MDH Owner, Dharampal Gulati, passed away on Thursday morning at the age of 97. According to reports, Gulati was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Delhi for the last three weeks. He suffered a cardiac arrest on Thursday morning and breathed his last at 5:30 am today.
The story begins in the year 1919 – when his father, Mahashay Chunni Lal Gulati had set up a shop to sell spices. The shop was started under the name of ‘Mahashian Di Hatti’ (MDH) which translates to ‘a respected man’s shop’. Dharampal was not very interested in studies and had dropped out of his school when he was in Class 5. He had then started selling mirrors, soap, etc. and had also tried his hand at carpentry. As none of those businesses took off, he joined his father in selling spices.
They became popular as ‘Deggi Mirch Wale’ as the business grew locally. After the India-Pakistan partition, the family had to leave everything and move to India. At the age of 23, he arrived at a refugee camp in Amritsar. Very soon he and his brother left for Delhi with only ₹1500 in his pockets. Upon reaching Delhi, Dharampal bought a ‘Tonga’ (a horse-drawn two-wheeled vehicle) for ₹650 and started ferrying people.
He then bought a modest 14ft x 9ft shop on Ajmal Khan Road, Karol Bagh in Delhi, and started his family business of ground spices. The word about ‘Sialkot’s Spicemakers’ spread around Delhi and MDH gained local fame. As the business grew, he started another store to expand his business in 1953. By 1959, he had bought a plot in Kirti Nagar to start a factory producing ground spices. One of the most innovative things the company did was introducing packaged masala. Over the decades, MDH achieved massive success in the spices market in India and became a familiar taste among many Indian households.
Once while shooting a TV commercial for MDH, the actor who was playing the role of the bride’s father failed to show up. Dharampal, the owner of MDH, decided to take up the role and get the work done. Ever since then, he has appeared in all MDH commercials. As a result, Mahashay Dharampal Gulati is now known as ‘MDH Uncle’, ‘Mahashayji’, ‘Dharampalji’, and many other such names.
The company now sells more than 65 products and has over lakhs of retailers and over 1000 wholesale dealers throughout the country. Machines at the MDH factories can produce over 30 tonnes of spices in a single day. In 2017, Mahashay Dharampal Gulati took ₹21 Cr as his salary – making him the highest-paid CEO of an Indian FMCG Company. Back in 2019, the government honoured him with Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award in the country. According to MDH Masala, Dharampal Gulati donated nearly 90 per cent of his salary to charity. As his most recent act of kindness, he donated 7500 PPE kits to the health workers fighting COVID-19.
No matter what, if you hear someone sing “Asli Masale Sach Sach…,” you’ll be tempted to complete the lines with “MDH. MDH.”