Success story of MDH owner Mahashay Dharmapal Gulati, the spice king

Founder of the iconic spice brand MDH, ‘Mahashay’ Dharampal Gulati was known as the ‘Masala King’ for a reason.

Two years short of a century, Gulati breathed his last at Mata Chanan Devi Hospital in Delhi on Thursday after suffering a cardiac arrest. He had been undergoing treatment at the hospital for the last three weeks.

Born in Sialkot, Pakistan, in 1923, ‘Mahashayji’ moved to India after Partition with only Rs 1,500 in his pocket. He started with a humble beginning and bought a Tanga for Rs 650 which he ran from New Delhi railway station to Qutub Road.

During his journey, he tried his hand at several other businesses too with the help of his father, and then started with soap, carpentry, cloth, hardware, rice etc, but nothing worked.

Soon, he started working in his father’s shop named ‘Mahashian Di Hatti’, popularly known as the “Deggi Mirch Wale” people.

Eventually, his family earned enough money to buy property at Delhi’s Karol Bagh where he opened a spice shop.

As his business started to grow he started advertising it on television and turned it into an Rs 1,000 crore empire.

Fondly called ‘Dadaji’, he became the iconic face of MDH, selling 62 products in over 150 different packages and shipping it worldwide. He was considered as the oldest ad star in the world.

‘Mahashay’ Dharampal Gulati was not only known for his spices business but was also a well known philanthropist. He started a small 10-bed eye hospital in Subhash Nagar, New Delhi in 1975 and then set up a 20-bed hospital in Janakpuri in 1984 in the memory of his mother Chanan Devi.

These facilities have continued to expand with the growing MDH empire. Apart from this, Dharampal Gulati opened more than a dozen schools across the country.

Recognising his work in various fields, in 2019, the Government of India had conferred Dharampal Gulati with the Padma Bhushan award, the third highest civilian award in India.