The Mad-Dam-Sels’ View by The Mad-Dams of IHM Chennai

 The Mad-Dam-Sels’ View

The hospitality and tourism industry to the outside world appears to be a place of glamour - of well-mannered, well-trained, well-dressed people cruising through life and taking care of guests in hotels and restaurants across the world.  Many advertisements from across the walks of the industry feature glamourous women at the forefront, and why not?  

The Mad-Dams of the early '70s at an Onam lunch at the Institute.  Mrs Amelita Mullens third from left and Grace Gideon in the polka dotted sari

A recent article from the Economic Times Hospitality World.com says “they have higher emotional intelligence and are better at anticipating guests’ requirements, and their feminine touch gives beauty and elegance to the industry”.  So, what does it mean to be a part of this fascinating industry? 

A selection of women who graduated from the Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) in Chennai take a look at what the industry has meant to them over the years.  

Why Hotel Management?

Interestingly, the first student as per the register when the institute opened its doors in 1963 was A Greeta Damayanthi, known to many of us as Ms Greta Samuel or Greta Ma’am, a long-time lecturer at the institute.  Since then, many girls crossed the threshold of the institute.  Some joined because they were attracted to the glamour, some because they had an affinity to the service industry and many got in unknowingly, because it was just another choice on offer when they graduated high school.  Grace Gideon née Grace Prabhavathy (’72), who went on to become principal of the institute for 9 years, was one of the few who actually had an inkling of what she was getting into.  While waiting for the medical entrance results, she joined a bakery course at the then newly opened IHM Bangalore.  A few of the lecturers, who were from Madras, saw something in her and recommended that she join the institute in Chennai – that inspired her enough to give up her medical seat and make a lifelong career in the industry.  

Grace was the exception though.  Until the mid-‘90s at least, when the thirst for professional courses was at its height, hotel management or catering technology was not quite the fad that it is today.  At a time when degrees and first division marks really mattered, IHM only offered a Diploma.  One graduate from the early ‘80s says, “I was not into studying, my aspirations were either to become a secretary, join an airline or work at a hotel.  I couldn’t get into an airline because I didn’t know Hindi, so I ended up choosing Hotel Management”.  Another one from the early ‘90s who did fairly well in her 12th standard says her teachers did their utmost to convince her not to join Hotel Management because it was a waste of her talent.

Definitely in Madras, as Chennai was then called, but also in other parts of the country, women who worked in ‘glamourous’ industries like hospitality and airlines were frowned upon and their marriage proposals impacted negatively.  For those who bucked tradition and decided to join the course, oft heard questions were “Edhukku Hotel Management? Samayalkaari aagaporiyaa? Paathram theykaporiyaa?” – why hotel management? Are you going to become a cook or are you going to become a dish washer?  Grace Gideon, principal of the institute from 1997 to 2006, says that as late as the early 2000s, she still had parents questioning how their daughters would work in hotels.

From the late ‘90s onwards, hotel management as a course became a more popular choice.  Advertisements from private colleges lured the students to the industry, but more seductive was the illusion of ease presented by the numerous cooking shows on television.  The glamourous dream became one of women donning the chef whites, driven by celebrity female chefs like Garima Arora.

Sadly though, the male female ratio at the institute still has not changed very much.  Grace Gideon started out as 1 of 5 girls and graduated as the only girl in a batch of about 80 students.  The ratio of girls to boys completing the course increased to about 15-16% in the ‘80s and ‘90s but remains static 30 years later, albeit with a large number of girls driven by the tremendously increased intake.

Life at College

Today, Taramani, where the college is located, is a bustling town, at the start of the IT highway.  Not so until the mid- ‘90s.  Travelling to the college was a nightmare.  Chaya says she lived in nearby Adyar,
but had to “take a bus from Adyar to Indira Nagar, cross the famous Buckingham Canal and reach the main gates after what felt like a long never-ending walk”.  The infrequent buses from Madhya Kailash were no better as a means of transport.  The route to college was definitely not conducive to the girls travelling on their own, but the boys were our champions, escorting us to the bus stop and protecting us from the dangers that could be, says one student from the ‘90s.  

The girls’ hostel was inaugurated around the mid-late ‘90s and hopefully has made it easier for the girls to focus on their education. Krithika Sharma (’14) reminiscences about life on campus, sitting in library, currying favour with the seniors so they’d be benevolent enough to pass on their notes, the tug of wars for the newspaper at the hostel and the world maps stuck on the walls of her hostel room to memorize countries.

Sneha Samuel (’18) says she has some amazing memories of college life despite the harrowing experience of the 2015 floods.  Over the years, the institute seems to have made itself a name for the events it organizes and this is what Sneha misses the most, apart from the deep friendships.  

For the most part, apart from travel and accommodation woes, it appears that college life was no different for the girls than it was for the boys.  Both genders had an equal part to play in split sauces, wobbly desserts, weird shaped chappatis and imperfectly mitred beds.

Embarking on a career in the industry...

The campus interviews signaled the beginning of the end of college life and the loss of parity between the genders.  Competition was fierce – boys and girls faced the same battle, but was it a level playing field?  At least in the early years, options available to female graduates were limited.  Front Office and Housekeeping were usually the preferred career choices for women, maybe because they didn’t require as much heavy lifting.  

A student from the early ‘80s who joined the housekeeping department says she didn’t face any issues with career progression.  In fact, she was placed in the management training program and her progression to Executive Housekeeper was expedited.  However, she regrets that the department as a whole was not given as much importance in strategic decision making as the others were.

Across the wall, in the more hard-core departments like Food & Beverage (F&B) Service and Food Production, the women had it tougher.  One student from the ‘90s who chose F&B Service says she
was placed in banquet sales as that was the woman’s domain. Another one says she was usually asked to play hostess and when she insisted on doing an actual service, was reminded of her physical weakness when she struggled with clearing a 6 or 8 cover table in one go.  Despite all this, some persisted and went places – Usha ('85) was one of the early female restaurant managers from IHM Madras and Manjima (’91) went on to become the country’s first female butler.  

There was the occasional woman, like Kuljeet Grewal (’93) who made bold choices.  She decided to assuage her globetrotting desires with a job in cruise liners and says she was treated like a princess and absolutely loved her time on board the luxury liners.

In the present era, the playing field of campus placement is still leveling out.  Hotels have discovered that men can be as good housekeepers as women can.  Some departments still prefer men – the kitchen training program, for example, is still a tough one, but more and more girls are opting to be Chefs.  There is no doubt that women have to work doubly hard to prove themselves, but it is women like Usha, Chaya and Manjima and many more that paved the way for the generations today where you are not destined to become a housekeeper or a receptionist if you were a female who had graduated from IHM.  How long a woman survived in the industry was the question though...

The ones that endured

Jeetha Lazaro née Somaskandan (’84) joined as an assistant housekeeper at what was then Adyar Park. The hotel was very supportive of her career and helped her find a manageable balance between work and family.  She went on to become an Executive Housekeeper with ITC, which took over the management of the hotel. She is today Housekeeping Manager at AHS Hospitality, Australia’s largest provider of outsourced housekeeping services.

Kritika Sharma (’14), the Executive Housekeeper at Taj West End, became the youngest head of Housekeeping at age of 26 and then young hotelier of the year 2022 in the luxury to upper upscale segment.  She says her success came because she didn’t pay heed to criticism and followed her dream with passion and put in a load of hard work.  

Kuljeet stayed with the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line for 17 years and worked her way up from waitress to Executive Assistant to the Captain.  

Chaya Dronamraju

Chaya Dronamraju ('86) took a break to bring up her young family, a choice she sometimes questions, particularly because working her way back into the industry was difficult.  Her first job back was as a part-time lecturer at a couple of private colleges, then a full-time one, and eventually as a Training Manager at the Taj Coromandel, Chennai.  She now runs her own consulting company, training and mentoring young talent.

The girls of today say the conditions in hotels are still hard.  However, the ones that are passionate have become resourceful.  A number of them have chosen to venture into entrepreneurship – cloud-based businesses selling anything from baked goods to ice creams to artisanal products offer a low investment option to these enthusiastic youngsters.  They still have to work hard, but don’t have to wait until their middle-aged years to venture into entrepreneurship.

These success stories though were few and far between.  For the most part though, those women from IHM Chennai that have stayed on in the industry are today either in housekeeping, front office, sales and marketing or in human resources / training / coaching / teaching.  While not dismissing the importance of these roles, the sad truth is that the college has produced negligible numbers of female Executive Chefs, Food & Beverage Managers and definitely no General Managers. 

Once a hotelier, always a hotelier at heart...

Whilst many female MadCats have left the industry and moved on to bigger and better things, the hotel industry and college still hold a special place in their hearts.  

Of course, there are some students figure out early that they are not made for the industry. Monica (’18) was one of those who discovered the industry wasn’t meant for her, educated herself in supply chain management and made a career for herself in that industry.  More power to her.  

On the other hand, her classmate Sneha ('18) loved the industry, but was forced to seek opportunities elsewhere due to the glut created by Covid.  In her new job as a Process Manager with ITC, she says she rocks at her job because of the skills she developed at IHM and in her two years at hotels since - resilience, agility, adaptability, attention to detail, problem solving, courage to face every day in numerous business situations, these have helped her succeed.  She one day hopes to make her way back.

Sneha Samuel ('18), bottom row 5th from right, with the girls from her batch

Parvathi Muthiah (’94), who had dreamed of being a restauranteur since she was 10 years old, left the industry because it was not conducive to raising a young family.  After a career break and at least a couple of career changes, she now runs large infrastructure projects for Citibank and echoes Sneha’s sentiment. She has come up trumps, at least twice, because her training with hotels gave her the gumption to stand up to any challenge. Whether it was reviewing financial models or reengineering processes or learning about network switches and routers needed in a data center or staying awake crazy hours to support a technical implementation or being heard loud and clear amongst a roomful of men, she has been able to hold her own!  

Usha Rangarajan who quit as Chief Transformation Officer at Tata Teleservices to run her own consultancy firm says that when she first ventured out of hotels to an outsourcing service provider, she was a novice in the industry.  Within a month of joining though, the CEO asked her to sit in on a client presentation because of her ability to articulate and read body language.  She was the only woman to wear saris to work, but rather than dismissing her, the youngsters around her were inspired by her personal grooming.  Both those traits are unique to the hospitality industry and stand good in any industry, just as the ability to withstand intense pressure and do what it takes to get the job done.

All of these women have gone on to be stars in their own right, but has the industry missed out on these stars?  Is there any way they could have been retained?

Can female talent be retained and nurtured by the industry?

The hard truth is that the hotel industry is not for the faint hearted and that is a gender-neutral truth.  So why then are there disproportionately more men at the top than women?

There appear to be three main reasons for female attrition in the industry.  One is the working conditions, the long hours and the physical intensity of an operational job.  Two, the derision that they face when they don’t live up to the physical demands of the job.  Three, the inability of the industry to support the needs of a diverse population – in the case of women, the inability to consistently support them with initiatives like flexible hours and maternity benefits.  

Parvathi Muthiah ('94), left,
with Usha Rangarajan ('85),
who convinced her to renew
her career 

The Adyar Park had it right when they retained Jeetha Lazaro by going the extra mile to support her requirements.  Not every organization does that.  Conditions are slightly better today than they were 20-30 years ago, but the industry is still only inching towards a higher ratio of women in management.  Organizational tactics like the opening of all female managed hotels like Taj Wellington Mews in Chennai and the Westin in Hyderabad are but a drop in the ocean.  Senior women are taking it upon themselves to mentor the younger generation, whether it is to enter the workforce or to re-enter it after a break, but change takes time.

So, what do the Mad-Dams of IHM Chennai want? At a basic level, will hospitality leaders and innovators be able to bring in automation to reduce the dependence on physical labour, thus leveling the playing field?  Will they be able to institute policies that call for lesser working hours and more work-life balance?  Will the industry be able to support a woman taking an extended break and welcome her back to the industry on par or higher than where she left, depending on her experiences since?  Other industries have quotas for diversity ratios, male-female ratios being one of them – will the hospitality industry be able to rise to that challenge?   

We sincerely hope change is in the air...  And for all you kittens out there, stay the course, no matter what...  The going may be tough, but when the tough get going, there’s no stopping!

The Mad-Dams of IHM Chennai

Note: For those that haven’t yet figured it out, Dams are female cats