Why me?” he asks when I call for an appointment. “You head a company with pan-India presence and are Chairman-elect of CII, Madurai Zone,” I fumble and commit to meet him between 10.30 and 11 a.m. Next morning, at 10.50, I am at the Madurai-based head office of the “Aparajitha Group” to meet its Chairman and Managing Director, Bharath Krishna Sankar. The small green patch in the front, the company logo inscribed on a black granite slab — “Aparajitha-Partnering Progress”, amazing nature photographs in the corridor, the collage of posters in his room of which “Be the Best, Better the Best” catches my eye, the statue of Buddha all seem to reflect something about this week’s personality even before I get speaking to him.

Precise

Gently he begins: “I somehow dislike in-between slots. It should be either 10.30 a.m. or 11 a.m.” “What a start!” I squirm. But, Bharath makes a difference with every word he utters giving an effortless copy. So this “born and brought up in Madurai” boy, a school and college topper, national gold medallist in Chartered Accountancy and Cost & Works Accountancy didn’t think that greener pastures existed beyond the boundaries of the small Temple Town? “I am ‘buttered and bre(a)d’ in Madurai but never got ‘jammed’!” he laughs and reveals how he always chased his passion of “being able to achieve things from Madurai”. “Aparajitha” means invincible and Bharat launched Aparajitha Corporate Services (P) Ltd, to deal with Human Resources and Compliances related services and Aparajitha Total Solutions (P) Ltd. for Project Management Services in Telecommunications purely driven by the “positive feel of the word that it would never get defeated.”

Growth

Quite so, the group has grown from 10 people and Rs.20 lakh turnover to 450 people with a turnover of over Rs.100 crores in just eight years. Today, Aparajitha is dubbed as the only organised company in India apprising and helping big firms to handle their personnel, management and contract labour issues. The company’s growth with its operations spread across 1200 locations in India shows how well the innovative services have been received. Among its prominent customers are Nokia, ITC group, Unilever, L&T, Reliance, Tata VSNL, Birla Sun life, HDFC, Bajaj Allianz, Oracle, NIIT, LMW and the TVS group. Given his natural drive to seek perfection with detail, this first generation entrepreneur has consciously handpicked his staff from in and around Madurai. “Belonging to a small town should not be a disadvantage. If people are given the right exposure and training they can bloom anywhere. All my team leaders who traverse the country on successful business trips are local boys,” he beams. Young Bharath blossomed in a family of doctors. He was the ‘odd CA” out and when anybody called ‘the auditor’, his mother would mistakenly disconnect saying “wrong number, this is doctor’s house!”

Perfect child

“There was nothing mischievous about me. I was too perfect as a child and very few friends could warm up to me. I have evolved over the years consciously learning to accept uncertainties, imperfections and not be judgmental. I believe in role modeling the positives of any individual,” he says. Bharath describes himself as “amalgamation of qualities” imbibed from six people who have profoundly influenced him. His grandmother’s perfection, mother’s caring nature, wife’s gentleness, his best childhood buddy, the JMD of TVS & Sons R.Dinesh’s optimism, a doctor friend Hari Shankar’s contentment with life and his mentor, the Chairman & Managing Director of TVS Southern Roadways Ltd, K.Ramesh’s thoroughness. In fact, it was Mr.Ramesh who initiated this ardent follower of Tamil literature to English reading, business and taking on challenges. “Till my 20s, life was easy, studying and topping in school, college and public exams. When I started working with the TVS group in 1988, I realised hard work does not necessarily bring matching results. There was emotional turmoil but he gave me a different perspective to life,” Bharath recalls, coyly adding that his mentor is also his father-in-law today. If Mr.Ramesh spotted the spark in him, it was friend Dinesh who gave him the idea of entrepreneurship. And armed with his brilliant academic record and flair for Human Resource development and financial management, Bharath announced himself in the corporate world. “Ours is a customer-oriented service organisation where we are continuously learning. The work to convince others is difficult as it involves concept selling with no benchmark,” says Bharath, who prefers to plan things to the T. If Sir John Lubbock’s two volumes “The Pleasures of Life” and “The Uses of Life” provide him ample food for thought, he thoroughly enjoys films like “Chak de, India!” and music of Illayaraja. “Emerging strong” drives him continuously but the inability to express anger weakens him occasionally. He candidly shares he feels terribly challenged by mechanical and electrical engineering but complicated philosophy gets into his head easily. “I disliked science, yet scored 97 per cent. I was not cut out for CA, yet topped the exams and became one. Later, I realised I was better at mentoring others. My band of emotions is very limited. Even on a roller-coaster, you will not spot a cringe on my face,” he shares light-heartedly.

Perfectionist

For a perfectionist like him who dons every role as son, husband, friend, boss, client, customer, supplier or tenant with equal devotion, he says he is “most comfortable with a thoroughly scheduled life”. A nature lover, he never misses his daily walks in his mother’s well-manicured garden lovingly called “brindavan”. “One needs to make conscious choices in life to be healthy and happy. This choice is mostly influenced by one’s values and beliefs,” he says. His guiding principle in life is to “give back to the society where we take from”. It is this spirit that led him to start “thalir thiran thittam” in collaboration with the CII. Described by his trainees as an “exceptional coach with a passion for nourishing entrepreneurial spirit in youngsters”, it is his dream to bring out more confident, employable and better citizens from smaller and little known places. “We should help youngsters develop interpersonal skills, problem solving ability, accuracy in decision making and situation learning. There is a gap between our institutional curriculum and working environment in the industry,” he underlines.

FACTFILE

K. S. Bharath is a postgraduate in Commerce, a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and an Associate of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India. Presently, he is the Vice Chairman and Chairman-elect of Confederation of Indian Industry, Madurai zone. His vision: To integrate major avenues of growth into the city’s developmental plans for its rapid and sustainable economic growth; To scale up the "thalir thiran thittam" programme, jointly launched by Aparajitha Foundation and CII, in more districts; To create a transformational change in school students by exposing them to over 150 basic skills from etiquettes to conversing, gender sensitisation to emotional intelligence. So far, about half-a-dozen schools in urban, semi urban and rural areas of Madurai, Sivaganga and Virudhunagar districts have been adopted and about 500 Class VII to XII students have been covered under the programme. He is the official guide for HR and Finance students of MBA programmes and teaches at the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai. Was awarded the Great Lakes Oscar for Best HR faculty in the year 2006.