From a school dropout to building a spice empire and winning a Padma Bhushan, here’s MDH Masala’s Dharampal Gulati’s inspiring journey

• Mahashian Di Hatti (MDH) Masala’s owner, Dharampal Gulati passed away on Thursday.
• We put together a list of his ads to remember the king of spices and look back at his journey from being a fifth grade dropout to becoming India’s most well-known entrepreneur.

India's most inspiring entrepreneur and king of spices, Mahashian Di Hatti (MDH) Masala’s owner, Dharampal Gulati passed away on Thursday morning at the age of 97.

Fondly called ‘Dadaji’ or ‘Mahashayji,’ Gulati dropped out of fifth grade when he was in Pakistan and joined his father, Chuni Lal’s spice business. Today, that business has become a Rs 1500 crore empire which runs the masala company, about 20 schools and a hospital.

Gulati was born in 1923 in Sialkot, Pakistan. After the partition in 1947, he moved to India and stayed in a refugee camp. To make ends meet, he opened a store in Delhi’s Ajmal Khan Road, Karol Bagh and officially established MDH in 1959. He put his heart and soul into his business that he started in remembrance of his father. From there, he built the entire group that eventually became one of the country’s leading spices manufacturers expanding to 15 factories.

Gulati was a dedicated entrepreneur who did not take an off even on Sundays. He would make daily rounds of factories, markets and meet dealers to supervise and make sure everything was running smoothly. He soon took our Indian spices to an international level by exporting to various parts of the world, including the UK, Europe, UAE, Canda, etc. Today, MDH Masala exports its products to more than 100 countries. Gulati’s son manages the overall operations now and his six daughters handle distribution region wise.

According to The Economic Times, in 2017, Gulati was the highest paid entrepreneur at the age of 94 and took home more Rs 21 crore as salary.

It is said that it was his motivation to work and quality of products offered at an affordable price that made him the king of spices. In fact, he was also a king of hearts as 90% of his salary went to charity.

In 2019, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in the country, in 2019.

Gulati also became his company’s biggest brand ambassador and was visually familiar to a vast swathe of the population. The man with a turban and a very likable smile promoted his masalas in various TVCs and the jingle ‘Asli Masale Sach Sach, MDH MDH’ still runs fresh in our hearts like it was yesterday that we watched it for the first time.

We have put together a list of his ads to remember the king of spices: