Priya Kumbhat Bhansali

She was destiny’s child; the charismatic daughter of an immensely popular father. At 22, immediately after passing chartered accountancy, she plunged into the electoral politics of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). She was widely tipped to break the glass ceiling and become the first woman president of the ICAI. It would mean heading the regulatory body of India’s hardnosed suit-clad bean counters. Even the year of her presidential coronation was carefully chosen: 2000, the end of an old millennium. What could be more auspicious to kick off a breathtaking coup on the stronger gender? The stars seemed propitious.

Except it did not work that way!

Priya Kumbhat Bhansali did not get to become the president. Twenty years on, many believe that in the near future, no woman is even a striking distance from hitting this target. It’s such a shame in a profession where 20 percent are women, and in a country, which has had a woman prime minister and a slew of women chief ministers. In a way, it was not surprising. We will get to that later.

Priya Kumbhat was born in 1966, almost the same year as her schoolmate who played international cricket for India, the magical leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan. She grew up in a joint family that had 40 people jostling for space in their sizeable orthodox home in Chennai’s overcrowded Govindappa Naicken Street. Little wonder, the kitchen worked round the clock!

St. Columban’s A.I. Hr. Sec. School in McLeans Street, a stone’s throw from where she lived, was instrumental in laying the early moral foundation in Priya’s life. Incidentally, when asked about interesting events at school she disarmingly says, she was just another girl, giggling with friends and hanging out! Later, Priya adorned the portals of Chennai’s upmarket Vidya Mandir for her Plus 2 and did her first-year commerce at another outstanding institution, the Ethiraj College for Women. “Being at the evening college was like not going to college at all,” she reminisces with a smile!

Soon Priya left college. She had cleared her CA Entrance and was ready to join Internship at Dad’s office. Her father, Ashok Kumbhat, was a past president of the ICAI, a celebrated public figure, and a man who won friends and influenced people with ease. The year was 1984, the same year when India saw the assassination of a charismatic prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

Why did she take to CA? “Simple. Rupa did CA. And I just followed her.” Rupa was Priya’s elder sister. Why did Rupa select CA? “She wanted to stay beside dad! You know, in our growing up years we never got to see Dad much, as he had been fighting and winning elections since 1970 to the ICAI council.”

In November 1987, both Priya and Rupa cracked their CA Final exam. The 1980s were the pre-Internet days. A CA flew down from New Delhi with the print copies, and the few pages of result would be pasted on ICAI’s notice board. In those times, the pass percentage as also the number of people passing was small, and so the entire list sat on a couple of sheets of paper! Dad Kumbhat went around telling whosoever was within earshot, “both my daughters are CA. Both my daughters are CA.” It was his happiest moment.

The first thing Ashok Kumbhat did after Priya qualified was to take her to meet three chartered accountants: D Rangaswamy, P T Sampath Kumar, and N Rangachary. While Rangaswamy was an accountant member of the ITAT, Rangachary would become chairman of the CBDT, and Sampath Kumar was a former central council member. Kumbhat’s plan was to seek the wise men’s views on Priya jumping into ICAI’s political cesspool, the regional council. They all said it was the perfect thing to do.