As I sit sipping my cuppa freshly brewed Kaapi and poring over the newspaper, the calm face of the Coffee King hits my eye. Praises, tears, balance sheets, allegations and lessons learnt, suicide helpline numbers….Did he deserve this???

One who at the tender age of 21 with two generations of coffee in his blood, still opted to start something different and built the CCD empire brick by brick …was he so weak to succumb to pressure this way?

While we stand clueless as to what exactly transpired, lets think logically…He struck me as one who instead of choosing to just blend into his family business, opted to seek his fortune all by himself in Mumbai to learn the nuances of management and not to be a ‘frog in the well’; as one who was always on the lookout for opportunities and saw one during one casual dinner with Tchibo and came back motivated to start CCD; as one who had a vision as is envisioned not by balance sheets and profits and debts etc but the very fact that even today when we think of coffee in India or generally thinking of a place to hang out for a peaceful chit chat, its Cafe Coffee Day which pops up in the mind…Isnt that success????? The brand, the vision….

No!!!! CCD did not fail…the business model may have ….but not the brand and the comfort one feels as one saunters into it and the assurance that one may sit there and rejuvenate without having to burn a huge hole in the pocket..

There are zillions of possibilities..the letter may have been planted to lead one to a false trail…he may have tripped while walking down the bridge, he may have been ‘eliminated’, he may have gone to meet someone on a secret deal for improving the business and something followed…God knows what actually happened….Building a business is not child’s play and one who built the CCD empire would have definitely not lost his stability over one more obstacle…We can only sit and hypothesize and conjecture over our cup of coffee…but it kind of feels out of place to see him branded as weak person who committed suicide…the legacy he built is proof of his success…

I am no fan of CCD nor did I even know his name before this tragic incident..but having read the media reports, I feel it is fair one should stop politicizing the entire incident, portraying him as someone weak and give his soul and his loved ones the space needed…As CCD says ‘A lot can happen over coffee’…

Ask the multitude of people who share pleasant memories of first dates, first business pitch talks etc at CCD and am sure they would vouch for the same..

Off I go…to share this with my friend over a cup of coffee…where else…namma Cafe Coffee Day!!!