Easwar Reddy D R - Building a Pyramid, One Stone at a Time

Building a Pyramid, One Stone at a Time

D R Easwar Reddy

Hailing from a humble agricultural background, Easwar Reddy is an Alumnus of IHMCT, Chennai, having passed out in 1983. He wanted to become an Engineer which was the most sought-after career at that point in time, but fate had different plans for him.

A distant relative, Mr. Saranagapani, an alumnus of IHMCT, Chennai, who would have passed out in the late sixties or early seventies, played a crucial role in the career of Easwar Reddy.

It was totally by chance that Easwar joined IHMCT, Madras as it was known then. He was all at sea, to start with, but once he was in the premier catering college, he started wondering whether his future is going to be with machines or men. For the hospitality industry, the main resource is humans, and nothing other than that.  

At the IHM, legendary Professors like Mr. Victor, Mrs. Vimala Victor, Mr. Ramanathan, Mr. Roberts, Mrs. Mullens, and Principal, Mr. Inder Bhari left a lasting impression on Easwar which he still carries with him.  

The story began then, after passing out from IHMCT in 1983. He approached Fisherman’s Cove, one of the top-rated beach resorts of the Taj Group in Tamil Nadu, and got an offer from them for the position of Management Trainee. Not happy with what he would do at Fisherman’s Cove, he attended the campus interview by TTDC, the State Government undertaking, got selected, and was posted to their Madurai Unit.

With the offer in hand, he boarded the train only to get down at Katpadi, to discuss this with his paternal uncle, who happened to be the only graduate in the entire family. The twist in the tale was to come the next day, when he saw an advertisement in The Hindu, calling aspirants for a position to manage a company canteen and guest house of a green field company in a remote forest area. That company was Tamil Nadu Industrial Explosives Ltd. 

After spending seven and a half years there, his craving for doing something different started tormenting him. Once again it was an ad in The Hindu that brought him to experience MNC culture. He responded to the ad against the wishes of his entire family, who resisted the move as it is utter foolishness to kick a Government job for a private one. His wife, Radha, in spite of budding Gokul, the newborn, asked him to go for it.

He attended the interview at L&T, one of the top-notch construction companies in the world. Based out of Chennai, he stayed on for 15 long years.  The fact that he joined as canteen supervisor and went on to head one of their Units as AGM HR was a significant milestone in his career.

At L&T, he was handling men more than anything else and was literally instrumental in maintaining industrial harmony, with the belief in the fact that the best way to satisfy a customer is through his stomach. 

After a successful stint in the corporate sector in managing industrial canteens, Easwar grew restless. In his hunger to work towards finding more ways to ensure customer delight, he partnered with the Late C R who started a small time Catering Company way back in 1983, and CRCL grew in leaps and bounds then after.  

The scope for contractual catering in India is Rs 60,000 crores and only 5% of this space is occupied by professionally run caterers. The remaining business is with local and fly-by-wire operators, many of whom have shuttered their doors now. As a consequence, after the Covid catastrophe, many corporate clients have started looking out for stable and statutorily compliant catering establishments.

CRCL is now taking care of the catering needs of the leading corporates like Ashok Leyland, MRF, L&T, TVS, and as well educational institutions in all the campuses of VIT apart from IIT Chennai. CRCL serves around 3,00,000 meals in a day and the company employs over 2,500 professional chefs and service professionals, many from hotel management institutes from across the country.

Despite hailing from a conservative agricultural family, Easwar is glad that he got exposure to the world outside, especially from people who come from divergent cultures and backgrounds.  His word of advice to future generations is to put their heart and soul into whatever they do. Every moment is a learning experience, but we also learn from other's mistakes, as we only have one life. Keep challenging the limits and stay out of your comfort zone. Accept people as they are. Focus on things within your control.

D R Easwar Reddy, batch of 1983

The author of this article K.V.R. Kishore Babu is an Alumnus of IHM&CT, Chennai, 1982 batch and is presently Head HR of CRCL.