The Shekhawati Diaries - Part 1

Since last few days I have been cribbing endlessly about being dumped as at a place called Jhunjhunu in northern part of Rajasthan, and subjected to the roughs of market for selling soaps, hair oils to tooth pastes and candies to toilet cleaners . It is one of the backward part of the state (and the state is considered to be one of the backward in India, a part of the un-famed BIMARU states - BIhar, MP, Rajasthan, UP). In fact this region is famous for its palatial havelis. But the foundations of all these havelis lie in the feudal system, which was quite dominant in this part of the country.

However, there is something about this part of the country.

Jhunjhunu, along with Sikar and Churu districts form a part of Shekhawati region. This has been the home of many leading business groups in India. Mr. GD birla was born in a town called Pilani, which is now famous for BITS, one of the finest engineering colleges in India. Ram Prasad Goenka belonged to this region. Biyanis can trace their roots here. Mr. LN Mittal basically hails from a town in Churu district. These are few of the many who have made a mark.

Today I went to a small town of population in range of 30 to 40 thousand, called Shadolpur (also named as Rajgarh). The distributor in that town told me that it is the birth place of LN Mittal. He then added that till age of 5 he stayed there and then moved to kolkata. They both were of same age and were neighbors. In fact, he mentioned that if we go few generation back, then they belong to the same family. Back then LNM's father was quite poor and the distributor's father used to kind of avoid him as he feared that he would ask for some money

... And now, the times are completely different.

Few days ago, I was at a distributor's place at Sikar. He had a surname 'Biyani'. Out of curiosity I asked him whether he was related to Kishore Biyani. He said he isn't exactly, but narrated something about him. He was studying for CA at Mumbai and staying with his uncle there who used to supply material to Kishore Biyani (when Pantaloon's was quite a small thing ... I think around 10 - 15 years ago). He used to buy in huge quantity. But, back then it was said that if you supply to Kishore Biyani then you would have to buy a new pair of shoes.

Reason - He used to ask people make lots of rounds for collecting payments ... Most of the time youu had to hear the replies like "sahab nahi hain", "Kal aana" etc. (Suddenly words like 'working capital', 'cash flows' popped up in my mind)

Still, despite the land being home to who's who of corporate world, the development in this region has left a lot to be desired.