In every good consultant's career, there comes a time when he must take a call on one thing: Whether he's going to continue helping companies catch the next big wave, or grab a surfboard and hit the waves himself. Last fortnight, one such consultant resolved the dilemma. AT Kearney's India Chairman, Chandra "Srini" Srinivasan, quit the firm he set up seven years ago to make a new beginning in India's booming it industry. "It just struck me that it was my last opportunity to catch the (IT) wave," says Srini, who's currently working with a few friends to put together a business plan. His surprising departure (only last year he was moved up as India Chairman) should be a big loss for Kearney. For, Srini not only bagged some big-ticket clients, but was also the firm's best-known face in the country-always punctilious in his dealings, but bereft of the obnoxious vanity that afflicts most suits. Surely, some clients will miss the gentleman consultant.

Fair Play

Munesh Khanna is not a big sports buff-well, fine, he did do the dream seven-km run in the recent Mumbai marathon-but he knows a thing or two about fair play. The 41-year-old Managing Director of NM Rothschild & Sons (India) has set up a sports foundation, Sahas, which will help rehabilitate sports heroes of yesteryears who may have fallen on hard times. At the moment the foundation, inspired by a magazine article about such forgotten sports heroes, operates out of Khanna's residence in Mumbai. "I want to spearhead this cause as a movement," says he. Be a sport, folks, help Sahas.

'Head' Banger

Thirty years after he joined the group fresh out of TAS, P.T. "Percy" Siganporia, 52, may finally get the corner room he's worked towards. With Tata Tea MD Homi Khusrokhan retiring, his deputy is set to get the top job. By all accounts, Siganporia, an XLRIte, is a different cup of tea. He's been an audiophile since his teenage years, he loves heavy metal and actually wooed his wife to the soulful beat of Pink Floyd's classic Wish You Were Here. Even today Siganporia, who helped engineer the Tetley acquisition not just because he's a teaholic, watches MTV late into the night to keep abreast of new bands. Rock on, Percy.

Deserving Case

One of India's largest law firms adds another feather to its cap. It has just won what is popularly called the Oscar of the legal profession, the Asia Pacific Firm of the Year Award for 2003-04, instituted by a UK magazine Legal Business. Amarchand Mangaldas, which has a battery of 140 lawyers and Rs 50 crore in annual billings, pipped Asian practices of well-known firms such as Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Morrison and Foerster, and O'Melveny & Myers to walk away with the award. Joining a select club of international legal luminaries may have its benefits. Says Managing Partner Shardul Shroff, whose Mumbai-based younger brother Cyril travelled to London to receive the award: "This gives us the confidence to compete with the best of foreign law firms whenever the sector opens up." There's no argument on that count.

Twist In The Tale

The case of Nalco's chairman and managing Director, C. Venkataramana, gets curioser and curioser. More than a dozen days after a female employee of the PSU levelled charges of sexual harassment against him, the 55-year-old Venkataramana remained incommunicado, if not underground. Both his known mobile phones were switched off and a call to his residence in Bhubaneshwar, where Nalco is headquartered, only evoked a terse response that he was away in Delhi. Meanwhile, the other Nalco employees rallied around him, and even gave the episode a conspiracy angle-something to do with Nalco's divestment. When BT went to press, Mumbai Police was on the lookout for Venkataramana.

VC At Large

Why is Silicon Valley's ace venture capitalist trudging all over the hinterlands of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka? After all, those places have none of the hi-tech opportunities that have fetched the KPCB (Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers) partner his millions and the reputation. The answer: Vinod Khosla, a former co-founder of Sun Microsystems, is looking at a different model of funding-micro-finance. But don't jump to conclusions. For now Khosla, 48, is merely on a reconnaissance. "I am in India just to understand what is going on and not necessarily looking for investment," he says. Even if Khosla, who made investing history by betting on tech start-ups like Juniper Networks, does decide to invest, it will be more in personal capacity than as a KPCB partner. Meanwhile, there's speculation that Khosla, an IIT-Delhi and Stanford grad who became a millionaire before he hit the 30s, may go part-time at KPCB. Let's hope the beneficiary is India.

-Contributed by R. Sridharan, Roshni Jayakar, Abir Pal, Sahad P.V., Ashish Gupta, and E. Kumar Sharma