Early life

• V. G. Siddhartha Hedge the man who believed “ a lot could happen over a coffee” was an Indian tycoon from Karnataka. The man was the founder of Café Coffee Day popularly known as CCD amongst teens. Siddhartha was born in 1959 in Malenadu in Chikkamagaluru district in Karnataka

Career

• Running a coffee chain wasn’t always his first preference. His first preference was to join the Indian Army but at the age of 18, he failed to crack the National Defence Academy entrance exam. Thus, he decided to study Economics at Mangaluru’s St. Aloysius College instead. He was married to Malavika Krishna, daughter of former Chief Minister of Karnataka SM Krishna.

• He commenced his career at the age of 24 as a management trainee in J M Financial Limited in Mumbai. While he was working there, he used his earnings to buy coffee plantations. By the time he quit his job he managed to own 3000 acres of coffee plantations to his name.
• After two years of job, he returned home and borrowed Rupees 7.5 Lacs as a capital to start his firm and resolved not to lose the amount. He used 5 lac rupees to buy a plot and rest to rent an office along with starting his own financial security firm. Later on, the firm was renamed as Way2Weath Securities.
• In the year 1994, Siddhartha purchased an ailing coffee curing unit in Hassan, Karnataka and named it “Amalgamated Bean Company”. Betimes he opened retail stores all over Bangalore.

No sooner he stepped into export business and exported coffee to other parts of the world, especially Brazil. By the end of 1995, the company managed to be India’s largest exporter of coffee.

• In 1996, he planned to open Coffee Cafés in Bangalore. At that time the internet was still new to India and internet cafes used to charge 100 rupees per hour. From there he came up with an idea of opening a café where you could have coffee while browsing on the internet at the same time and it would also justify the price of 25 rupees.
• In the year 1996, Siddhartha opened the first outlet of Café Coffee Day at Brigade Road in Bangalore. By the zap of the year 2000, he rolled out 22 cafés in South India and by the zap of the year 2007, there were more than 200 CCD stores across India. As in July 2019, there were more than 1843 CCD outlets in six countries.

The unfortunate fall

• According to various theories, the reason behind Siddhartha’s death most probably was his inability to clear dues. He was under extreme pressure to pay off debts. In fact, the lines from the letter he purportedly wrote to his employees “I could not take any more pressure….” did highlight the possible reason behind his suicide.VG Siddhartha was under an enormous debt pile of nearly Rs. 11,000 crore. However, he listed all his assets worth nearly Rs. 18,000 crore which was enough to pay off all the liabilities.
• The letter made allegations of harassment by the Income Tax department. In 2017, Siddhartha was accused by the Income Tax department of tax evasion. The department conducted raids at over 20 properties owned by him. He was accused of concealing Rs. 650 crore from authorities.
• The letter also claims he was facing intense harassment from one of his investors. “I fought for a long time but today I gave up as I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares I had partially sold six months ago by burrowing a large sum of money from my friend” the letter reads, though Siddhartha did not specify any specific firm.

Death

• On the evening of 29 July 2019, Siddhartha left his car and driver near a bridge over the Netravati River in Ullal, Mangalore. His body was found at the Hodge Bazaar beach on 31 st July by a local fisherman who informed the police. His body was cremated at Chethanahalli coffee estate owned by his father on 31^st July 2019.

• Under extreme pressure in life, one needs stronger grit rather than giving up and ending everything because “there is dawn after every dusk”