The experiences bestowed by His Holiness — Part 6 : From Anonymity to Prominence
(A humble translation of Sri Gurumurhty ji’s article as it appeared in Tamil magazine Thuglak — https://www.thuglak.com/thuglak/main.php?x=curissue/ninaithu_paarkiraen_30_09_2020.php)
Preface: When you look back upon your life, following images will bring an immense satisfaction to you — As prompted by Sri Ramnath Goenka ji, Your war against corruption; the fame received from that; enormous changes it brought in the national politics & your role in that; generated the energy to work for the nation. That would be the top highlight of your life. Never ever, break your relationship with Indian express.
The above mentioned words were uttered in 1991, by Sri Achyut Patwardhan, an aging freedom fighter. It is our misfortune that we need introduction for tall freedom fighters like Sri Achyut Patwardhan. He spear-headed the 1942 August revolution, after the arrest of Sri Jayaprakash Narayanan. He led a celibate life and committed himself for the national cause. After the independence, he moved away from the limelight of fame, position, authority and delved deep in spiritual practices. He was an exemplary person. Since, he was a close confidant of Sri Goenka ji and I had the fortune of spending time closely with him.
In 1990s, Sri Goenka ji’s health deteriorated; Subsequently, the in-fighting started within his family members. I was even thinking, whether to continue in the group but guided differently by the sagely advice of Sri Patwardhan ji. During late 70s, the seeds for my ascendancy within IE group were sown in the sannidhi of Sri Kanchi-Mahaswami.
Within 3 years
Sri Goenka ji is not an ordinary man. Iron-man and not afraid of anything. He has moved closely with Mahatma Gandhi ji, Sri Nehru ji & Sri Patel ji. He even opposed Sri Nehru ji. In 1917, he had come to Chennai for doing a business and gained his prominence among the North India business community. He was an important figure in the Indian society. He was inspired by Acharya Kriplani ji and participated in the freedom movement. He was motivated by Mahatma to start the newspapers Indian Express & Dinamani, in 1930s. Then, he was anointed as the president of Dakshin Bharath Hindi Prachar Sabha. His newspapers gained prominence. During the quit-India movement, as ordained by Mahatma, he had closed down his newspapers that would prevent circulating news as preferred by the then British government. He was also leading the press editors guild. He was also a member of constituent assembly. He was the one, who had exposed Mundhra scam in 1957 that had involved the members of Pandit ji’s govt. Interestingly, he was aided by Sri Feroze Ghandi ji (Nehru’s son-in-law) in the exposure. Those were time, when the congressmen were vigilant enough to point out the mistakes of the party.
As per Nehru’s wish, Sri Goenka ji made Sri Feroze Ghandi ji as the managing director of Indian express. When Sri Lal Bahadur Sastri ji had died in 1966, Sri Kamaraj ji was taken to Delhi by Sri Goenka ji in a rental airplane. Then a question was put forward to sri Kamaraj ji about his interest to become the Prime minister. I will share that reply of Sri Kamaraj ji at a later time. In spite of his personality & influence in the party, he ran the newspaper independently (In fact, I learnt a lesson on being independent, from him — it is not like ,”this is correct, that is correct, this is wrong, that is wrong”. The independence of a newspaper is defined by its righteousness.
He was a nightmare to the corrupt politician. He left congress in 1966, because the party refused to stop cow-slaughter. Why I am narrating this? To highlight that he became a legend, even before my birth (1949). He was a big-time achiever in business, politics, press. Not even in dreams, I can match/achieve that kind of experience, status, wealth, personality. I was a non-entity and becoming his close-confidante, friend, counsellor, alter-ego was a huge surprise to many. There must have been some cosmic connection between us and the seed behind this thought was sown in front of Sri Kanchi-Mahaswami
Meeting in the presence of Sri Kanchi-Mahaswami
I was working for my Guru’s company (Sri Gowrikanthan ji) and that is where my relationship with Sri Goenka ji had started. My Guru, a chartered accountant by profession was an accomplished legal counsellor and an expert in accounting. He was mentoring me and helped to sharpen my intellect. The cases given by him were challenge to me initially and eventually became my achievements too. I met him in the sannidhi of Sri Kanchi-Mahaswami. He came to know about my relationship with Sri Kannan, who led a celibate life and serving Sri Kanchi-Mahaswami. He had invited me to his house in chennai. He was looking out for an able chartered accountant to solve the complicated cases of his client. Upon our chance meeting at Kanchipuram, he wanted to recruit me. He had asked me to join his concern. The salary offered by him was less than what I was drawing at that time. He had told me, “Don’t hesitate. You would be setting up your own practise in the future. What I am going to offer as salary may not your current salary but would be compensated in the form of experience & skill development, that may not happen in the present job of yours. That was his vision for me.
As usual, I reached out to Sri Kanchi-Mahaswami to seek his blessings. He had advised me to join his company. Then in 1973, I had joined as a manager in Gowrikanthan CA firm. Later, I came to know that his company was doing the auditing work IE group. In addition, he was a close adviser of Sri Goenka ji. Through him, I developed my relationship with IE in 1974. During emergency period, autocratic was foisting multiple cases on IE and Sri Gowrikanthan ji trained me on handling those cases. Slowly, it drew Sri Goenka ji’s attention towards me. Then through his son Sri B.D.Goenka ji, he had offered the adviser post to IE. Again, with the blessings of Sri Kanchi-Mahaswami and with the approval of Sri Gowrikanthan ji, I became IE group’s adviser on legal, financial & accounting matters.
From anonymity to Prominence
I was 27 years old and Sri Goenka ji was 72. In the next years, I started advising on all matters including his family matters too. I became his close-confidante. In Sri Goenka ji’s biography (Warrior of fourth estate by Sri B.G.Verghese, a very respectable personality in the press-journal circle) had mentioned that “ a brilliant chartered accounting and exceedingly astute legal expert Gurumurthy became a close-confidant of Sri Goenka ji in a very short time).
I was advising him on legal, finance, accounting, management, editorial and political matters. Aside to that, in 1980, I got the opportunity to prevent the takeover of IE union by well know trade unionist Sri Datta samant. Through my counsel, IE group scored successes in the aforesaid matters. Sri Goenka ji started spread eulogies about me to important personas in the country. At a young age, I had the unimaginable opportunity of working closely with elders, intellectuals, writers, lawyers et al.
It helped me to work on equal footing with the giants in the journalism — SRIs Dileep Mulgaonkar ji, Kuldip Nayyar ji, Arun shourie ji, Nihal singh ji, Jagannathan ji. In politics, I had the opportunity to work closely, tender advice, gaining experience to form coalition with the notable people — SRIs Jayaprakash Narayanan ji , Achyut Patwardhan ji, Morarji Desai ji, Nanaji Deshmukh ji, Vajpayee ji, Advani ji, Gwalior Rajmatha ji, Sharad Pawar ji, Madhavarao Scindia ji, Devilal ji, Mulayam singh ji, Laloo Yadav ji, V.P.Singh ji, George Fernandes ji, Chandrasekhar ji, N.D.Tiwari ji, Hegde ji, NTR ji, Jyothi Basu ji. In addition, I had the opportunity to legal eagles like SRIs Palkhiwala ji, Jethmalani ji, Soli Sorabjee ji, Parasaran ji, K.K Venugopal ji, Anil Divan ji, Ashok Desai ji. For a youngster, it was not easy to get that kind of experience. With Guru’s grace, I got such experiences at a young age.
In the religio-spiritual realm, I developed rapport with His Holiness Sankaracharyas, jeers, Madhva Mataipathis, Adheenas, Ramakrishna mission monks, Chinmaya mission monks, Swami Narayanan sect sannyasis, Sri Sri Ravishankar ji, Baba Ramdev ji, Jaggi Vasudev ji, powerful Maha Mandaleswars in North India. It gave opportunity to get along closely with RSS president (from Sri Balasaheb Deoras ji till present day presidents), VHP, Vidhyarthi Parishads, Kisan sangh, Mazdoor sangh and many others. Important people from corporate world started approaching. In 1986, after gaining fame as a journalist, I was in the top 50 influential people list of Gentlemen magazine. Again in 2002, I rose up to 8th spot in the list of Business Baron. My name started appearing in the top 50 influential people list of India today — 2005 (50th), 2014 (50th), 2016 (25th), 2017 (30th), 2018 (50th).
In 3 years, I rose from being anonymous to one of prominence. This is all due to the grace of Sri Kanchi-Mahaswami. Two things saved from becoming power drunk — the guidance given by Sri Kanchi-Mahaswami and a hard-hitting example from the life of Mahatma Gandhi, as indicated by Sri Goenka ji.
