Motivation Article
In the squalor of Vinoba Nagar, Bangalore, Kullachar Nanjundachar trudged home from the municipal school with 12 slices of bread to feed his hungry parents and seven siblings. The slices didn't come easy: the schoolboy would forego four slices on two days to bring back 12 on the third. That was 35 years ago. Today, Nanjundachar, 49, no longer goes by the name in his school records. He is K.P. Nanjundi, owner of the Sri Lakshmi Golds Palace chain, and a well-known face across Karnataka. Nanjundi expects to end this March-end with a turnover of Rs 800 crore, and cross Rs 1,000 crore a year on.
In the squalor of Vinoba Nagar, Bangalore, Kullachar Nanjundachar trudged home from the municipal school with 12 slices of bread to feed his hungry parents and seven siblings. The slices didn't come easy: the schoolboy would forego four slices on two days to bring back 12 on the third. That was 35 years ago. Today, Nanjundachar, 49, no longer goes by the name in his school records. He is K.P. Nanjundi, owner of the Sri Lakshmi Golds Palace chain, and a well-known face across Karnataka. Nanjundi expects to end this March-end with a turnover of Rs 800 crore, and cross Rs 1,000 crore a year on.
Nanjundi already owns
seven jewellery showrooms in Bangalore, Mangalore, Hubli and Belgaum, and plans
to add six more, including one at Goa, in 2014/15. He also owns five silk
showrooms - a typical showroom has four floors, with gold and silk occupying two
each. He is also planning a capital expenditure of Rs 300 crore over the next
three years to build a movie hall in Davanagere in central Karnataka, a star
hotel in Mysore, and eventually list his business. So, how did all this
happen? In a candid conversation with Business Today Nanjundi bares all, often
breaking down and wiping his tears while remembering his father's struggle to
raise him and his siblings. He would struggle to buy even ragi, the cheapest
foodgrain, says Nanjundi.
"Everything you get in a slum is third rate - from drinking water to vegetables to foodgrains," says Nanjundi, providing graphic details of life in a slum stretching along a gutter. Toilet for him and other males in the slum was the footpath of the main road (H. Siddaiah Road, Bangalore) because the only two toilets were used by all the women. "Once in a while, I still visit the slum where I lived," says Nanjundi, now a member of Bangalore's affluent business community. His early years still rankle. His classmates got to know that he lived in a slum and stopped mixing with him. His mother tried to add to the meagre family income by selling flowers. From his goldsmith father Kullachar, Nanjundi learnt polishing, repairing and making jewellery. But their visits to jewellery shops, trying to sell small pieces of jewellery they made, were frustrating. "The shop owners would treat us like dirt, and make us wait for three to four hours," he recalls.
Nanjundi, the fourth of eight children, cleared his XII standard exam with a first class and shifted to a better school. But the hard times continued. When he was in college, his father died of liver cancer and his brother and mother took to drinking. By the time he had turned 18, Nanjundi witnessed everything a family like his was vulnerable to - poverty, starvation, humiliation, and death. For him, drinking and smoking were not an option - he had a large family to feed. He continued with his father's profession in the morning, attended college in the evening, and plied an autorickshaw at night, catching some sleep between trips.
But still, the ends rarely met. He finally asked his married sister to give him the 15-gram mangalsutra that she had got from her husband. She gave it to him happily. Nanjundi used the gold to make small pieces of jewellery, and sold them to the big retailers. "I would fall at the feet of jewellers, urging them to buy my ornaments. Some would suspect that I had made them with stolen gold. But soon I started gaining their acceptance because they knew my father."
Continue Reading >> Rags to Riches "Everything you get in a slum is third rate - from drinking water to vegetables to foodgrains," says Nanjundi, providing graphic details of life in a slum stretching along a gutter. Toilet for him and other males in the slum was the footpath of the main road (H. Siddaiah Road, Bangalore) because the only two toilets were used by all the women. "Once in a while, I still visit the slum where I lived," says Nanjundi, now a member of Bangalore's affluent business community. His early years still rankle. His classmates got to know that he lived in a slum and stopped mixing with him. His mother tried to add to the meagre family income by selling flowers. From his goldsmith father Kullachar, Nanjundi learnt polishing, repairing and making jewellery. But their visits to jewellery shops, trying to sell small pieces of jewellery they made, were frustrating. "The shop owners would treat us like dirt, and make us wait for three to four hours," he recalls.
Nanjundi, the fourth of eight children, cleared his XII standard exam with a first class and shifted to a better school. But the hard times continued. When he was in college, his father died of liver cancer and his brother and mother took to drinking. By the time he had turned 18, Nanjundi witnessed everything a family like his was vulnerable to - poverty, starvation, humiliation, and death. For him, drinking and smoking were not an option - he had a large family to feed. He continued with his father's profession in the morning, attended college in the evening, and plied an autorickshaw at night, catching some sleep between trips.
But still, the ends rarely met. He finally asked his married sister to give him the 15-gram mangalsutra that she had got from her husband. She gave it to him happily. Nanjundi used the gold to make small pieces of jewellery, and sold them to the big retailers. "I would fall at the feet of jewellers, urging them to buy my ornaments. Some would suspect that I had made them with stolen gold. But soon I started gaining their acceptance because they knew my father."
No comments:
Post a Comment