Overcompensating for the notorious traffic of Bengaluru, India’s technology capital still widely known by its former name Bangalore, I arrive 20 minutes early for lunch with biologics billionaire Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. Her impatience with her home city’s congestion is well known, and as my Uber inches along and motorbikes mount pavements to bypass the gridlock, it is easy to see where she is coming from.
I stroll under the grand arches of the pink sandstone Leela Palace hotel before being ushered up to Arq, a near-deserted members’ club, ornately furnished and plastered with wallpaper designed by Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee. Mazumdar-Shaw greets me with a smile at a table near a blue Brazilian marble bar, adjacent to an antechamber lined with cigars and limited-edition Scotch.
The 73-year-old is a rarity in corporate India: a self-made female billionaire. One of the country’s most recognisable business leaders, she has countless awards for work across science and philanthropy. Yet it is her willingness to speak plainly that often generates headlines. She has complained frequently about Bengaluru’s deterioration, earning the ire of politicians. “I’ve always been very unconventional,” she says during lunch.