If I hadn’t gone to Doon, I would’ve been a spoilt brat: Samir Modi, Colorbar founder

It is hard to frame a sentence with the words beauty and boxing alongside each other. But throw in the name Samir Modi and the job gets easier. As a man in his mid-40s, Modi is a heavyweight in the beauty industry. And as a teenager, he was a boxer.

“I boxed when I was in school at Doon,” Modi, founder of Colorbar, tells ETPanache during an interview at a suburban Mumbai hotel. “It was mandatory at school to play either hockey, soccer or cricket, and I was bad at all three. So, I took up gymnastics, athletics and boxing against the wishes of my family. I started boxing at around age six and continued till I was 21.”

In his nearly 15 years of boxing, including as a state-level champion, Modi says that he was undefeated in the ring. “I didn’t lose a single boxing match. I still don’t. But they are no longer in the boxing ring, of course,” he says.


The ring perhaps is a metaphor for his life. “I don’t [box anymore]. I was extremely unfit for many years. From running 30-odd kilometres a day, I was running only 30 steps. [I stopped] because of business, because life took over,” Modi says.

And now, around 26 years have gone by since he last stepped into the ring — because of a promise. “It’s on my mind to start boxing again. But I’m lazy,” he shares. “I would have gone ahead and become a professional boxer, if I hadn’t promised my mother that I would not box after college.”

Clearly family comes first for Modi, who, when asked about brother Lalit (currently under investigation), responds with a simple: “Look, he is my brother. Irrespective of what happens, I will always stand by him.”

Ringside lessons
During the conversation, Modi shares how his family (headed by patriarch KK Modi) “didn’t attend anything [school events]”. “They are the kind who write you a letter in a term,” he says.

And right there, was a lesson — self-reliance. “Boxing teaches you to be there for yourself. There is no team. There is just God, your willpower and you in that ring. Aur koi bachaane nahi aanewala [no one’s coming to save you]. There is nothing like luck either. It’s a great sport, anyone who can experience it, should,” Modi says.

Another thing that boxing taught him early on was that life won’t be a “bed of roses”. “Either you win, or you lose; there is no such thing as a draw in boxing. Some people say it is a ruthless sport. What do you do? Just hit each other. But life is ruthless. In life, everyone has punches thrown at them. So, you need to learn to take them as well as give them back. Unless you are Gandhi,” he says.

“Boxing has taught me that life will put you in a cage and you have to do whatever you can to deal with it. You can’t be a coward. You either take the punches and you last, or you give a knockout. There is no escape,” he adds.

Rolling with the punches
As a teenager, Modi was tenacious, doing what he could to show his talent.

He once went to Delhi for a match with two older boys from his school. He’d been practising with the Gurkha regiment, based in Dehradun at the time, for over four months. “One of them [the two boys] was underweight. Since he was finishing school that year, he wouldn’t get a chance to box again. So, he suggested that he would take my place and I box the next year. [But] I had spent four months practising, so, there was no way I was missing this match for anything.

“We had reached by 11 am and the weight measurements were being done by six in the evening. I knew whatever I had to do, had to be done within these hours or I was out,” he says.

That’s when a young Modi delivered a knockout, “I gained weight between 11 am and 6 pm,” he says. “I had to gain four kilograms to go from light welter [the category I was supposed to participate in] to welter [a higher category]. So, I had 12 banana and egg milkshakes and four-five burgers; I added whatever weight I could.”

Modi credits the time spent in the ring and his school for shaping him into the man he is. “If I was not in the school, I would have been a spoilt brat — a richie-rich boy, [sporting a] gold watch, [travelling in] airconditioned cars, chalna nahi jaante [doesn’t know how to walk], five-star hotels, road pe nahi khayenge [won’t eat street food] types,” he says, quickly adding, “I’m still a spoilt brat, but I’m a good spoilt brat. Doon teaches you humility. You live with a mixed bunch. [If] you get ragged, you get ragged. There is no question of snitching.”

Heavy hitter
In life, Modi has learnt to go alone. Like his choice of business, which didn’t find much favour at home. “I am someone in the family who doesn’t follow the norm. If my father says X, I am always going to say Y. When I was launching Colorbar, my father walked into the room. I had five people with me and he says, ‘I don’t think you should launch Colorbar’. I had five resignations on the table after he left. I said to them, ‘We are already test marketing and we are starting to sell door-to-door next week’”. That convinced them to stay on.”

That is another reason why the nonconformist of the Modi clan finds his name to be a perfect fit. “Samir means wind, come like the wind, go like the wind. I was [born] two months premature. I’ve always been in a hurry. I was a 2.4 pound-chuha [mouse]. But I came in running, and my aim is to leave this world running. All or nothing. Like boxing, there are no rebuttals in life,” he says.

As concluding words, he picks a quote by his favourite boxer, Mohammad Ali: ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’.