Shobha Ramswamy

Namesake and mirror images keep Lakshmanan Krishna Kumar humoured at work and leisure

A typical comedy of errors played itself out repeatedly between Lakshmanan Krishna Kumar and his brother Ram as they grew up in Chennai. The brothers are second-generation twins. Their mother is a twin, just as Krishna Kumar and his wife are parents of four-year-old twins. It is rare to come across three successive generations of twins in a single family. And Krishna Kumar appropriately sought a place in the Guinness Book of Records. However, he met with denial there in the absence of a suitable category.

In retrospect, he is not overly disappointed either. For he has bags of memories of pranks and practical jokes to delve into, to keep him in good humour at all times. In fact, he harks back to the past very often these days as he pretty much faces a similar situation at work. Lakshmanan Krishna Kumar, vice president – finance, Indian Hotels, shares his name with the MD, R. Krishna Kumar. Each often ends up answering the other’s phone calls and messages sometimes get mixed up – a source of much amusement after the mix-up is sorted out. " I have often had to interrupt a caller mid-way to re-direct him to the right person. I have also received calls from Mr Ratan Tata before his office realised the mistake," says Krishna Kumar.

It doesn’t end with wrong phone connections either. There have been times when senior officers from the Tata Group have landed up at his office expecting to meet the `other’ Krishna Kumar.

Krishna Kumar is adept at handling cases of mistaken identity, just as he switches into a lighter vein when the occasion presents itself. Last week his brother’s classmate walked up to him to start a conversation, mistaking him for Ram. The event sent him down memory lane to a time when, as children, the brothers would get away with playing pranks on others. Rarely is a family reunion complete without laughing about the past.

When they studied together in Class III, Krishna Kumar had roughed up a classmate. When prodded to name the aggressor, the victim innocently pointed at Ram who was punished while his guilty sibling went scot-free. Much later, Krishna Kumar often walked into his brother’s hostel room at the IIT unannounced, to watch the fun. His roommates would assume it was Ram and include him in the conversation. Ram would save the day by walking in a little later.

They are identical twins in more ways than one. They share similar tastes in films and music, and at times their thought processes are also alike. However, they took separate courses for higher studies. Krishna Kumar studied to become a chartered accountant while his brother earned an engineering degree from IIT, which he followed up with an MBA.

Krishna Kumar worked for A. F. Ferguson and Co in the Management Consultancy Division as a senior consultant for five years and Larsen and Toubro (L&T) for over 12 years, before joining Indian Hotels. He is also a director on the Board for various companies like Asia Pacific Hotels, Taj Trade and Investment and Taj International Hotels (HK).

A self-confessed workaholic, Krishna Kumar thrives on challenges. "I feel at a loss when I don’t have things to explore," he explains. Work itself has to be a learning experience, and his source of sustenance lies in encountering problems and finding atypical solutions.

"I derived immense satisfaction from engineering a couple of acquisitions in Ferguson. Thereafter, structuring the sale of L&T's shipping businesses and acquisition of the Taj Land's End in Mumbai have been my other pet projects," he says. "I interacted with professionals from the US for the shipping sale. They were hard negotiators and it was very satisfying to convince them and win them over. The Taj Land’s End dealing with the Lokhandwalas was a different ballgame altogether as their manner of operations is very distinct from that of the Tatas."

When he is not at work, Krishna Kumar enjoys a good game of cricket and badminton although he has little time to indulge in sports these days. He manages to keep track of crucial matches and works his schedules around accordingly. His favourite cricketing personalities are Kapil Dev and Viv Richards, the former for being an all-rounder, the latter for his flamboyant style during play. Among the new crop of cricketers, Rahul Dravid tops his list for his classic style. He admires the Sri Lankan team for picking up challenges on field. At the moment, spends much of his leisure catching up with the ongoing World Cup series.

In times of stress, he turns to prayer too, although his stress busters these days are his four-year-old twins. "I plan my work schedule in such a manner that I can spend at least half an hour with them. I drop them to school everyday and weekends are completely dedicated to them," he says. He plays with his son’s toys, and turns into an obedient pupil as his daughter plays the teacher. His son is the quiet one, while his daughter is naughty and restless.

When he is able to set aside time for himself, he reaches for a paperback in the detective series of Agatha Christie and Jeffery Archer. Sometimes he listens to Pankaj Udhas’ ghazals or tunes in to old songs or classical Indian music.

Back to work, the next day, one can find him at his desk thinking up new strategies and looking for fresh challenges to address. He will not be terribly annoyed if his thoughts are interrupted with a wrong phone call or two, either.