Slumdog Millionaire - Kalpana Saroj

This is story of Kalpana Saroj. 

She is described as the 'original slumdog millionaire', she was born in poverty and faced inhuman abuse, she overcame impossible odds to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country. Today she is at the height of a $112 million empire that is growing rapidly. How she did that is as heart breaking as it is faith affirming. 

The lesson we need to understand from her journey: “Degrees and MBAs are not what make successful. Courage, Perseverance and superhuman ability to have faith in yourself does. ”

She was born in Vidarbha (Maharashtra) at 1961. She belongs to Dalit family. Her father was a constable and they used to live in the police quarters. She had three sisters and two brothers. She lives with her parents, siblings, uncle, aunt and grandfather. Her father income was just Rs 300 per month. She was studying in government school. She was bright student. In the quarter where they stayed, she used to play with other children but adults posed the problem. They expressed displeasure, they scold their child for playing with her and also scold them from visiting her home or accept any food she offered. This attitude, was hurtful to her. Same behavior she faced at school by her faculties. They tried to make her sit apart from other students, constantly block her from participating in extracurricular activities and undermined any dreams she had for herself.(All this she faced just because she belongs to Dalit community) 

"Child marriage" 

Then she was pulled out of school in class seven(age of 12) and married off. Her father had his job in the law enforcement, so he was liberal in his views and wanted his daughter to complete education. But in Dalit community, where she grew up their child marriage was the norm. My father’s refusal was drowned out. Her father was powerless against community’s unity. She was powerless. 

"Married life"

The society where she grew up, life was not bed of roses after marriage. She was mentally prepared for all the slavery. At the age of twelve, a kid has responsibilities for all the cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. But that wasn’t enough, she was bitten brutally, brutally kicked, punched and thrashed just for silly reasons. They starved her and abused her emotionally and physically. She was living in hell. When her father came to see her after six month, he was horrified. After seeing such inhuman her father decided to take her home back.

According to community, girls are burden, once they get married never to be thought to bring her back. Community and society laughed, disgraced her because she came back home after a marriage. Everyone taunted her parents and family. Society made their life like hell. 

She never want to be a burden on her father. So she applied at local women’s constable recruitment camp, nursing and even the military. But due to lack of education and age she got rejected. Then she picked up some tailoring skills and started sewing blouses at home. 

But the level of hate and taunts kept rising. Her father suggested her to go back school again, but people made her life so difficult that she cant even outside of her house. People kept whispering that if she kill herself then only her family will get relief.  

Living is hard, but dying is easy. 

She finally decided to downed a bottle of poison. She drank three bottle of poison. Her aunt caught her doing suicide and rushed to take her at local hospital. She was in a critical condition and doctors informed her parents that if she didn’t wake up within twenty four hours then all hope will be lost. She didn’t die, she opened her eyes in hospital room but she was not the same person anymore.

 The girl who was helpless and destructed by world was no more. She became strong, recharged and empowered. She decided “She had been given a second chance at life and she wasn’t going to waste it on self-pity for one more second." 

"New life" 

She convinced her parents to let her move to Mumbai, where she stayed with her uncle and worked in sewing mill. Her income was Rs 2 per day and Rs 60 per month. After little time, due to some reasons, her father lost his job. She was eldest daughter and only earning member of the family. She put down her savings as deposit and rented a small room at forty rupees a month. Her parents and siblings came to Mumbai. The space was cramped and money was tight, but she was happy because her family was together. 

 "The tragedy that made her an entrepreneur" 

As she was facing scarce. Among this, her youngest sister fell ill. But they could not afford her treatment. They begged everywhere, but their was no availability. Her sister kept on crying, “Didi save me. I don’t want to die.” But she could not help her. Her words was saved in her memory. That’s when she realized that life without money is useless and she was going to earn lots of. She started working sixteen hours a day, this habit she still maintain. 

She went through various government schemes and applied for a loan (Mahatma Jyotibhai Phule scheme). With that small fund, she started a small furniture business. Her circumstances gradually began to improve. Then she opened her beauty parlor. 

She learnt everything about being an entrepreneur from the ground up through this business- sourcing raw materials, the art of negotiating, identifying market trends and all, she thought to take advantage of her abilities. 

She get to know youth is unaware about loans, government can't offer everyone job but provide such loan scheme for needed people so she started a small NGO where she distributed knowledge about the various government loans and schemes available to people like her. She did not want a single child, boy or girl, go through what had happened to her. She wanted people to know that they could do wonderful things with their life if only they cared to find out how. Due to her NGO many youth got inspired, started better life and Saroj ji became popular. 

People come to her to solve their problem, one day the proprietor of a legal locked land need cash urgently and he offered her if she want the property. She managed, borrowed money and bought the property. But she was not knowing property is disputed. This threw herself into the legal torture. The next two years she was in and out of the courts, trying to get her property cleared up. After that she successfully got the property and then that property price increased up to fifty times. Now, she wanted to get the land developed, but had no resources for that. So she took on a partner who agreed to invest if his share was sixty five per cent of the profit. Soon a building came up on that land. She became builder.

Due to her success many people got affected because a Dalit girl grown up so many people plan to kill her but she get to know about this and she complained to police, police caught some people in this case then she took revolver license so she can protect herself. Then she bought gun. 

Ramjibhai Kamani was a disciple of both Nehru and Gandhi, a pioneering entrepreneur in a newly independent India. After independence he opened three companies- Kamani Tubes, Kamani Engineering and Kamani Metal. His ideas were firmly rooted in worker rights and their welfare. He had big visions for the country’s economic progress and wanted to be a key player in the nation’s development. All went well for him. But in 1987, not long after his death, dispute broke out among his sons. 

The Union at the time went to court to demand that the ownership be transferred to the workers since the owners were acting against the best interests of the company. In India Kamani became the first company where the Supreme Court passed the ownership from the legal heirs to the Workers Union. But if there are going to be three thousand owners, who is going to do the actual work? Soon ego clashes broke out between workers. Company faces lot of challenges like Banks loans, extensions and credits. The government provided them with various funds and benefits. Workers was not able to held company. From 1987 to 1997 the company faces many loses. Shutting it down was not an option, because many worker's life was depend on this company. Once the investors realized what was actually going on, they came down heavily. The Electricity and water supply was cut. Once IDBI surveyed the situation and realized that the workers had become defaulters, the court mandated that a new promoter be brought in. 140 litigation cases had been filed against the company. A debt of 116 crores had been incurred. Two unions were battling it out for supremacy. Out of three Kamani firms, two had already gone into liquidation. The third seemed to go down the same way.

Then workers came to Saroj ji and begged her to save their company and, thus their livelihood. Her NGO and her business had earned a decent reputation among certain circles. Her knowledge was nil, but then she thought of 566 starving families and that gave her pause. She have nothing to lose, She thought. 

Battle In her first order of business she formed a core team of ten, each an expert in their respective fields. Then she hired some consultants and created a proposal on how to go about fixing the damage. When she took her proposal to the board (which comprised of several IDBI and bank representatives), they said they would give her to go ahead if she agreed to sit on the board and took charge of all liabilities. She agreed. She was appointed as president. This was in 2000.

From 2000 to 2006, she was just running in and out of courts. She realized that penalty taxes and interest were the main contributing factors of the 116 crore amount. She approached the finance minister and pleaded with him to forgive the penalty and interest. “If the company goes into liquidation, then no one will get benefit. His way at least the lenders can get their money back.” Minister held talk with the banks. And such proud moment took place, Not only the penalty and interest amounts forgiven, they deducted 25 percent from the principle amount as well. Now that the debt had been reduced to less than half the original sum, life got much easier. 

In 2006 she was appointed chairman of the company. The court transferred ownership of Kamani tubes to her. But they were told to pay off the bank loans within seven years. She cleared bank loans in one year. They were instructed to clear the workers back wages within three years. And she did it within three months. They gave out five crores and ninety Lakhs, instead of the requisite five crores only. While paying off debts and clearing liability, it was imperative to focus on restarting manufacturing and getting the firm back on its feet. She started by replacing all the machinery which either had been fallen to disrepair. She had also sold the land, on which the factory operated, long before she came on board.

In 2009 she shifted the factory, where she had bought a plot of seven acres. She take this company forward in the way Ramjibhai visioned it- on principles of justice, fair play and equality. 

Now she was in the process of acquiring the other two branches of the Kamani firm that had gone into liquidation- soon she have reunited the empire that once was.

Now, in Mumbai two roads are named after Saroj ji and Kamani Company. She is also awarded by "Padma Shri in trade and industry".

 What you want- whatever it is- you shall get if you apply yourself wholeheartedly and work towards it with a single minded vision.