R.I.P Sunil Mehta

I was jolted when I read this morning that Sunil Mehta, Vice-President of NASSCOM had passed away on Saturday, Dec-16. Sunil had turned 41 on Dec-2, and leaves behind his wife and two young daughters.

I knew Sunil personally, and he was one of those rare people who could be aptly called a thorough gentleman…. both gentle and a man, in all meanings of both words. Sunil was the founder of Infac, an extremely successful industry information and profiling firm that he had setup along with a friend in the late 80’s. Infac was acquired by CRISIL in the later 90’s and Sunil joined NASSCOM sometime later.

The common thread that connected me to Sunil was the late Professor Nagesh Rane of IMS who supported both of our entrepreneurial ventures; Sunil being many years my senior as an entrepreneur, and already a success when I was just getting started, it fell upon him to assess my ‘business plan’ for viability. I’ve retained that document as a reminder of how naive and optimistic I was nearly a decade-and-half ago and also the memory of Sunil’s patience, consideration and wisdom. Sunil has been one of the people who has shaped the beliefs and values that guide me in both my personal and professional conduct.

In a world that sets store by intelligence and academic pedigree, Sunil epitomized that rare and elusive quality - he was a wise person (should I say ‘despite’ being an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad!). And it was perhaps this quality that made him what he was. One particular incident of a decade ago is still vivid in my memory; I was having a fairly animated dicsussion with Sunil on business objectives, the conversation being ‘fully loaded’ with all the jargon that business management prides itself on. I’d been holding forth for a while, Sunil had made several attempts by then to get his point across, unsuccessfully, and he was still smiling. Suddenly and utterly unexpectedly, he interrupted with the remark - ‘Hindi mein bol!’

I stopped mid-sentence. And the entire complex fabrication simply came apart. For that’s all it was - a complex fabrication of jargon, buzzwords and other people’s ideas. He was still smiling at my attempts to stumble along in Hindi, searching for some fig leaf to try and preserve my ‘erudition’. And without rubbing my nose in my bullshit, explained how switching out from our ‘language of comfort’, had the effect of stripping away the intellectual fabrications that we used to build our towers of fancy. I could also glimpse the steel at the core - finely tempered, but steel nonetheless. Infac could not have become the success that it did if Sunil was merely a ‘gentleman’ as the term tends to be disparagingly used.

I treasure this memory, and have tried to transmit it forward as widely as possible; there have been numerous occasions when a business meeting or a discussion among friends has become ‘heavy’ that I’ve cut in with ‘Hindi mein bol!’ and shared the Sunil story. And I share it with you now, as a mark of my regard and respect for the human being that was Sunil Mehta. Try it for yourself sometime. And if it works for you, then spread it around.

Rest in peace Sunil.