Dalit in the Boardroom | Outlook

 

A team of technical and financial experts is advising Saroj on the revival. MK Gore, Managing Director, says investors have poured Rs 154 crore into the company. While Saroj holds the majority stake in KTL, many from the powerful sugar lobby in Maharashtra also hold equity. "I have secured substantial funding from friends and associates, including a Gujarati non-resident Indian in the UK," she says.

Saroj, who hails from Akola, had her first brush with Mumbai's shanties when she moved to the city as a child bride, at age 12. She abandoned the alliance and was taken back to her village. Driven to despair by her wretched circumstances, she attempted suicide, but survived. "At that very moment, I decided that if I have to live, I would achieve something, and live life on my terms," she recalls.

Determined to make it big, she returned to Mumbai a few years later and stayed with an uncle. Working in a hosiery company, she eked out a living earning a meagre Rs 2 a day. But it was in the rough and tumble of Mumbai's underbelly that she acquired her raw aggression, determination and earthy approach to conducting business.

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Interesting how people can rise like this in business. When you stay in Bombay for a month or so you can clearly see that people with patience, energy, guts and the will to lower a bit of their moral standards can make a lot of wealth.  I wonder if someone can or already has studied this phenomenon about the effect of big cities on people's abilities and achievements.