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"You are interviewing me when I am nearing the end of my professional life… but hopefully I will continue to be productive,” septuagenarian Prochie Mukherji told Parsiana on July 3, 2023. The chief of staff in the office of Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra has successfully conceived and implemented their The Museum of Living History at their Worli offices that completes a year of functioning in July 2023. The Museum showcases the Group’s development and history. Anand Mahindra in a video introduction to the show place called it a "celebration of the present and a continuum into the future.”  Mukherji told mid-day on July 2 that the "Museum doesn’t just look at the nostalgic past… It defines what has made us who we are and what we continue to do.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It was a challenge … to make it different from other museums…. It needed to be a repository of our corporate history too… You may say I had an advantage having spent two decades in the Group,” she told us while away on a family vacation. The corporate executive says she is a "self-appointed historian” of the business house. "Every time I heard a story, I recorded it… but then I am a storyteller by inclination,” she stated on a phone call. The idea of a museum emerged in 2012-13, serious planning for which started prior to the pandemic. The other challenge was the highly talented and diverse team involved in the set up. It is a "touch and feel museum,” so she needed designers, artists, musicians and engineers.  "I had to make everyone move in the same direction… But in the end everyone thought it was their own project,” she stated.
The results are evident. When Parsiana visited the Museum on the ground floor of Mahindra’s corporate office in Worli, it was like stepping into the set of a tasteful movie set. About 30 art objects in various media by local and international artists, 10 installations, six history film screens and three stories that embody "Rise,” their tag line, tell the story of the Group’s philosophies, culture and achievements. In the 4,500 sq ft space divided into six sections is a small amphitheater with a skylight for presentations and the like.
A USD 19 billion (Rs 1,56,963 crore) business house with interests in automotive, information technology services, finance, hospitality and defense among others, the Group, founded in 1945, employs about 260,000 people.
Mukherji joined Mahindra in 1995 after extended stints in Hindustan Lever, ICICI, Glaxo and Eureka. "I went to them (Mahindra) at an interesting period in history… Liberalization was half a decade old… Nobody thought companies from the old economy would survive foreign competition.” She was favorably impressed during the interview. "Anand Mahindra had just a clear idea how human relations as a function would be a culture changer…. I did not look at the salary. I just said yes.”
Having used her legal background to handle labor relations in Glaxo, "when I was looking around, I veered towards human relations as a function… I have been midwife to the culture and business related changes in Mahindra.” In 2000, at the end of five years in Mahindra, Anand invited Mukherji to join his office as chief of staff. "I am more in a part time capacity now… The Museum was one of my passion projects.”
Talking about the stint in Anand’s office, she stated that "what I enjoyed was that you never knew what the job will require of you tomorrow. Among the projects she saw to fruition was the setting up what she calls the jewel in the Mahindra crown, the Mahindra Research Valley (MRV) outside Madras. Their website states that MRV is the flagship research and development and innovation center of the Group, on "the forefront of automotive technology, with 210 patents, the highest number of patents to any Indian manufacturer of original equipment.” "When I took it on, I did not know how to screw on a light bulb…In fact I still do not. But I learnt on the job to lead a project of this magnitude.”
The setting up of infrastructure for the UWC  (United World Colleges) Mahindra College near Poona was another of the projects assigned to her. The pre-university international boarding school offers a two-year program with about 250 full-time boarders, and follows the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. It is one of the 18 UWC. 
What, according to Mukherji is a good work ethic to adopt? "Just do everything you do really well… I learnt at MRV that you don’t need technical skills at senior levels…You need the ability to ask the right questions… The ability to support a team… To keep to the budget.” Ever the learner, Mukherji stated that "she likes being a dilettante… I moved to human relations and learnt the nuances of human relations… I set up MRV and learnt to understand the basics of engineering.” 
An alumnus of Elphinstone and Government Law Colleges, she acquired her masters in law from Yale University. "My claim to fame is that Bill Clinton was my classmate and Hilary was a year junior,” she laughed.
Having grown up in the campus of The B. D. Petit Parsee General where her father Nariman Akolawala served as secretary, Mukherji calls herself a practicing Zoroastrian. "My actions speak for myself.” Her non-Parsi husband Sanat, is a semi-retired lawyer. "It is very ironic…. I grew up being fed myths…the sugar in milk story and the like… I had a very traditional childhood.”  It was only when Sanat started asking questions about the afterlife and other aspects of Zoroastrian philosophy that Prochie realized Parsis do not think deeply enough about the religion. "So much of it is dense and comprehensible only to scholars.” Liking the fact that Ahura Mazda requires one’s help to fight evil, Prochie is appreciative that the religion  asks you to make a choice… The religion does not enjoin hardships… Just do good, not in the expectation of a great afterlife, but because it is the right thing to do.”
The Mukherjis are parents to Prosanto, Nayantara and Anandita who have not been navjoted. "Brilliant kids…two doctors of philosophy, one a triple arts graduate… It is the community’s loss that they are ‘not acceptable,’” she signed off.