Naval Pestonjee, mechanical engineer turned botanical expert Twenty two years is a long enough period to make one used to a certain kind of working style and its ethos. But for Naval Pestonjee all that the years did for him was to reaffirm something he always suspected - that he was a misfit in the career he had opted for in his younger days.A mechanical engineer by profession Naval Pestonjee started his corporate career with Larsen and Toubro going onto Krupps India Ltd where he also worked as the factory manager.``Though my job was very comfortable in the material sense, it was causing me a lot of distress,'' reveals the 50 year old gentleman. ``With every passing day I started realising that this profession was not giving me anything but money. In fact life was full of knocks and shocks just because of my work. I realised that I was just not cut out for the cold and insensitive world of business that often called for ruthlessness.``Around the same time I started reading a great deal of philosophy and books like the Bhagvad Gita and my entire outlook towards life changed. A total non-vegetarian person like me became a pure vegetarian and I gave up the corporate world which seemed to be at loggerheads with my mental make up. The discovery of three laws of life changed my life- that you are the cause of everything and that the key to happiness lies in your own pocket and finally the realisation that the best path to follow in life is the middle path.''As Pestonjee immersed himself more and more in his new lifestyle he also renewed his love of nature and plants. And strangely enough soon things began to fall into place as though divinely ordained. Pestonjee bumped into old friend Suresh Pingale who was on the lookout for a honest and able manager for the Empress Botanical Gardens. Knowing Pestonjee's passion for nature, Pingale immediately offered him the job and Pestonjee on his part finally found his calling in life.Today the chief executive claims to have attained that unique gift of perfect health of mind and body.``I used to suffer from chronic arthritis but since the past three years I have not touched my medicines. Being with plants from 8.30 in the morning to 7.30 in the evening has also given me immeasurable peace of mind,'' he concludes as he potters around the vast landscape, peeks into the nurseries and happily carries on his day's work amidst the soothing environs of trees, shades and brooks in place of the corporate jungle he has left far behind. Top
