Tread marks that lead you to a treasure island

‘Failure is not an option’ by Veer Sagar is as much a chronicle of his personal journey and life-lessons as it is a curation of key events that punctuated and defined the Indian IT landscape. Tips and tricks to navigate leadership, teams, conflicts, contingencies, crisis-hours and camp-escapades – are a big bonus. Read it for a lazy jog down the memory lane of the builders of Indian IT story.

“Then I surreptitiously made my way down to the mess kitchen, outside which Lucky Café’s van was parked. The café lived up to its name, and I wasn’t spotted. Without permitting myself any further thought, I climbed into the van. I found large boxes of buns, loaves of bread and pastries, presumably for deliveries outside the IAF campus. I crouched behind the boxes in a corner. The driver started the van and headed for the campus gate.”

Reading these lines does not give you any warning of what’s about to come. You may brew yourself a long cup of coffee and a good bowl of popcorn – expecting some thriller to unfold in the ensuing pages. Yes, he escaped. But from where and went where? This book is all about that—and more.

Veer Sagar throws in the twists and turns of a ‘Abbas Mastan’ movie quite deftly in this ride about how he became who he is today – and what life epiphanies he added in his luggage on the way. The writing style is as easy-going and relatable as that of a Chetan Bhagat thriller but is also as poignant in places as a Yuval Noah Harari tome.

He starts from his young school days – all the way to his feats at college learning Nuclear Physics, to his adventures of cracking an interview at Dunlop, to escaping the meteorological department of IAF because he wanted to join Dunlop as a management trainee, to his taking the bull of ‘turnaround’ by the horns as he climbed the management ladders at Dunlop, DDM DP and ICIM. He also captures how he pioneered the medical transcription KPO scene in India and how he is now busy creating e-coaching cricket platforms and Criconet.

And as he takes you through all the ups and downs, all the overtaking-moves and punctured-tyre moments in this journey, you get a corresponding gaze at the turbulent-but-exciting childhood and coming-of-age of Indian IT industry too. More so as he has also been a founder member of the Association of Entrepreneurs (India) and Vice-Chairperson of the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council as well as member of executive council of various industry bodies like ORSI, CSI, MAIT and NASSCOM. He was also the chairperson of the core group on ITES constituted by the Delhi government and a member of the Working Group on IT for formulation of the tenth Five Year Plan. And he is still busy. Happily so.

Steering – while skidding and slipping

His story starts from some unexpected orientation he got as a scholarship-kid in a ‘fairy tale’ school, when a senior asked him to play B-Flat major with a heavy instrument. The story soon moves into his experiences of fighting every ridicule and pressure moment with a tenacious resolve. He tried his hand in everything – from music to dance to debate till he found his ‘niche’. He learnt cycling in a day because he wanted to pull his own weight during a forest trip.

As he moved into and out of college mastering Nuclear Physics, he saw and learnt how to twist interviews and situations in one’s own favour by not being afraid of ‘what you don’t know’ and by ‘playing to your strengths’. His adventure of the Dunlop interview for management trainees is a crash-course in ‘not giving up’, in ‘being clever’ and ‘finding solutions when you approach people with your problems’.

As he moved to IAF and got a call from Dunlop, he faced another dilemma and get-away adventure. The story moves to how a nuclear physics guy sunk his teeth into the tyre business – and that too, one that was running in a British Raj hangover. Sitting on his anecdotes of ‘yellow and blue scooter’ and why where he parked it meant something—Veer Sagar takes us through some very interesting problems he solved by connecting with people, by travelling on the road to meet dealers and by confronting reality of the market – instead of sitting in an ivory tower.

His mention of the ‘Plan B’ mindset is another example of how Indian IT legends are still relevant and worth listening to. How he and his team found a street-smart of fixing a glitch when the Dunlop UK visited India for inauguration of the IBM 1401 unit—is quite a story in itself.

So are his ways of managing challenges when he jumped from the ‘frying pan into the fire’ with his move from ICIM to DCM. The DCM DP turnaround, after all, made its way into a case-study by Dr. Georges Haour, IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The same traits shine and get strengthened as he moves to other corporate stints. His story runs parallel to how India moved from erstwhile IBM machines to PCs and how changes like STPI and software-imports changed everything – beyond recognition. At one point he also gives a peek of a play with e-commerce—way before it became what it is today—remote selling of art reproductions in 1995. What’s really remarkable is how he stood his ground while taking some tough turnaround-decisions and never succumbed to pressure—even if it meant standing up to bosses for the right thing.

He also takes us through the difficult choices he had to make to revive Selectronic, India’s first medical transcription BPO – specially all those nail-biting meetings for the venture capital and consultancy assignments this part entailed. He also talks about making the mistakes of not expanding customers and of trusting too much with the ‘Heartland’ situation he faced in his business.

The Sidewall of Life—And More

Veer Sagar has kept acquiring and sharpening skills as he steered on the path of life and a well-chequered career. He retains the solid legacy of a tube tyre along with the flexibility of a tubeless tyre when he bumps into unexpected turns and dead ends.

It can be called an autobiography or a memoir of Indian IT architects. Whatever you call it, it leaves you learning a lot about human grit, a sense of playfulness about life, the still-relevant skill of understanding people and above all – the ability to be honest and resilient about falling- and then getting up. May be the book could actually do a sequel—translating all these life experiences into a parallel-story of IT industry’s path. There are many more books in this book – if he can unlock it again.

But this book packs a lot to learn – whether you want to learn about life or about how design and import duties can shake up a solid business of hardware.

Veer Sagar leaves no grooves untouched. Is he a radial or a bias tyre—or is he both? The only way to find out, and learn about how to roll with life is – to read this book. It’s thrilling. It’s breezy. But it’s not casual. Just like his escape from IAF campus.

By Pratima H

pratimah@cybermedia.co.in