`Binding relationship in business'

He is a Brat! He is mischievous. That's how one could remember Kamal Sethia during his school days. This `Dennis the Menace' character had a long list of complaints against him, be it breaking the window pane, puncturing the school bus tyre, bashing the fellow mate in a small quarrel - the unanimous school dada. 

"I really enjoyed my school life and I had been summoned before the principal every time when there was trouble. But, somehow, she always had a soft corner for me and I was never punished hard for my acts," smiles Kamal, proprietor of Delta Computers, with his characteristic schoolboy look.

Born in a big family with many cousins staying together, Kamal likes community life and wishes to be in groups than leading a solitary life. "I can't even imagine a world without friends and relatives, and I have never traveled alone in my life except once," he said.

Whenever Kamal is alone, he is involved in some interesting activities such as stamp collection, music (mainly ghazals) and others. "I have more than 18,000 stamps of various countries and of different periods. The oldest in my collection is a Sri Lanka revenue stamp dated 1870," said Sethia. Nowadays, he cannot spend more time on these activities as he is involved in business on a full-time basis.

Kamal is also interested in sports only as a pass time and his favorite game is chess.

Kamal's family hails from Rajasthan but settled in Chennai over a century ago. "My great grandpa came to Madras in 1901 and we were involved in jewelry and finance business at that time. Later, we got into importing of newsprint (paper merchant) in 1965," he said.

But, only during Kamal's generation, they got into IT business and Kamal was the first in the family to get into this business. "I always had a liking for computers and I entered IT with software and now into hardware reselling," explained Sethia.

Born in 1973, Kamal was eldest of the three siblings. He completes schooling from Sindhi Model School at Kellys and later joined DG Vaishnav College to do a B.com degree. Also, he did a software program in NIIT where he gained the computer knowledge. "My association with computer goes long back. Even during college days, I used to buy products and assemble them to make a PC. Later, I had a small stint as a software developer," he said.

Seeing his basic interest in computers, Kamal's father helped him to set up an IT shop in 1995. "I still wonder how I happened to set up this shop. One day, I called my father asking for his assistance in buying a cabinet. The very same day he found a shop for me in Ritchie Street and started Delta Computers," recalls
Sethia.

Kamal has traveled all over India starting early with his family. "My father asked me to travel a lot and gain worldly wisdom through traveling. In fact, it has helped a lot to shape my life," he finds.

Today, Kamal is being helped by his two brothers--Naveen and Naresh, in business. Kamal got married in 1998 and his wife Sharmila is a B.B.A graduate. He has two kids, Dhwani, who is studying in L.K.G and Mansi, a three-month old baby.

S Gopikrishna