SHIV NADAR: Passionate about music

Friends in enterprise, friends in philanthropy. more than 25 years after they first teamed up to launch Hindustan Computers Ltd (HCL) in a home-office in Delhi's tony Golf Links, Shiv Nadar and Arjun Malhotra still find plenty of things to do together. Now the two friends-Nadar continues as the Chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies, while serial-entrepreneur Malhotra now runs an e-consultancy Techspan in California-are doing their bit to promote Indian classical music in the US. In October 2000, the two-along with friends, one of whom is the daughter of late Governor of West Bengal, Nurul Hasan-made an endowment (revealed to public only recently) of a quarter-of-a-million dollars to the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), to promote Indian classical music. Why UCSC? "Its chancellor," explains Malhotra, "Marci Greenwood is committed to the South-Asian culture, and because of that UCSC has taken the lead in promoting Indian music." In fact, sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan is a "distinguished adjunct professor'' at UCSC's music department.

ARJUN MALHOTRA: The classical touch

On his part, Nadar has been a music buff for a long time. For the last four years, HCL Infosystems has been running the HCL Concert series. Each month, some four-to-five performances are held at the India Habitat Centre in Delhi. The idea, apparently, is to provide a platform for upcoming artists. HCL Concert also conducts workshops, and one held recently actually educated its audience on the differences between western, Indian and Carnatic classical music. And when the idea of doing something for Indian music in the US came up, Nadar was only too happy to chip in. Says Malhotra: "Now some more Indians in the Bay Area are making endowments for Indian music." That's one more thing India needs to thank its techies for.

When You Know

ABHISHEK KHAITAN: More than just gymming

First, our apologies to chivas regal. but what else do you say when a young liquor baron turns out to be a fitness freak, pumping iron for almost two hours every day either at his gym at home or office, with two personal trainers on call? Given his passion for working out, it's easy to forget that the first love of the 29-year-old Executive Director of Radico Khaitan, Abhishek Khaitan, is cricket. "But playing cricket takes too much time, so I decided to do regular workouts," explains the industrial and production engineer, whose team recently trounced an Ernst & Young XI on the pitch. If you ever went to Radico's gym in the corporate office in Delhi's Mathura Road, you'll likely find Khaitan pushing his colleagues on the treadmill too. Just why? In a long-winded way, the inspiration comes from his idol, N.R. Narayana Murthy. Explains Khaitan: "Narayana Murthy doesn't run Infosys as a one-man show; rather it is the systems he set up that drive the company." But gymming isn't all that Khaitan does. In the last four years, along with pa and Chairman Lalit Khaitan, the Ricky Martin-fan has turned a family-owned liquor also-ran into a Rs 615-crore growth monster. Last year, Radico Khaitan almost doubled its turnover. Now, that's what you call a high.

VIJAY MAHAJAN: On a new job

Back To Roots

He took almost a year to say yes, but now that he has, Vijay Mahajan is in no doubt about what he has to do as the new dean of India's only international business school, the Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB). And that is to make it a global business school of repute. The fact that the school is backed by McKinsey and three world-renowned B-schools-the Kellogg School of Management, the Wharton School, and the London Business School-helps. But as the John P. Harbin Professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, Austin, Mahajan brings his share of repute to the school. Not only has the 54-year-old Mahajan been a winner of the American Marketing Association's Charles Coolidge Parlin Market Research Award (1997), the oldest and most eminent life-time award in the field, but he also has the honour of having an award named after him-the Vijay Mahajan Award, endowed by some colleagues, former students, and friends. The first winner of the award in 2000 was no less than brand guru, David Aaker. And to think that Mahajan actually studied to be a chemical engineer. "It's all luck," says the dimunitive dean with modesty. Students at ISB can say that again.