They might not be best friends, but they are great business partners and always look out for each other

This brother and sister might be poles apart, but when it comes to their 90-year-old family business they are a single unit. Though Hemamalini Maiya (43) and Vikram Maiya (40) are the faces of the landmark Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, popularly known as MTR, not many know that the business has a sleeping partner ( 35 year old sibling Priya) and a low-key partner (30-year-old youngest sibling Arvind).

Ironically, the siblings never imagined that one day they would be spearheading the family business. They didn’t want to.

As we settle down in the deluxe area of MTR on Lalbagh Road with Vikram and Arvind, waiting for Hemamalini to join us, Vikram jokingly tells his brother Arvind, the quieter of the siblings, “We should speak before Hema comes in…we won’t get a chance after that.” Bingo! The affable (and talkative) Hemamalini walks in. And the room is filled with laughter.

Going back in time Hemamalini was thrown into the restaurant business a day after her father Harishchandra Maiya’s death in 1999, after a prolonged illness. (Her father was the nephew of the founder of MTR, Yajnanarayana Maiya, and took over the reins of the restaurant after his death in 1968)

Hemamalini reminisces about her father wanting her to “study engineering” and go overseas. “But things changed with my father’s illness,” she says. “I think my taking over the restaurant wasn’t all that sudden. I guess somewhere along the way my father knew that I would have to and started preparing me mentally.”

Today, when she looks back on those troubling initial years, she clutches her head in her hands and says: “Overwhelming experience.” From being hands-on in the kitchen, doubling up as cashier and dealing with troublesome staff… Hemamalini doesn’t have many pleasant memories of those years. She recalls fighting her way through in the “male-dominated space”. It wasn’t at all easy for her to slip into her father’s ‘big’ shoes and she says women “at the top are never taken seriously. In fact, at one point people thought it was time I pack up and leave. But the more I was told that, the more determined I was to show them that I was here to stay”. She adds, “Looking back I don’t know how I did it.”

By 2000 Vikram decided to leave his job at the Global Trust Bank and join the family business. Till then it “was all about friends, parties and rock music,” Vikram confesses. “I hardly remember being at home during my teenage years.” He also doesn’t remember being particularly “close” to his siblings while growing up. “After we turned teenagers, our friends circle was completely different,” admits Vikram. That’s another reason that even to this day he says, he isn’t as close to his cousins as his siblings are.

But Hemamalini has fond memories of cycling and skating with her brother. Pointing to Vikram, she says, “He’d fall down often and hurt himself. We had an old cook, who would follow him around as he learnt to cycle. He was always in a hurry to learn. On the other hand, I would meticulously follow the rules.” Hemamalini’s biggest grouse during their growing years was having to follow several rules. “Vikram got all the freedom and I had so many restrictions…like I had to come home before dusk, while he hardly came home in the night,” she recalls.

At school they were always referred to as the ‘ones from MTR’. “And every school picnic would have food catered from the hotel,” Vikram remembers.

Growing up in the MTR House, (located close to the restaurant, which is now turned into MTR’s central kitchen and manufacturing unit), brother and sister recall playing with the children of the staff, which later led to many awkward situations. “Many of ‘those children’ became employees of MTR. And when we took over and had to order them around it was quite odd,” Vikram says.

“We had a wild childhood, which this guy missed,” the duo chorus pointing to Arvind who quietly listens as his older siblings go down memory lane. Arvind who was in class 10 when his father passed away recalls his friends mistaking his dad as his grandfather. “I just remember that by the time I was in class 7, I didn’t want my father to come to any PTA meetings,” Arvind says. Soon Hemamalini replaced her father at these meetings. “My parenting skills began back then,” says Hemamalini.

Arvind is considered the calm and level-headed sibling. “Growing up he was the exact opposite of Vikram,” Hema says. “But he did trouble our mother as a three-year- old, refusing to walk; he’d sit on the sofa all day and watch television. He’d sing Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA with an imaginary mic…” Arvind interrupts: “I must have had the cleanest feet!”

The here and now Today the three of them handle different areas of the business — Hemamalini takes care of finance, Vikram, the overall growth, expansion and quality control and Arvind the human resources department. Though MTR still stands in the same place as it did for more than five decades, the youngsters have been the wind beneath its wings — from a stand-alone restaurant, MTR expanded into a restaurant chain with the opening of its second restaurant in Rajajinagar in 2004 and in Singapore in 2013.

They still might not be ‘close’ as siblings are expected to be, but they have a clear understanding and respect for each others’ strength. “I must say I’ve learnt everything from both of them,” says Arvind. And Vikram chips in: “If I’ve learnt to be focused, it is thanks to Hemamalini.”

They sure look out for each other. “We connect at a more mature level now,” Vikram says. And when it comes to business, they are all on the same page.

source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Columns> Sunday Read / June 21st, 2014