MILLIONAIRES On the street

MILLIONAIRES On the street :from The Times of India

A hawker who owns cars, a beggar who owns three houses, a sweeper who runs a company. In Indian cities there are happy endings

Then: Chaatwala
Now: Chaatwala with a Mercedes
Tucked away in a tiny bylane near UPSC in Delhi are a group of "Coco-Cola" umbrellas that are usually swarmed by hordes who are relishing the transitory joys of junk food. Brothers Jagdish and Gopal Das, along with two other brothers, run this roadside shop that comedian Mehmood used to frequent once. “We manage to earn enough to go home and eat one square meal,” says Gopal Dayal vainly trying to achieve modesty. When he is reminded that his family owns a Mercedes, Gopal mumbles, “ Hamare pitaji ke paas Mercedes hai, par woh to ab purani baat hai. (My father has a Mercedes but that’s an old story).”
Despite the success of the shop, the brothers lived under the constant fear of being uprooted by the municipality. “MCD has allotted us land near the garbage dump not far from here. Business dropped, so we came back,” says Gopal.

Then: Beggar
Now: Beggar who has investments
Sambhaji Kale has Rs 40,000 hard cash in the bank, a few thousands in investments, a flat in Mumbai suburb, Virar, two houses and a plot in Solapur. Kale, his wife and their four children beg at traffic signals. They make about Rs 1,000 a day but live in some wooden boxes near the Khar signal. Their Virar flat has been let out, chiefly because commuting from Virar to Mumbai’s nerve centres would have added to their expense.
The Kales enjoy a fair bit of adulation among their ilk. Everyone knows them well, even the postman who never fails to bring them letters and other correspondence from the bank to their wooden boxes on the wayside.

Then: Peon
Now: Peon who drives
It’s not clear how many cars the Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai is entitled to but one of his peons has three. Rajesh Naik, 29, came to Mumbai from Sindhudurg five years ago. Now he owns two Tata Indicas and a second-hand Sumo. He had procured the vehicles on loan with the intention of hiring them out. He gets more than fifteen bookings per month and every booking fetches him about Rs 5,000, probably more than his pay. He has already paid off the loan of one of the Indicas, and hopes to pay the other by this year-end.
It’s hard to understand why he does not quit his peon job. “I will never leave it because it gives me respect and security.”

Then: Parking attendants
Now: Crorepatis
This story may not have the poignancy of urban toil but it still shows how Indian cities can make dreams come true. Six months ago, Patel brothers Vinubhai, 51, Girish, 45, and Chandrakant, 43, handed out parking tickets and sold paan outside a multiplex in Ahmedabad. Then one fine day, the sweeping multiplex culture suddenly took them to unexpected wealth. Their ancestral land on the Sarkhej-Gandhinagar Highway, that used to be worth nothing much, sold for Rs 60 crore.
Now the brothers are waiting for their chartered accountant to help them make investments, and “help us avoid taxes”.

Then: Sweeper
Now: Owner of a housekeeping company
Bhagiram Tank likes to call himself “zero”. That was what he was in 1965 when he left Ghaziabad as a 15-year-old. His father was a cleaner at the Radio Club in Mumbai and Bhagiram replaced him. He cleaned bathrooms, kitchens, the swimming pool and the wedding hall.
Very soon he branched out to providing organised cleaning services as a smalltime contractor. Today, 30 big corporate houses including Pepsi, Modicare, Raymond, Essar, Procter & Gamble, Lupin and Chemtex are his clients. Tank now employs around 800 people at his Unique Housekeeping, and has diversified into the security business with a former army commando. He owns a two-bedroom flat in Kandivli and drives a Tata Sumo. “I never lost sight of my responsibilities. The only fantasy I had was to undergo plastic surgery and look handsome, but my doctor talked me out of it,” he says, laughing.

Then: Vada Pav hawker
Now: Earns Rs 3 lakh per month
“I am busy now, Come on Saturday,” Ashok Manohar Satam says blandly, when asked for an interview. On any weekday, from 9.30 in the morning till 9.30 in the night, Satam has no time for conversation. He is busy doing brisk business at his vada pav stall near the Central Telegraph Office opposite Flora Fountain in Mumbai.
Thirty five years ago, Satam and his three brothers helped their postman father who ran the stall only in the evenings. The vada pav cost 50 paise then and they managed to sell about 150 a day. Now, Satam sells about 2,000 vada pavs a day at Rs 5 a piece. Satam’s business has been growing at 10% per annum since the last few years. “Mumbai has a lot of prosperity now. More crowds, more people, more wealth,” he says.
Once his family of eight used to live in a one-room tenement, the kind of place from where most of Mumbai emerges for air. Now his family has moved into four flats, all in the same building. His 22-year-old son is studying hotel management, and a younger son is pursuing a science degree in Ruparel College.


CLEAN SWEEPER
BHAGIRAM TANK
USED TO BE A SWEEPER. NOW HE RUNS A HOUSE CLEANING AGENCY AND DRIVES A TATA SUMO. ONLY ONE WISH REMAINS UNFULFILLED. “I WANTED TO UNDERGO A PLASTIC SURGERY AND LOOK HANDSOME. BUT MY DOCTOR TALKED ME OUT OF IT.”








BREAD AND BUTTER
ASHOK SATAM
MAKES RS 3 LAKH A MONTH SELLING VADA PAV AT FLORA FOUNTAIN. ANOTHER VADA PAVWALA IN MATUNGA OWNS A HYUNDAI ACCENT AND HIS CHILDREN GO TO AN ENGLISHMEDIUM RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL





THE BETELS MUCHHAD PAANWALA PREMSHANKAR TIWARI
2 HOUSES 2 ALSATIANS 1 WATCHMAN 1 WEBSITE “MANY CARS” THAT’S WHAT THE BROTHERS FROM U.P. OWN AFTER SELLING PAANS IN MUMBAI