For the last 15 years his office is adorned by a famous sport shoe tagline, “There is no finish line”. Kirit Maganlal owes it to a number of people who have shaped him through the years. His grandfather and father have been the biggest drivers on all counts.
For Kirit, Ratan Tata is his business icon. The greatest moment of his life was when he got the opportunity to talk to him for nearly ten uninterrupted minutes during his tenure as Chairman CII. “I captioned the photograph of our meeting as “Today I met God,” added Mr Maganlal.
He relishes anything that is to do with just being alone. “I love to go for long walks, jogs or cycling. I am not an early morning person so all these activities happen post 9 pm. It is not uncommon to see me cycle long stretches in the middle of the night. I am now looking to solo kayaking trips,” said Mr Maganlal.
For him Goa is important and he feels that one can never take Goa out of a Goan and there is no better place to be right now. “Our family will complete a 100 years in Goa in the next decade. Our blood is more Goan than most. We have been an integral part of the Goan social and business fabric,” added Mr Maganlal.
Kirit loathes watching family dramas in theatres. Most of the ‘Soaps’ on TV, according to him should be banned. He is at present enjoying the final series of “The House of Cards” and awaiting the 4th Season. “I love the creativity that Aamir Khan brings into the movie space. Some Khans are overhyped (and over paid). Yes, and I love to watch the Kanganas, the Deepikas and the Katrinas of our silver screen,” added Mr Maganlal.
When asked about his hobby, Kirit stated that there were days during college when he did a lot of sketch works of objects and faces with lead and charcoal. He also used a bit of water and oil colours for landscapes and scenery.
He believes that food tastes keep changing just as flavours change with the times. During the course of their travel, they have gorged on all kinds of local foods, street food, fine dine stuff and gourmet. “It’s rubbed off on the kind of offerings that we give our customers at our stores. There is rarely a product on our shelves that I have not experimented with.”
About travel, he believes that one should go where life takes you and there is no use going places because someone before you has done that.
“I am more of an introvert and prefer a small company of close friends or just family, during our holiday sojourns. I prefer to personally structure our tour,” added Mr Maganlal.
He reminsences that when his boys were just tots, they travelled the whole of Europe with them by road, rail and sea. “Once we followed Cliff Richard all across his Sri Lanka tour just to catch up with him in Colombo for a memorable photograph. My wife Andrea is a great planner. The two of us are now planning to travel through India since the ‘boys’ have now become ‘men’ and prefer their own group of company,” said Mr Maganlal.
Even though he is fighting to compete against his sons Mishal and Pranjay regarding book reading and at times makes Kirit jealous of their voracious appetite to read books.
