WHAT would one write on page No. 423 of one's biography? I am greeted with this question even before I start digging out my list of posers for this portrait. Sitting with poise in his cubicle, diving his senses in a warm mug of black tea, his eyes seem seeped in cogitation before he wonders aloud and sets my grey cells thinking too.

Minoo Dastur, the man who has trodden successfully to this corner room at Nihilent, a business consulting and performance management company, does he really need to search for an answer to what would he write after 400 pages on his biography? There's always a pleasure in discovering such answers.

Curiosity sparks and I urge him to go down the memory lane.

From Bio to Binary

For Minoo, a biochemist at heart, computers were a far cry. After a Bachelor's in Biochemistry and Chemistry with Microbiology, IT was nowhere on his map.

"I never wanted to be in computers. Chemical engineering and biochemistry always fascinated me. It was probably, a combination of events that changed the course of my life."

And the compass turned towards computers, when he had to write software for his biochemistry work himself due to lack of pertinent systems then. "I belonged to a family of accountants, and doctors, and so 'what are you doing- is a question I had to face."

What however, really beckoned Minoo towards the then weird world of computers was the allure of systems. "The software part still fails to fascinate me the way the systems approach does. Coming from a bio-chem background, the big picture, when one things lead to another, was always my forte. At that point in time, projects were not around a language say Java but on how to approach and solve a particular problem," he shares.

It was not a complete jump from the lab to the codes yet. He began his career in the Information Systems Industry in 1983, and has worked in most aspects of the systems development and consulting businesses. Between 1986 and 2000, Minoo had his next innings at Tata Consultancy Services. He headed their Corporate Banking Group and was a key player in the evolution of the Banking and Financial Services Business.

During this time, he established TCS's operations in South Africa and negotiated a joint venture with South Africa's most active IT business group - DIDATA. In the late nineties, he was also responsible for establishing the Corporate Marketing group for TCS.

He then came to the bend in the road when Nihilent happened. Today, he is the Executive VP, COO and Director on Nihilent's global board.

Filled with philosophy

As he looks back at the changes life has offered him, he says, "I have become much more introspective and much less trusting." And before one raises a skeptical eyebrow, and asks the reason for his choice between naiveté and cynicism, he offers a though-provoking answer. "Cynicism is not an evil if you go by the tenets of Greek society," says this avid reader of philosophical books. "The fundamental principle was – doubt every thing. Philosophers debate and doubt every thing. Look closely, and cynicism is the ability to question everything. In fact, extreme optimism is the greatest of all evils because it can harm you as well others. Being too eager to believe is a tremendous evil as you allow the society to be vicious by being too trusting."

For a self-confessed non-believer in religion, God lies in Minoo's principles and perspective on life. "Theology by itself is worth debating. But priests interpret what suits their power structure. Religion and philosophy are not very far apart," he explains.

He regards cruelty as the ultimate evil. "Cruelty is a powerplay of the weak," he reflects, "There should be equity in everything. Willing, unjustifiable evil to some one who is unable to defend himself is the pinnacle of selfishness."

As he takes the lane of many other such topics, one wonders at the degree of sapience and philosophical flavor that this businessman harbors so deftly, taking and applying them out just in the right measure, at the right time.

And to think, what a man who thinks so deep and so far, would write on page number 423 of his biography? Well, he surely has enough stocked in his ink, life and mind to even spare a moment's thought on that question.

We would look forward to that page Minoo.

NEXT>>

Email This   Print This   Comments   RSS