thinking has to take DIFFERENT ROUTES

A corporate leader, writer, speaker, sportsman, avid traveller – T C Narayan has had an exceptional professional and personal life. In an interview with Huned Contractor he shares details about the journey so far.

- Huned Contractor

TC Narayan has been lucky in many ways for the simple reason that he has had a ringside view of how the British governed India and has then worked in the corporate world to get insights into the working of the global business world. Of the 55 years in corporate life in India and abroad, Narayan spent 40 years at the highest levels, working with topmost political, bureaucratic and corporate functionaries. Besides, he has authored English and Malayalam books and also translated leading works published by oxford university Press, Malayala Manorama, Penguin and others. Moreover, he participated in a unique fusion drama project of the British Council which staged William Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with dialogues in four South Asian languages. Narayan has been a speaker at various domestic and international meets and continues to have a very packed schedule each day. Excerpts from the interview:

Could you tell us something about your parents, siblings, childhood, etc.?

I was born in Madras, now Chennai, on April 13, 1930, the third of three children. My father was in the Indian Civil Service, initially with the Madras government and then with the central government. He was one of the top Indian bureaucrats who straddled the British Indian and free Indian government eras. My mother was a Sanskrit scholar, one of the earliest Kerala women to do BA (Honours) in Sanskrit and was the favourite student of that iconic Sanskrit professor, Kuppuswami Sastrigal of Presidency College, Madras.