Light of the Lamp

Hi friends,                    V G Siddhartha-the name synonymous with Cafe Coffee Day, the chain of coffee outlets also known as Starbucks of India. Did you or me know him like that until yesterday? I can vouch that the general public including me was unaware of its founder compared to other business tycoons like Ambanis, Vijay Mallaya, Lalit Modi, Bajaj, the Rajus of Satyam Computers, the biocon founder lady Kiran Mazumdar etc. The man who redefined the way the Indians drank coffee in the early 1990s did not deserve to become an overnight household name in a tragic manner. Hailing from family who owned acres of coffee plantations in Chikmangaluru, Mr Siddhartha started a coffee trading company, ABC with Rs 60 million turnover. He improved an ailing coffee curing unit in Hassan and has curing capacity of 75,000 tonnes. He exported thousands of tonnes of coffee and sold 2,000 tonnes of coffee locally.                          In 1996, he opened the first ever Cafe Coffee Day, in