THE ACCIDENTAL BUSINESSMAN: REMEMBERING T.T. JAGANNATHAN

I've written books with several business leaders, and I have enjoyed interacting with them, but TT Jagannathan, Chairman Emeritus, TTK Prestige, ranks on top.

- SANDHYA MENDONCA

I spent the most time with him; my office was next to the TTK Prestige corporate office, and I'd pop over several times a week.

The world called him the Kitchen King, but he called himself an accidental businessman. A gold medallist from IIT Madras with a keen grasp of engineering, he was pulled away from academia to take over the family business, which was in deep trouble. TTJ often quoted Brutus from Julius Caesar: 'There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.'

He often quoted Sanskrit verses such as “lasyam bi manu by m shar rastho mah nripu In styudyamasamo bandbu k itv yamn vas dati”

Laziness is a great enemy within us. There is no friend like hard work.

TT Jagannathan & Sandhya Mendonca

He was utterly dedicated to work. But he also lived life to the full. He played violin and tennis in his youth, later switching to golf and bridge. He loved to cook and cooked for his colleagues when they used to travel abroad. Most of them knew or learnt to cook, or else what were they doing in a kitchen manufacturing company was the implicit question. He taught his wife Latha to cook, and his legendary cooking skills were inherited by all three sons—Mukund, Laxman and Venky.