It’s hard to believe he would have given up, as he wrote, as much as it is hard to believe he may no longer be with us. But perhaps the personal financial troubles were too big for even VG Siddhartha to cope with. His equanimity was enviable; as Subroto Bagchi once remarked, it was probably the name. Never one to get into a confrontation or even an argument, Siddhartha ran his business quietly and efficiently, playing to his strengths, his eye on the goal. While he admired the WalMarts of the world and how they had scaled up, he knew he must pace himself.
Few Indians have built big brands — especially in the services space; most brands are products. But Café Coffee Day is one of the few brands to have withstood the competition — foreign and local — and survived. It could not have been easy given how fickle and fastidious customers are. Where chains backed by big business houses and multi-nationals are struggling despite their global status and some have even shut shop, CCD continues to grow with over 1,750 outlets and close to 56,800 machines. Revenues may not be growing at a breathtaking pace but they’re growing. More importantly, unlike many of the much-hyped start-ups, which show no signs of turning profitable, CCD is a profitable venture with outstanding loans, at the end of March, of around Rs 4,000 crore.
In 2021, CCD will celebrate its silver jubilee. That is a huge achievement for a retailer who never really intended to be one. His personal finances may have been a mess but as a businessman, he was certainly no failure. In an environment where businessmen are brazening it out despite defaulting to banks sums that run into tens of thousands of crores, Siddhartha was clearly not able to fit in.
He was a people’s person. Finding himself in Kolkata one New Year’s eve he spent his time helping out in one of the cafes. When the tsunami hit the Chennai coast in the winter of 2004, Siddhartha was there with a team of 30 and truckloads of essentials. A self-confessed God-fearing man, and a devout follower of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, he never missed a trip to Belur Math if he wasin Kolkata. He will be missed.