“I like to take up impossible things. When people say something can’t be done, my instinct is to accept the challenge and get it done,” says Ketan Sengupta, 57, sitting in his Moira Street office, where he has been the CEO of Bengal Peerless Housing Development Co Ltd since July 2015. Soft-spoken and mild-mannered, Sengupta frequently breaks into a smile and seems to love digressions. The first of which arrives when talking about his formative years.
“I was born and brought up in Dover Lane (off Gariahat),” says Sengupta, who now splits his time between Mandeville Gardens and Urbana. Sengupta’s childhood and adolescent memories range from the third Indo-Pak war and the subsequent liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 to the Naxalite movement that had Kolkata and Bengal as its nerve centre. “I remember days when we couldn’t put on the lights at home. Sirens and bomb alerts were not a rarity back then. Once, I found out that someone had left a bomb outside a school near my house. Thankfully, there was no damage done,” recollects Sengupta, before effortlessly segueing into something far less consequential. The Ranji Trophy final between Bombay and Bengal from 1972, a match which Sengupta knows everything about. “I can still tell you how much each team scored and recap the game as if it were yesterday,” he laughs.
‘Best years of my life were at Jadavpur University’
Sengupta with his pet dog Bruno Ketan Sengupta
Growing up, sports was a big part of Sengupta’s life, a lifelong East Bengal fan, who completed his schooling at South Point before moving to Jadavpur University for his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. His father, Ashru Mukul Sengupta, ensured that the young Ketan would also get his fair share of intellectual labour. “My father was an ardent follower of the Indian revolutionary Manabendra Nath Roy and believed in radical humanism. He had a group of friends, including the likes of N Viswanathan (academic and actor), Pritish Nandy (journalist, poet, artist) and Sipra Sarkar (academic), with whom he would have his regular adda sessions at our house. Through my father, I cultivated the habit of reading and expanded my intellectual horizons,” says Sengupta.
After the “best four years of my life” at Jadavpur University, which gave “me the freedom to interact with people from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures”, Sengupta worked for around five years on hardcore civil engineering projects, which also involved being an integral part of the Ganga Action Plan. But he was not enjoying what he was doing. He wanted something else.
“I had always dreamt of starting something of my own, and with my good friend Chandra Shekhar Banerjee (a colleague at one of Sengupta’s previous jobs) as business partner, I began Eikon Creators. Initially, my friend and I had no capital and put all of our savings into the enterprise. Thankfully, it paid off,” narrates Sengupta, who would function as architect and legal expert besides his more conventional domain as civil engineer for whatever real estate projects Eikon took up. “Overall, we were responsible for more than 50 buildings in Kolkata. But I could feel that things were taking their toll,” sighs Sengupta. More than wearing a number of hats in his own company, what wore him down were “interventions” — the hassles of bureaucracy and the threats of goons in certain areas of Kolkata. Eventually, at the start of 2008, he left Eikon to return to the corporate world.
“I got an offer from Godrej Properties and immediately realised that my experience as an entrepreneur had made me competent across a range of roles,” smiles Sengupta, who was soon fast-tracked as general manager of operations of East India, before being made the business head of the region in 2010. During his seven-and-a-half years at Godrej, he was responsible for steering many of the company’s flagship projects in Kolkata, from Godrej Waterside and Godrej Genesis in Salt Lake to Godrej Prakriti in Sodepur and Godrej Seven in Joka.
Five-year plan to turn Bengal Peerless around
Sengupta feels that Avidipta 2 will be ready for handover by the start of 2024 Ketan Sengupta
Then, in the summer of 2015, came an opportunity to start over once more, to get one of those “impossible things” done. At the time, Bengal Peerless was going through a crisis. “The handover of Avidipta 1 (a housing complex off the Bypass near Metro Cash & Carry) was approaching and work was far from done. My first priority was to complete that,” explains Sengupta, who came up with a five-year plan to turn Bengal Peerless around. “At the heart of the plan was to transform how people identified with Bengal Peerless. Till then, we were seen as developers for the middle-income group. But with Kolkata and Kolkatans becoming more ambitious, we had to build high-end projects. That’s what led to the birth of Avidipta 2 (next to Avidipta 1), which has 47 storeys and is all set to be the third-highest building in the city,” he adds, optimistic that the property will be ready for use by the start of 2024.
Meeting and learning from Sourav Ganguly
Sourav Ganguly at the launch of Sengupta’s songs ‘Dada, We Love You’ and ‘Africa Africa’, both sung by Usha Uthup, at South City Mall TT archives
Apart from evolving the culture at Bengal Peerless by combining old certainties with new stirrings, Sengupta pulled an ace out of his pack for Avidipta 2 by convincing Sourav Ganguly to come onboard as an ambassador. “The first time I met Sourav, I shared with him my memories of his Ranji debut, recalling the score he was batting on overnight and when and how he got dismissed. He was pleasantly surprised!
"It’s a pleasure to have someone like Sourav as the face of Avidipta. His leadership skills and the way he can motivate people are inspiring. Across the course of our association and friendship, I’ve learnt a lot from him, especially when it comes to not giving up,” says Sengupta.
That brings us to Dada, We Love You! Earlier this year, Sengupta, who is also a poet and lyricist in both Bengali and English, released two songs, both written by him and sung by Usha Uthup. One of them, called Dada, We Love You, is his tribute to Sourav Ganguly, while the other, Africa Africa, will soon have its own music video, featuring footage that Sengupta has captured himself.
“Apart from writing poems and songs (he frequently performs his own poetry, having done multiple recitations with Bratati Bandyopadhyay), I love wildlife photography,” reveals Sengupta, with a grin. He talks about photographs and animals with a near-childlike glee, enthusiastically retelling stories of snapping a spirit bear in Canada and capturing a mother cheetah teaching her cubs how to hunt an impala in Kenya’s Masai Mara. Along with his friend and entreprenuer Shiladitya Choudhury, he has designed a calendar with the duo’s favourite wildlife clicks, which takes pride of place on his Peerless work desk. But that is not all, for the multi-talented Sengupta is also a gifted painter. As a kid, he had painted his version of the Battle of Haldighati, showing the Mughal forces of Man Singh I of Amber taking on the Mewars, led by Maharana Pratap. “I love painting, though I hardly find time for it nowadays,” says the corporate captain for whom a normal work day starts at 7.30 in the morning and continues till midnight.
‘If there’s one thing I really want to do, it’s to take a company from scratch and make it go public’
Sengupta’s lifelong motto has been ‘to do different things differently’ Ketan Sengupta
For someone who loves challenges, what is his next one? “For now, there are multiple projects with Bengal Peerless that I’m really excited about. Things are happening in Kolkata’s real estate market and we’re getting more and more buildings that meet international standards. However, what I’m worried about is that most people buying property beyond a certain threshold in Kolkata are non-residential Bengalis, whose purchases are mostly down to sentiment or their age-old connection to Kolkata. For the next generation, Kolkata isn’t creating enough incentives to buy and stay,” replies Sengupta.
He proceeds to grapple a second time with the original question and says: “If there’s one thing I really want to do, it’s to take a company from scratch and make it go public.” In other words, one more “impossible thing”. Then again, that should come as no surprise, for Sengupta’s motto has always been “to do different things differently”. Elaborating on what keeps him going, he says: “The key is to understand how needs and wants change, to keep valuing the customer. All of us have to keep pace with technology and ensure we know how to anticipate as well as how to execute.”
