Business person Patricia Endures Little girl's Passing, Upset Relationship To Make Ideal Recipe For Progress

Savant Lao Tzu said, "The excursion of 1,000 miles starts with one stage", validating his words is Patricia Narayan's moving enterprising excursion, which started with one little stand at Chennai's Marina Ocean side and got her across a distance of 30 effective years.

Philosopher Lao Tau said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”, proving his words true is Patricia Narayana’s inspirational entrepreneurial journey, which began with one small kiosk at Chennai’s Marina Beach and got her across a distance of 30 successful years. Awarded the ‘FI CCI Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in 2010, in a conversation with IVB, Patricia shared the lessons she learned on the way from earning 50 pieces a day, to having a substantial turnover today.

Throughout she stressed the importance of self-motivation and a hands-on approach, but on being asked about the source of her strength, took her children’s names, “they are closest to my heart, and let’s talk now, for I’ll then be called by my son to taste the recipe he is currently experimenting in the kitchen”, she said. When I got my kiosk to stand permanently on Marina Beach, I had little to no idea of the journey ahead.

I was a puppet in the hands of time and situation, my personal life was bad, and I had absolutely no clue of what the future held. Coming from an upward middle-class family, I didn’t even know the ‘BCD’ of the food business. And of course, there was no Google either, which could come in handy every time I had to look for resources or any ‘XYZ’ thing (she laughs).

What I have learned, management strategy if you term it, has come from the school of life, that taught me what no Business School could have. The most important thing women who wish to take up the “food business” should remember is that don’t look at food as a business, and you’ll not have to work for a day. Women are said to know and feel the importance of food, and they can nurture it like how they would their own child.

But having said that, the food industry is no cakewalk, be conscious of what you are choosing, and know how to play with time, for you’ll have to be ready with a platter all the time! The restaurant is now being managed and run by her son independently, and the team for the corporate kitchens to has evolved with time, so things have eased up a bit, she told us. I didn’t want him to enter this business, because I know what it takes, but call it destiny, he had to leave his Naval Job (which he’d taken up on my advice) and come back from London for good.

But as they say, you can’t have it all, for long I have lived in the regret of not being able to give my children their mother’s time and presence that they deserved. No. Mine was an inter-religion love marriage, and the time then was very different from what it is today.

Do you have any early memories of conversation(s) with your children regarding the quotient of respect in a man-woman relationship?

Children don’t need to be taught things, they learn from what they see their parents do. I have lived my words throughout life, and I am proud, and also relieved, that both my children absorbed them well. And I am the geeky planner of those trips, so every time my daughter-in-law or grandchildren find me consumed in intensive Google Research, they’d inform my son of his mom’s travel mode, and he’d come to ask me, “so, where are you planning for now?” (she laughed away)

In her own words, “Once I decide I have to do a certain thing, I give all my heart and time to it, and that is what has kept me driving throughout.” It’s been years, but grief knows no time.

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