Golden Dreams Schauna Chauhan Saluja & Nadia Chauhan

The elusive Parle agro sisters met HELLO! at home for a riveting chat on success, family and teamwork

- Ankita Rathod

They exude a sharpness well-reflected in their identical blunt cuts. A stark simplicity marks their sartorial style. Schauna and Nadia Chauhan chose to be devoid of any professional make-up during our interaction at the former’s apartment. We are greeted by adorable Lab puppies – who are on their teething timeline – as we enter the living room where there is constant banter between the kids enjoying the thrill of challenging each other while playing with a toy racetrack. A well appointed staff attends to us all.

Schauna Chauhan Saluja, Prakash Chauhan’s older daughter, wears a royal purple dress combined with an elegant three-lined pearl choker. Her confidence is clearly self-derived; she cares little about her salt-and-pepper hair as she introduces her younger sister Nadia, who is generally a media recluse but makes an exception for our feature. “We work well as a team, which is great,” says Schauna when questioned on the power of team play. “We strike an excellent balance which really works in our organisation,” agrees Nadia as we settle for a chat in the study, positioned in the centre of the apartment. Their unique Parle Agro journey, shared with their father, seemed to be organic and seamless. “My father understood our areas of strength,” Nadia points out. Concurs Schauna, “It makes sense to play to your strengths.” Schauna, for the record, takes care of day-to-day operations at Parle Agro. Nadia looks after sales and marketing, product development, distribution and new business initiatives. “We always knew that we would get into the business sooner or later,” says Schauna, the Chief Executive Officer. “We were inducted early. This helped because we realised what is to be done, not to be done. Thereby we didn’t harm the interests of the company. We realised the vision of our father and the role we had to play to fulfill it.”