabur India.
Sharik seems to have finally pushed that line into completion and is expected to release by the end of this year under the name Shahnaz Forever. (The international version has already launched).
Consumer product analysts think the mass market is just what SHH needs. “The only way for them to grow, whether Shahnaz is the anchor or not, is to tie up with a partner, or go mass market,” says Udasi of Brics Securities.
Udasi also thinks SHH should tie up with a mid-tier FMCG company in India, so it can utilise the partners’ distribution line up and get much better margins. SHH has no plans for such a large-scale partnership domestically, although it has 400 distribution partners, through which 90 percent of its products are sold. Sharik has also pushed through key partnerships internationally, such as renewing a partnership with the New Medical Center, one of the biggest FMCGs in the Middle East.
Changes in the DNA
SHH became a talking point at Harvard Business School many years ago when professors were wowed by the fact that it did not advertise. “I was invited to speak at Harvard. They say you violate every norm we teach. They say you need a certain amount of money to launch. We have made a huge brand [which is] internationally recognised without any advertising at all. I just call the press,” laughs Husain.
But both Sharik and his mother have decided it’s time to make a change in Husain’s no-advertising mantra. The new Shahnaz Forever line will be fully advertised. “I don’t think in a business there should be a rule forever,” says Currimbhoy.
Sharik also has long-term plans for diversification. He gives the example of Dabur, which started out in healthcare but later expanded into other businesses. “Twenty years down, we might even own a power plant,” he says, laughing — that is, if his grandmom lets him have his say.
Things are changing at SHH’s factories too. The 150-employee Noida factory is semi-automatic, because Husain insists that she’s “selling civilisation in a jar” and because she wants more employment, says the factor’s manager, Javed Iqbal. One employee even manually adds rose petals slowly to a mix. Iqbal says, “If I had a chance, I would remove half the guys working here for the last 15-20 years. They aren’t needed.” At the manual machines, 3,000 products are made in eight hours. Iqbal points to the fully automatic machine line, and grins, “Twelve thousand products are finished on this line in eight hours.” The new SHH factory in Roorkey will have just 100 employees but three-four times the production level of the Noida plant because it will be fully automatic.
Husain isn’t unhappy about the changes. “He [Sharik] hasn’t changed things. He has just combined my vision with his vision. I’ve never said no to him for anything he wants to do. I pay the price, the next generation bears the fruit.”
After Shahnaz
SHH is sure to change after the enigma of Shahnaz Husain is gone. But Currimbhoy is confident the company won’t miss a step, as it is no longer as much about the magnetism of her mother as it is the strength of their products.
Others disagree. “It’s been difficult for any new entrant to the mass market in recent years. Distribution channels are a problem, getting to the younger generation is a problem. I have doubts that they can be successful,” says Udasi. Sanjeev Malhotra, managing director, Alia Group, which represents SHH, agrees that distribution will be a challenge, especially in rural areas. But he thinks the company is in a sweet spot because of the loyal customer base and addition of new distribution partners.
When you ask Shahnaz if the company will go on after she is gone, she sighs. “Well, nothing lasts forever. But a company goes on. If the roots are strong, it might stagger, but it will go on.”
http://business.in.com/article/work-in-progress/princess-diaries/4682/1
by Elizabeth Flock | Sep 29, 2009
Read it at Forbes
Shahnaz Husain is larger than life. And that has been the beauty secret of her brand of Ayurvedic products that promises to not only care but also cure. It’s not just the imposing figure she cuts, with her sweeping Louis Vuitton robes, lion mane of hennaed hair and the massive diamond studding her nose. It’s not just the bowing servants calling her Princess, the house decorations fit for royalty and the photographer and videographer trailing her at all times. It’s the fact that at 65, Husain is still spending 20 hours a day rushing from press conference to factory to office to press conference again (often in other countries) with the same gusto and conviction, despite the younger generation clawing to take over.
“If it bears my name, it catches on,” says Husain, the lady who turned her teenage passion into a Rs. 250 crore a year company, Shahnaz Husain Herbals (SHH). Today, branded Ayurvedic products are dime a dozen, but in 1970, Husain was the first to take age-old beauty treatments largely practiced at home, and sell them across the counter. Over the past four decades, she has franchised out 400 beauty parlours where well-heeled women gather for beauty treatments made from extracts of diamond, gold and rose petals.
“If it bears my name, it catches on,” says Husain, the lady who turned her teenage passion into a Rs. 250 crore a year company
She never advertised but made sure no product went without her face. SHH expanded to more than 100 countries as a result of Husain’s constant wooing of the media around the world.
But today, after being synonymous with beauty care for four decades, Husain’s business is showing signs of greying. The things that made SHH work — niche, expensive, unadvertised brand — might now be the chinks in its armour.
On the one hand, international brands such as Clarins, The Body Shop and L’Oreal are taking away the attention of the younger generation. On the other, beauty treatment has spread beyond the elite and embraced the mass market. But SHH has stuck to the formula it developed in the 1970s and 1980s. Its old world charm is not able to attract new-age customers. Ask Husain about it and she brushes off her competitors: “We don’t have any competitors. Dabur is into health. Clarins doesn’t do cures. No one does cures but us.”
But her salons in Delhi are populated by ageing women who are ever in need of her anti-wrinkle cream, and are noticeably absent of teens who might use her kajal. “The company is losing its sheen, whether Shahnaz is around or not. There are now so many mass market products and so many options. It needs a more focussed way of getting to the consumer,” says Sonam Udasi, vice president, research and group head - consumers at Brics Securities.
The Right Mix
In 1958, when Husain got engaged, she was all of 14. By 16, she had her daughter. The young mother was quite bored and wanted to do something new. “Mr. Husain was posted far away. So I started mixing in my house…” For about 10 years, she ran the business informally from home. But when she saw the success of a friend’s parlour, which she had help set up, she wondered why she couldn’t do the same.
In 1970, she opened a small salon in Delhi. Funding was not a problem as she came from an illustrious family. “My father and grandfather were chief justices. On my mother’s side they were commander-in-chiefs,” says Husain. But it was not the money that made it work; it was the idea of branding Ayurveda. The potions she had concocted at home established her as one of the most well-known brands in India. That was the situation until now.
But Husain is ageing and may not have all the answers to the company’s problems in the future. She must find a successor to carry on after her. Unfortunately, her son Sameer who could have inherited the business, died last year. Husain isn’t willing to discuss her alternatives. “I’ve had no thought of teaching or planning a takeover,” says Husain.
What she does not say is that the company is already able to operate without her. Ever so slowly, Husain has — unwittingly or not — primed more than a few people to be able to take over and they are bucking at the reins to do so. They are already changing the face of SHH, perhaps for the better.
At first glance, the likely heiress is her daughter Nelofar Currimbhoy, president of SHH, who sports a similar lioness head of hair, husky voice, and glamourous animal print clothing. Currimbhoy, who handles local distribution, business expansion and research and development, grew up knowing just her mother’s business.
“I can’t think of a point when I joined the business. I was born and will melt away into Shahnaz Husain Herbals,” she says. Currimbhoy has made significant contributions to the company, such as conceptualising three of Shahnaz’s most popular lines — gold, pearl, and flower power. But she admits she doesn’t have the same fervour as her mother. Nor does Currimbhoy have the star power her mother has.
While Shahnaz Hussain does not declare her grandson as heir Sharik Currimbhoy says,
Image: Amit Verma
While Shahnaz Hussain does not declare her grandson as heir Sharik Currimbhoy says, "Well, I am the inheritor."
Chips off the Old Block
But there was someone else who would have been the successor to SHH and was in many ways Husain’s own facsimile. Sameer, Husain’s son, was a relatively well-known rapper and loved the limelight as much as his mother. Though Sameer Dada was “very much into becoming the next Michael Jackson,” according to Husain, that was just a hobby in comparison to his dedication as president of the company. But in January 2008, Sameer died after falling from the third floor of his in-laws’ flat in Patna.
A law suit was never settled over whether Sameer had jumped to his death or was pushed.
There is one more member of the Husain family who can hold the limelight. “My mother works only by instinct. Some people just have the business instinct. I don’t,” says Currimbhoy. “My son does.”
When asked about her succession plan, Husain does not mention her grandson. But it is clear the 28-year-old is already very much in charge. One of the first sentences out of Sharik Currimbhoy’s mouth is, “Well, I am the inheritor.” The mix of pride and fearlessness is the same as his grandmother’s. It’s also clear he is the only one who can turn around the company.
After studying at Columbia University in New York, Sharik started an infotech company. After selling the company in 2003, Sharik came back to India in search of something else. “One day I was sitting with my grandmother and she said ‘why don’t you take over the franchisees?’ I thought, why not? I’ll do that to keep myself busy and decide what I want to do next. But then I found out I was really good at what I was doing like selling things to people.”
Sharik didn’t just take over the franchisees. He also took over the entire export business, hiring, marketing and pricing. Husain does concede this much: “He has new ideas all the time, and the ideas are visionary. He is a tomorrow child.”
For one, Sharik overhauled pricing internationally. When he started, SHH was pricing products the same in every country and a shop would mark it up however it liked. Now, Sharik looks at the end price and works backwards, so that a product is not sold for the same price in the Middle East as it is in the UK.
Sharik has other ideas that go directly against the SHH modus operandi. One such idea is to take the niche brand mass-market. But, Husain insists this was her idea. Two years ago, she claims, a girl chased her down in Delhi, nearly killing herself running across traffic. “She wanted my autograph and I said do you use Shahnaz? She said no, it’s too expensive. And from that moment on, I decided to do mass marketed products, to make products for her.”
Old ways of mixing by hand will give way to automated processes at SSH
Image: Amit Verma
Old ways of mixing by hand will give way to automated processes at SSH
But over the last two years that product line hasn’t come out. “We’ve been hearing rumours about Shahnaz Husain Herbals going mass market for years,” says Vikas Mittal, vice president of marketing, at Dabur India.
Sharik seems to have finally pushed that line into completion and is expected to release by the end of this year under the name Shahnaz Forever. (The international version has already launched).
Consumer product analysts think the mass market is just what SHH needs. “The only way for them to grow, whether Shahnaz is the anchor or not, is to tie up with a partner, or go mass market,” says Udasi of Brics Securities.
Udasi also thinks SHH should tie up with a mid-tier FMCG company in India, so it can utilise the partners’ distribution line up and get much better margins. SHH has no plans for such a large-scale partnership domestically, although it has 400 distribution partners, through which 90 percent of its products are sold. Sharik has also pushed through key partnerships internationally, such as renewing a partnership with the New Medical Center, one of the biggest FMCGs in the Middle East.
Changes in the DNA
SHH became a talking point at Harvard Business School many years ago when professors were wowed by the fact that it did not advertise. “I was invited to speak at Harvard. They say you violate every norm we teach. They say you need a certain amount of money to launch. We have made a huge brand [which is] internationally recognised without any advertising at all. I just call the press,” laughs Husain.
But both Sharik and his mother have decided it’s time to make a change in Husain’s no-advertising mantra. The new Shahnaz Forever line will be fully advertised. “I don’t think in a business there should be a rule forever,” says Currimbhoy.
Sharik also has long-term plans for diversification. He gives the example of Dabur, which started out in healthcare but later expanded into other businesses. “Twenty years down, we might even own a power plant,” he says, laughing — that is, if his grandmom lets him have his say.
Things are changing at SHH’s factories too. The 150-employee Noida factory is semi-automatic, because Husain insists that she’s “selling civilisation in a jar” and because she wants more employment, says the factor’s manager, Javed Iqbal. One employee even manually adds rose petals slowly to a mix. Iqbal says, “If I had a chance, I would remove half the guys working here for the last 15-20 years. They aren’t needed.” At the manual machines, 3,000 products are made in eight hours. Iqbal points to the fully automatic machine line, and grins, “Twelve thousand products are finished on this line in eight hours.” The new SHH factory in Roorkey will have just 100 employees but three-four times the production level of the Noida plant because it will be fully automatic.
Husain isn’t unhappy about the changes. “He [Sharik] hasn’t changed things. He has just combined my vision with his vision. I’ve never said no to him for anything he wants to do. I pay the price, the next generation bears the fruit.”
After Shahnaz
SHH is sure to change after the enigma of Shahnaz Husain is gone. But Currimbhoy is confident the company won’t miss a step, as it is no longer as much about the magnetism of her mother as it is the strength of their products.
Others disagree. “It’s been difficult for any new entrant to the mass market in recent years. Distribution channels are a problem, getting to the younger generation is a problem. I have doubts that they can be successful,” says Udasi. Sanjeev Malhotra, managing director, Alia Group, which represents SHH, agrees that distribution will be a challenge, especially in rural areas. But he thinks the company is in a sweet spot because of the loyal customer base and addition of new distribution partners.
When you ask Shahnaz if the company will go on after she is gone, she sighs. “Well, nothing lasts forever. But a company goes on. If the roots are strong, it might stagger, but it will go on.”
http://business.in.com/article/work-in-progress/princess-diaries/4682/1
Being Vegan in India
Veganism as a concept is practically unknown in India, as this starry-eyed idealist learned when she attempted to keep the faith
by Elizabeth Flock | Sep 26, 2009
Read it at Forbes
When I moved to India, I thought it would be a vegan’s Mecca, a place where, at last, I could mingle with others who practiced a lifestyle just as fervently as I did.
I had chosen veganism a few years before because the whole animal slaughter thing became too difficult to ignore. I knew that most often the motivation for vegetarianism in India was more religious than animal-inspired, but the idea that an entire country could strive for ahimsa towards animals seemed both astonishing and perfect.
That first day in India, taking in the barrage of things foreign and unknown on Mumbai’s streets, one thing stood out: Nearly every restaurant had a sign that marked itself as “Veg” or “Non-Veg.” Entire restaurants devoted to vegetarianism? I had died and gone to heaven!
Later that day, traipsing through the supermarket with naïve glee, I revelled in the system of labelling in which vegetarian products bore a green dot in a green square and animal-based products bore the label in brown. Very few vegetarian labels existed in the US.
The Jain family with whom I was staying told me how pleased they were that I had chosen vegetarianism even though I was American. (Translation: They were glad that even though I was from a heathen country where a typical dinner was a hunk of meat, I had chosen to forego that.)
The notion of the sacred cow, which I loved ingenuously as a kid, I saw in practice: Buses and cars bunched up in traffic to let them pass. It all seemed too good to be true. And it was.
You see, while India can lay claim to the earliest records of vegetarianism, adopted for similar reasons to mine — “Thou shalt not kill to eat” — the more than 30 percent of the population who are vegetarians in India are lacto-vegetarian. Vegetarianism comes in different categories, and it is these crucial distinctions that make my trusting vegan assumption so wrong.
Lacto-vegetarians consume dairy products, and this country consumes a lot of them. India is the number one milk-producing country in the world, and dairy products are a vital part of the diet, in both rural and urban areas. I soon realised Amul’s milk, butter, and cheese were as ubiquitous as their ads.
Veganism runs against all of this. As a diet and as a lifestyle, it excludes the use of any animal products to produce food, clothing, or anything else you might use in daily life. So, not just no milk, curd or ice cream; it also means no silk sarees, leather shoes, and making the sometimes Herculean effort to use alternate toothpaste, shaving cream, and other basic products. Even sugar, which can be refined using charred animal bones, is taboo. (The first time I was told this by a zealous vegan cash register girl, I sheepishly removed the sugar from my shopping cart, and wondered if I would ever enjoy dessert again.)
Going to a restaurant was the first test of my veganism in India. My ignorance of Indian dishes at that time aside, there were few items on the menu which excluded dairy products.
Actually, that first time, there were none. Undeterred, I asked the waiter to please leave out the following: sugar, butter, milk, and any other dairy products. He looked at me without expression, though in my self-consciousness, I sensed derision. “Par wahi to khana hai,” he said, take all that away and what’s left? When the food came, I realised the dal had the glorious-yet-prohibited taste of ghee, which I had forgotten to mention.
After lunch, we went to get roadside tea. The vendor happily agreed to leave out the milk. Later, I found out the flavouring agent in the tea came from animals.
Just like in the US, animal products were intrinsically woven into the daily fabric of life.
As for vegan non-food products in India, forget it. Toothpaste? Bone powder. The beautifully-patterned shirts and sarees I had always longed for? Silk. Most cosmetics have wax. And alas for my premature excitement over supermarket labels: The same manufacturers who are so stringent about green dots and squares often do not list milk in their ingredients. That is, when they bother to list ingredients at all.
In a country that loves dairy products, and uses so many other animal-produced luxuries, I wondered dejectedly — but with a lingering sense of American superiority — was veganism even possible here?
Manish Jain is a vegan, and the creator of IndianVegan.com, a portal which promotes veganism in India by stressing ethical reasons, debunking myths and employing health experts for back-up.
Jain lives in Indore, and he says he can easily find all the necessary plant-based products needed to replace animal ones.
“Maybe it would be a problem in a small town. But in any city, you can replace dairy products with soya products, which are cheaply available. Instead of ice cream, you can eat gelato. We even order vegan cakes home.”
I was confused. Mumbai obviously had a wider selection of foods and products than Indore, yet I hadn’t found vegan products to be cheap, or easily available. Soya tofu that had any sane level of fat cost Rs 150 for a small pack, when a satisfying vegetarian meal in a restaurant cost just Rs 40. Seitan or tempeh, two Asian substitutes for meat, which are readily available in the US, were nowhere to be found.
Image: Abhijeet Kini
Jain tries another tactic. Many Indian foods, he says, are naturally vegan, such as dals, pulses, and legumes. He names bhindi masala and khachu as two delicious and purely vegan dishes. He was right. And after time, I found out how to specify exactly what not to include, instead of telling waiters, “Muje sirf ek bottle paani chaiye.” I soon found pure vegan restaurants in Mumbai, and even vegan groups in various cities around India.
While I had felt sheepishly jejune after realising I had confused vegetarians with the likelihood of a vegan lifestyle among them, I wasn’t completely off the herbivorous mark. The term ‘vegan’ was first used in the UK in 1944; a proper vegan community had already been in place in India for 20 years. Goodbye, lingering sense of Western superiority!
And yet, nearly 100 years later, that movement is still in its infancy in India. There have been some baby steps, and even large leaps, lately. McDonald’s, best known for its carnivorous menu of burgers and shakes, began to offer vegan meals in India in 2006.
The Indian Vegan Society, a branch of the Vegan Society in the UK, is bringing veganism more mainstream through concerts, book events, and excursions. Even Café Coffee Day now has a vegan shake.
But while restaurant menus can be modified, and most dals don’t have ghee, staying vegan sometimes isn’t possible. On domestic flights, for example, vegan food isn’t an option. Most Indian airlines, so careful to offer one or more vegetarian options, have nothing to offer to vegans.
I know what you are all thinking. Is this vegan thing even healthy? Forget India for a minute. Can a person subsist without dairy products, or any animal products, anywhere? I assure you they can.
To be balanced, I must say that the vegan lifestyle has long been criticised. In June last year, the debate came to a head when a 12-year-old girl in Scotland, whose parents kept her on a vegan diet, was rushed to the hospital with a degenerative bone condition. Back in 2001, a 10-month-old baby died from that diet. But while the parents were taken to task for their grave mistake, most health experts eventually decided the problem was the age of the children in combination with the diet, not veganism alone.
A few doctors in the US, India, and elsewhere, have told me that veganism isn’t healthy. Having someone tell you the way you are living is misguided is not easy to swallow. But its true that many vegans miss out on protein, calcium, iodine, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, and omega 3 fatty acids, they say. I thought it sounded like a lot of mumbo-jumbo until I found out about the problems deficiencies of these vital elements can cause. For instance, children who are fed an unbalanced vegan diet can get anaemia, rickets, or cretinism. (Read: Extreme fatigue, soft bones, and stunted growth.) Adults may be diagnosed with osteomalacia, softening of the bones, or hypothyroidism, an underactive thyroid gland, which can cause a host of other problems.
Most doctors agree, however, that the vegan diet is not the problem. The culprit is the poor dietary planning that often results from that diet. Many vegans substitute dairy products or meat with unhealthy processed foods. Mea culpa: I often submit to the allure of deep-fried banana chips instead of a real banana.
Dr. Deepika Malik, CEO of LifeCentury.com and Dr. Deepika’s Wellness, two widely-consulted health portals, stresses that vegans must make an extra effort to include certain elements in their diet.
“A person needs one gramme of protein per kilo that they weigh, daily. So a 60 kg person needs 60 grams of protein, which vegetarians can get through soya. Vegans must especially focus on calcium, which lacto-vegetarians get from dairy products. They can eat sesame seeds, almonds, green leafy vegetables, or take calcium supplements to satisfy this need.”
Image: Abhijeet Kini
The parents of the little girl in Scotland weren’t giving her enough calcium, which is why she ended up with a bone disease. The balance just wasn’t there.
Even more likely than calcium deficiency is deficiency of Vitamin B12. Jain concedes that vegans can never naturally include B12 in their diet — it is a bacteria not found in plant foods. He suggests vegans take a B12 supplement, soya milk fortified with the vitamin, or get the B12 shot, which is increasing in popularity. Before I added a B12 supplement to my own diet, my skin started to turn more sickly pale than usual — I had a mild case of anaemia.
Yet for all its detractors, veganism has its share of health experts on its side. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says that if properly planned, a plant-based diet is healthier than many others because it includes much more fruit and veggies. The group created a new food pyramid to replace the pervasive older one, this time with four food groups: Vegetables, whole grains, fruits, and legumes.
The American Dietetic Association and Dieticians of Canada join the cluster of advocates by insisting that vegans often have lower cholesterol levels, lower saturated fat levels, and a lower body mass index. After I became vegan, all three lowered for me. I also felt more awake (I stopped needing coffee), more satiated after eating, and didn’t get sick nearly as often as I used to. Vegans, the two dietary associations point out, also generally have a lower risk of colon cancer and heart attack, the two biggest killers in India.
Whether veganism is healthful, detrimental, or, well, weird, it cannot be completely ignored. Manish Jain estimates there are 500 or so declared vegans, and a whole lot more who don’t use the word but aren’t consuming dairy products; for example, many Jains.
Regrettably, I’m not among them. The attempts to read labels that weren’t always there, to ask a family hosting me to make pao bhajji with a different bread that contained no butter, and to brush my teeth with baking powder or toothpaste shipped from the US — it became too much. I couldn’t maintain a healthful, balanced diet in the face of all these road bumps. I felt a fraud, and still do, for losing faith just because I didn’t reach the Promised Land. I came with an ideal, and I will leave with a stomach full of sugared, milky sweets.
But there are some who remain, and their numbers in India are growing.
Someday, ahimsa might means vegans rule the planet. If so, India would be leading the charge.
http://business.in.com/article/recliner/being-vegan-in-india/4482/3
by Elizabeth Flock | Sep 26, 2009
Read it at Forbes
When I moved to India, I thought it would be a vegan’s Mecca, a place where, at last, I could mingle with others who practiced a lifestyle just as fervently as I did.
I had chosen veganism a few years before because the whole animal slaughter thing became too difficult to ignore. I knew that most often the motivation for vegetarianism in India was more religious than animal-inspired, but the idea that an entire country could strive for ahimsa towards animals seemed both astonishing and perfect.
That first day in India, taking in the barrage of things foreign and unknown on Mumbai’s streets, one thing stood out: Nearly every restaurant had a sign that marked itself as “Veg” or “Non-Veg.” Entire restaurants devoted to vegetarianism? I had died and gone to heaven!
Later that day, traipsing through the supermarket with naïve glee, I revelled in the system of labelling in which vegetarian products bore a green dot in a green square and animal-based products bore the label in brown. Very few vegetarian labels existed in the US.
The Jain family with whom I was staying told me how pleased they were that I had chosen vegetarianism even though I was American. (Translation: They were glad that even though I was from a heathen country where a typical dinner was a hunk of meat, I had chosen to forego that.)
The notion of the sacred cow, which I loved ingenuously as a kid, I saw in practice: Buses and cars bunched up in traffic to let them pass. It all seemed too good to be true. And it was.
You see, while India can lay claim to the earliest records of vegetarianism, adopted for similar reasons to mine — “Thou shalt not kill to eat” — the more than 30 percent of the population who are vegetarians in India are lacto-vegetarian. Vegetarianism comes in different categories, and it is these crucial distinctions that make my trusting vegan assumption so wrong.
Lacto-vegetarians consume dairy products, and this country consumes a lot of them. India is the number one milk-producing country in the world, and dairy products are a vital part of the diet, in both rural and urban areas. I soon realised Amul’s milk, butter, and cheese were as ubiquitous as their ads.
Veganism runs against all of this. As a diet and as a lifestyle, it excludes the use of any animal products to produce food, clothing, or anything else you might use in daily life. So, not just no milk, curd or ice cream; it also means no silk sarees, leather shoes, and making the sometimes Herculean effort to use alternate toothpaste, shaving cream, and other basic products. Even sugar, which can be refined using charred animal bones, is taboo. (The first time I was told this by a zealous vegan cash register girl, I sheepishly removed the sugar from my shopping cart, and wondered if I would ever enjoy dessert again.)
Going to a restaurant was the first test of my veganism in India. My ignorance of Indian dishes at that time aside, there were few items on the menu which excluded dairy products.
Actually, that first time, there were none. Undeterred, I asked the waiter to please leave out the following: sugar, butter, milk, and any other dairy products. He looked at me without expression, though in my self-consciousness, I sensed derision. “Par wahi to khana hai,” he said, take all that away and what’s left? When the food came, I realised the dal had the glorious-yet-prohibited taste of ghee, which I had forgotten to mention.
After lunch, we went to get roadside tea. The vendor happily agreed to leave out the milk. Later, I found out the flavouring agent in the tea came from animals.
Just like in the US, animal products were intrinsically woven into the daily fabric of life.
As for vegan non-food products in India, forget it. Toothpaste? Bone powder. The beautifully-patterned shirts and sarees I had always longed for? Silk. Most cosmetics have wax. And alas for my premature excitement over supermarket labels: The same manufacturers who are so stringent about green dots and squares often do not list milk in their ingredients. That is, when they bother to list ingredients at all.
In a country that loves dairy products, and uses so many other animal-produced luxuries, I wondered dejectedly — but with a lingering sense of American superiority — was veganism even possible here?
Manish Jain is a vegan, and the creator of IndianVegan.com, a portal which promotes veganism in India by stressing ethical reasons, debunking myths and employing health experts for back-up.
Jain lives in Indore, and he says he can easily find all the necessary plant-based products needed to replace animal ones.
“Maybe it would be a problem in a small town. But in any city, you can replace dairy products with soya products, which are cheaply available. Instead of ice cream, you can eat gelato. We even order vegan cakes home.”
I was confused. Mumbai obviously had a wider selection of foods and products than Indore, yet I hadn’t found vegan products to be cheap, or easily available. Soya tofu that had any sane level of fat cost Rs 150 for a small pack, when a satisfying vegetarian meal in a restaurant cost just Rs 40. Seitan or tempeh, two Asian substitutes for meat, which are readily available in the US, were nowhere to be found.
Image: Abhijeet Kini
Jain tries another tactic. Many Indian foods, he says, are naturally vegan, such as dals, pulses, and legumes. He names bhindi masala and khachu as two delicious and purely vegan dishes. He was right. And after time, I found out how to specify exactly what not to include, instead of telling waiters, “Muje sirf ek bottle paani chaiye.” I soon found pure vegan restaurants in Mumbai, and even vegan groups in various cities around India.
While I had felt sheepishly jejune after realising I had confused vegetarians with the likelihood of a vegan lifestyle among them, I wasn’t completely off the herbivorous mark. The term ‘vegan’ was first used in the UK in 1944; a proper vegan community had already been in place in India for 20 years. Goodbye, lingering sense of Western superiority!
And yet, nearly 100 years later, that movement is still in its infancy in India. There have been some baby steps, and even large leaps, lately. McDonald’s, best known for its carnivorous menu of burgers and shakes, began to offer vegan meals in India in 2006.
The Indian Vegan Society, a branch of the Vegan Society in the UK, is bringing veganism more mainstream through concerts, book events, and excursions. Even Café Coffee Day now has a vegan shake.
But while restaurant menus can be modified, and most dals don’t have ghee, staying vegan sometimes isn’t possible. On domestic flights, for example, vegan food isn’t an option. Most Indian airlines, so careful to offer one or more vegetarian options, have nothing to offer to vegans.
I know what you are all thinking. Is this vegan thing even healthy? Forget India for a minute. Can a person subsist without dairy products, or any animal products, anywhere? I assure you they can.
To be balanced, I must say that the vegan lifestyle has long been criticised. In June last year, the debate came to a head when a 12-year-old girl in Scotland, whose parents kept her on a vegan diet, was rushed to the hospital with a degenerative bone condition. Back in 2001, a 10-month-old baby died from that diet. But while the parents were taken to task for their grave mistake, most health experts eventually decided the problem was the age of the children in combination with the diet, not veganism alone.
A few doctors in the US, India, and elsewhere, have told me that veganism isn’t healthy. Having someone tell you the way you are living is misguided is not easy to swallow. But its true that many vegans miss out on protein, calcium, iodine, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, and omega 3 fatty acids, they say. I thought it sounded like a lot of mumbo-jumbo until I found out about the problems deficiencies of these vital elements can cause. For instance, children who are fed an unbalanced vegan diet can get anaemia, rickets, or cretinism. (Read: Extreme fatigue, soft bones, and stunted growth.) Adults may be diagnosed with osteomalacia, softening of the bones, or hypothyroidism, an underactive thyroid gland, which can cause a host of other problems.
Most doctors agree, however, that the vegan diet is not the problem. The culprit is the poor dietary planning that often results from that diet. Many vegans substitute dairy products or meat with unhealthy processed foods. Mea culpa: I often submit to the allure of deep-fried banana chips instead of a real banana.
Dr. Deepika Malik, CEO of LifeCentury.com and Dr. Deepika’s Wellness, two widely-consulted health portals, stresses that vegans must make an extra effort to include certain elements in their diet.
“A person needs one gramme of protein per kilo that they weigh, daily. So a 60 kg person needs 60 grams of protein, which vegetarians can get through soya. Vegans must especially focus on calcium, which lacto-vegetarians get from dairy products. They can eat sesame seeds, almonds, green leafy vegetables, or take calcium supplements to satisfy this need.”
Image: Abhijeet Kini
The parents of the little girl in Scotland weren’t giving her enough calcium, which is why she ended up with a bone disease. The balance just wasn’t there.
Even more likely than calcium deficiency is deficiency of Vitamin B12. Jain concedes that vegans can never naturally include B12 in their diet — it is a bacteria not found in plant foods. He suggests vegans take a B12 supplement, soya milk fortified with the vitamin, or get the B12 shot, which is increasing in popularity. Before I added a B12 supplement to my own diet, my skin started to turn more sickly pale than usual — I had a mild case of anaemia.
Yet for all its detractors, veganism has its share of health experts on its side. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says that if properly planned, a plant-based diet is healthier than many others because it includes much more fruit and veggies. The group created a new food pyramid to replace the pervasive older one, this time with four food groups: Vegetables, whole grains, fruits, and legumes.
The American Dietetic Association and Dieticians of Canada join the cluster of advocates by insisting that vegans often have lower cholesterol levels, lower saturated fat levels, and a lower body mass index. After I became vegan, all three lowered for me. I also felt more awake (I stopped needing coffee), more satiated after eating, and didn’t get sick nearly as often as I used to. Vegans, the two dietary associations point out, also generally have a lower risk of colon cancer and heart attack, the two biggest killers in India.
Whether veganism is healthful, detrimental, or, well, weird, it cannot be completely ignored. Manish Jain estimates there are 500 or so declared vegans, and a whole lot more who don’t use the word but aren’t consuming dairy products; for example, many Jains.
Regrettably, I’m not among them. The attempts to read labels that weren’t always there, to ask a family hosting me to make pao bhajji with a different bread that contained no butter, and to brush my teeth with baking powder or toothpaste shipped from the US — it became too much. I couldn’t maintain a healthful, balanced diet in the face of all these road bumps. I felt a fraud, and still do, for losing faith just because I didn’t reach the Promised Land. I came with an ideal, and I will leave with a stomach full of sugared, milky sweets.
But there are some who remain, and their numbers in India are growing.
Someday, ahimsa might means vegans rule the planet. If so, India would be leading the charge.
http://business.in.com/article/recliner/being-vegan-in-india/4482/3
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