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PEOPLE
 Taru & Raaja Kanwar
They want to steer clear of the roads
and focus on the indoors. Taru and Raaja Kanwar, wife and son,
respectively, of Apollo Tyres' Onkar Kanwar, are setting up what could be
India's first chain of hi-tech, break-and-fire resistant, multi-tiered
indoor play stations for kids at an initial investment of Rs 2.5 crore.
Brand-named Funkie Orbit, the first of the play stations, which can
accommodate 200 children at a time, is up and running at the capital's new
glitzy mall, Ansal Plaza. The play station offers activities ranging from
ball pools and fun forests for toddlers to vision adventure and
sight-n-sound panels for older children. Plus bells and whistles like a
colourful café, a cyberstation and an ice cream parlour. Parents can also
drop their kids off at the station for a fee, while they shop or roam the
mall. Says Taru Kanwar, a 50-something elegant grandmother who hit upon
the idea when she saw her grandsons having a gala time at a play station
in Singapore: ''With joint families breaking up, working parents need
safe, enjoyable leisure options for children. Funkie Orbit will provide
that, while infusing spontaneity and imaginative skills in children.'' The
technical and operational backup is being provided by her son, Raaja, a
self-confessed computer nerd who runs his own software firm, Dusk Valley.
Says Raaja, 29: ''This is the first of its kind and, potentially, it is a
winner. '' The mother and son duo plans to open five such centres in the
capital itself by end 2000, and one each in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore,
and Ahmedabad by end of 2001, through franchisees. That could see the
Apollo group's business zoom into a new orbit...
 Alok Nanda
What's in a name? Everything, if
advertising ace Alok Nanda is to be believed. For this former creative
director of advertising hotshop, Trikaya Grey, has just floated Cognito, a
joint venture between Alok Nanda & Company (AN&C), a creative
brand consultancy, and market research agency Ormax, which will specialise
on generating names for products, corporates and, of course, dot.com
companies. Cognito has already bagged prestigious accounts like that of
the Raheja Group, for cranking out a brand name for its country-wide
retail chain. Some more are on the anvil. Why names? ''You cannot change
the name of a brand easily. So, it is an important investment,'' says Alok,
37. Meanwhile, his first love, the nine-month-old AN&C, is really
charging him up. ''We give only creative and strategic inputs,"
explains Alok. Is that called working incognito?
 Ashok Jain
After selling fizzy drinks, he's now hawking equity! When
Cadbury Schweppes' former Managing Director, Ashok Jain, quit the
beverages business last year to set up his Net venture, ideasnyou.com-a
mother portal with as many as five vortals under its umbrella-little did
he know that he would soon be offering sweat equity to advertising
powerhouses. Indeed, advertising agency, Bates, has been offered sweat
equity in the two newly-launched subsidiaries under the ideasnyou
umbrella-familynyou.com and goodhealthnyou.com. Bates will also handle the
on-line and off-line advertising for the portals. Ashok is also talking to
Saatchi & Saatchi for its other portals, cricketnyou.com and
customerpowernyou.com. What's the logic? ''The equity gives them ownership
to work more as owners rather than just as an agency. The idea is to
create and share wealth,'' says Ashok, 43, who plans to be number one in
the vertical portal segment. Does this amateur magician have more tricks
up his sleeve? Watch this space!
 Sanjay Parthasarathy
You can bet that he won't be sleepless in Seattle! What with his company
on the verge of being cleaved into two. Sanjay Parthasarathy, the former
South-Asia Director of Microsoft is now moving to the software giant's
headquarters as Vice-President, Strategic Business Development. Sanjay, a
Microsoft 'lifer', has spent 10 years with the company, joining straight
out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is perfectly
at home in his new job. Says Sanjay, 35, a scion of the TVS family of the
south: ''Microsoft is the first and only company I have worked for. But
it's been a real journey. I joined when Windows 3.0 was close to shipping
and I feel like we have gone through about six generations of the company
since then. We are on the brink of another one.'' Well, with twin Masters'
degrees in engineering and management from MIT, he certainly seems to be
equipped for it. Has his lineage helped him in any way? ''Not really,
other than assuring a comfortable childhood,'' he chuckles. An avid
cricket buff-he played first class cricket for Chennai in the early '80s
with test cricketers like W.V. Raman and L. Sivaramakrishnan, and was
voted the best junior cricketer in Tamil Nadu-Sanjay claims to have picked
up competitiveness, focus, and a never-say-die attitude from the game,
which has helped him in his glittering career. That puts him on a strong
wicket, what?
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