Early next year, when B. Muthuraman takes his wife on their annual vacation, he plans to traverse almost the length and breadth of Asia-Pacific. No, it isn't the Muthuramans' 25th  wedding anniversary and neither are they crazy about this part of the world. Rather, for the Tata Steel MD at least, it will be business as usual. 

Recently, the Tata group company acquired the steel business of NatSteel of Singapore for about Rs 1,300 crore, and Muthuraman, who joined Tata  Steel as a trainee engineer in 1966 and became its top executive in 2001, hasn't seen any of NatSteel's six units in Singapore, China, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia. "I think it's a good way of mixing business with pleasure," says the amateur golfer and the man credited with getting Tata Steel's spanking new cold roll mill in Jamshedpur up and running in a record time of 25 months. BT has no idea what Muthuraman's better half thinks of his busman's holiday.