‘I like to be continually challenged’

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: would have probably been in the media.”

Life, of course, had other plans. Kapoor puts it simply, “In those days, media didn’t pay as much and that’s when service class insecurities come to the fore. I thought I should get a professional degree and at some stage do what I really wanted to do. So I went to IIM-Ahemedabad to do my MBA in 1985. And once you get into a business school, there are opportunities that come your way that seem to pay well.” But even then Kapoor didn’t lose sight of his dream. He edited the college magazine and anchored most shows.

In fact, Kapoor would have probably been a famous broadcaster, if luck had not played a little trick. While trying to weigh his career options, he even wrote to famous voice-over artiste Pratap Sharma. “He was supposed to be the voice of God. So I wrote to him saying that I thought I had the necessary requisites and wanted to train under him. In those days it was like singing. If you made it big, you’d made it really big. Unfortunately or fortunately, he was travelling to England for six months.”

And by then, Kapoor had enough offers to lure him to the corporate world. He finally decided to join Nestle as a management trainee in 1987 and left the company as a brand manager in December 1991.

The years in between were enriching and even humbling at times. For example, Kapoor still remembers a posting from Nestle to Patna. “So, I travelled to places like Chapra, Sewan, Bhagwanpur and Haat that I’d never heard of to meet my dealers.”

A lot of people dropped out from the programme. And Kapoor still remembers calling up his classmates from IIM in desperation. “And I’d imagine them in their cushy offices, people who had gone overseas. And there I was travelling in the worst possible way. I was having a really bad time, carrying my bag, trying to take orders from all kinds of people to learn about sales. And here was this guy sitting in his striped underwear, eating his khaini (tobacco) and I’d be taking orders for Maggi noodles and Nescafe. I’d never thought I’d have to do all this.”