In defence of Siddhartha Mallya

I read an interesting piece in the Economic Times yesterday figuring out if Siddhartha Mallya was just a lucky inheritor or whether he really had what it took to run a business. The sole reason for this quest seems to be Mallya Jr.’s activity on social media. Many people including yours truly have shuddered reading his tweets about playing volleyball with bikini clad models on the sets of the Kingfisher Calendar shoot, when around 4,000 employees of Kingfisher Airlines haven’t got their salaries for the last seven months.


(Image courtesy: http://reviews.in.88db.com/)


What surprises me however, is that people who do not pay their domestic help on time and engage on social media pursuits for at least 3 hours in a working day have problems with Mallya Jr.’s behavior. (I know this is not entirely an accurate correlation. Mallya Jr. has little or nothing to do with the airline, except that it was launched on his birthday seven years ago.) Would it help if one did not know how he was spending his time? Would it help if he just became incommunicado like his father?
A decade ago, when social media use was not as compulsively used as it is now, many crooks just vamoosed over night. That included infamous chit fund owners, fly by night operators who made their money duping clients based on false stock market promises, politicians who had jumped camp, couples who had eloped etc. It was a while before they resurfaced in a new avatar and most people believed these folks had changed for the better. And that time spent incommunicado was actually time spent repenting their deeds. How terribly wrong these assumptions turned out to be.

What Mallya Jr. is doing is living his life – like he always has. Somehow it was ok watching him go from fat to fab, coochie-cooing with former girlfriend Deepika Padukone at the IPL, or seeing him make a mean cocktail on Simi Garewal’s show India’s Most Desirable – even as the airline wasn’t at the pink of its health then. He seems to seek no greater publicity now than what he sought then. He tweeted as much about his observations on life as he does now. Women, nightlife, entertainment, politics and London continue to be a part of his social media life. I’d say the man has at least remained consistent and transparent about his doings!

It has been made amply clear that Kingfisher Airlines is faced with bankruptcy, not the Mallyas’ personal fortune or for that matter any of their other businesses. Technically, the Mallyas do not have an obligation to pay anyone in their present condition. Morally, they might. But since when did we start caring about morality among the rich and powerful?

Update: Apparently, Siddhartha has stopped tweeting his observations on life. Does that now make him a better businessman?

Dislaimer: I have never had any professional or personal interactions with Kingfisher Airlines or the Mallya family. I do not own any stock in any of the companies floated by the Mallya family. I am as much of a spectator on this issue as most readers would be.