Tea & symmetry

NIRMAL Sethia was never born to be common.

"I was born to be different," declares the founder of Newby Teas. Despite suffering from food poisoning, following a meal at a high-end restaurant the night before, the 75-year-old British-Indian tycoon got out of bed and showed up for the Raffles Conversation interview, much to the chagrin of his minders. Looking spiffy and in good spirits, he seems none the worse for wear. "I never wanted to do what every common man did," he says with a cheeky grin.

Throughout his life, Mr Sethia was "never a common man", including ditching as a young boy the life of wealth and privilege he was born into. "Every common student was studying, so I was zero in my studies. I never wanted to study so one day I went to my father and told him I wanted to experience a different life," he says.