THE MAN

“Do you want to be someone who goes around asking for donations, or the one who signs the cheques?” This question, posed by a young Tilak Agarwal to himself on a 10-minute walk to Bata’s office in Calcutta (Kolkata), was the epiphany that changed the course of his life. At that moment, he knew one cannot inherit respect, but has to earn it. Born in 1956 in Calcutta, Tilak was one of the four surviving children from eleven siblings. Tilak and his siblings – brother, Goverdhan Das; and sisters, Kashmiri and Usha – were brought up with discipline and taught the values of honesty and kindness by their parents Lala Rangilal and Chandro Devi. Their father was a self-made man. Born in Narela village in Haryana, he was the first in his community to graduate from college. With the death of his own father and no inheritance, he built his life from the ground up, serving as a collectorate officer in the erstwhile princely states. After independence, he moved to Calcutta, where his entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish Serampore Industries. He was known for his unshakeable honesty, who only played by the rules. He never exploited his status or position, even as president of an industry association, where others quietly profited from black-market deals or office perks. Tilak and his brother’s lessons in humility came from starting from the bottom – loading trucks and managing shipments. When Tilak, an average student and a B.Com (Hons) graduate, joined the business, he wanted a desk. His father gave him a broken three-legged table in the office canteen and said, “Start from here.” It hurt Tilak’s ego a bit, but he soon realised that his father was teaching him a valuable lesson, that ‘Titles mean nothing until you’ve proven yourself.’ Tilak has come a long way from that shaky table to find steady success in the US.