Ajay and Swati Piramal’s son Anand is back in Mumbai to join his father’s business and expand his NGO Dia.
21 years old and American returned. One would expect Anand Piramal to be a starry-eyed kid claiming his unprecedented love for the West. But Anand takes you by surprise. Having lived in the US and the UK for six years now, he has no qualms about his desi roots. “We Indians suffer from a post-colonial mindset that America is the only land of opportunity. But the fact remains that all the action is in India,” he says.
Expounding on his ease with merging his Indian roots with a Western upbringing, he continues, “There is a misconception that rich kids my age who graduate from foreign universities are the ones who party all the time – the ‘lets get rocked’ generation. But that’s just not true. Going abroad brought me closer to my roots. I decided that I had to return and do something for my own country,” says Piramal, stating that to make a difference one does not have to be termed a ‘social worker’.
The scion of one of the country’s leading business families, it was expected that he’d return to take forward the legacy of the family, but to Anand, the Piramal Foundation is more passion than duty. “This is the golden era for our generation. We’re the confident lot and I truly believe that businesses in India are doing so well, there isn’t any need to look outside our own country,” he says.
Apart from his business brain, Anand has a heart that beats for the people of India, especially the underprivileged. He was only 19 when he began his initiative, Dia, to rekindle entrepreneurship in Jhunjhunu, a poor district in rural Rajasthan. “With Dia, I want to showcase our country in a modern context and get young people to participate in a positive way. I am excited about the foundation more than anything else,” he smiles.
