WHEN AT A RIPE AGE of 80, Kushal Pal Singh (K.P. Singh), Chairman of DLF, decided to pick the pen for an autobiography (Whatever the Odds published by Harper Collins India), he did his fellow citizens a good turn. We could all take a leaf out of this man’s journey. From his days as a village lad in Khandera of Bulandshahr district in Uttar Pradesh to being a real estate mogul—Singh has traversed a unique path on the basis of merit, determination and often, as he points out, unbelievable luck. At first glance, an onlooker is struck by Singh: he is tall, disarmingly honest (has no qualms admitting that he tried to “run away” from the Indian Army as a lad because he was “so much in love”), and is grounded, for a person whose personal worth is approximately $7.3 billion. But Singh shrugs off all references to his fortune. He would rather talk of the future; the upcoming Phase-V of DLF Gurgaon and more importantly the DLF Foundation, the philanthropic wing of DLF. “Money is important but up to a point. After that it becomes a figure. However, use it for others, it brings so much joy,” he insists. More than the money, he cherishes his life’s lessons: the need to build genuine relationships and to value fact over faff. “I never go to a meeting— government or otherwise—without knowing the nitty-gritty of the agenda. I have learnt to get my facts right through incidents.” These “incidents” however have not made him cynical. “India is not as bad as we paint it to be. The words bureaucrats and politician are not negative ones. Like everyone else, there are good cops and bad cops,” he firmly believes. He also insists that if one wishes to get things done well, then it is better to do it yourself. While constructing the DLF Golf and Country Club, Gurgaon, Singh insisted on being onsite to supervise details—selecting stones, light fixtures, trees and even closely monitoring the waterway designs. Today, that labour has won him and his baby numerous international awards. “When you do something, give it your best or don’t do it at all,” he often tells his employees. Singh does manage to tick-off people with this nitpicking. However, even his critics admit that K.P. Singh knows how to bring life to a barren landscape. Almost everyone who has worked under him respects his leadership style; he prefers to carry the team, help them adapt and understand and inspires them. “Unless you follow certain ethical principles, a company cannot bring long-lasting prosperity or growth.” His saga is one that can inspire thousands of young Indian entrepreneurs. Here’s how it all started...
CHASING BUTTERFLIES during the day and fireflies by the night, Singh had a quintessential happy childhood. He jokes that he began to cheat death right from his childhood: the first time when he slipped into a well while peering in. A quick-witted villager jumped in after him and managed to haul him up. A couple of years later, he barely escaped death from diphtheria. He also narrowly missed serious injuries when he fell off a horse years later. “I was always very active. In school I remained average in academics. It did not fire my imagination. Sports was a passion which helped me think differently, understand leadership, master team building skills and manage the art of formulating strategy. Tennis and horses were my twin passions. I would go and watch horses at my uncle Raghubir’s stables at the Viceregal Lodge (Rashtrapati Bhavan). There I was spotted by Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India, who asked my uncle to train me as a rider. That’s how my romance with everything equestrian started,” he reminisces. Like everyone around him Singh too reluctantly joined college. “A close friend, Bopal Singh, filled up an application on my behalf for a ground engineering course at Coventry in England. I was thrilled and scared. When I flew for the first time, I was a vegetarian, had never tasted alcohol or spoken to a girl. As I had imagined, England was a culture shock.” In his characteristic honesty, Sing admits that soon enough he had a blossoming romance with a member of the aristocracy who helped him fit right in the creme-de-la-creme of British society. Julie, as she was called, infused in him a new confidence and life could not be better—till a polo match near Windsor. It was during this match that Brigadier Mohinder Singh Wadalia, Military Advisor to the Indian High Commission in London, spotted the talented sportsman. “He asked him why was I pursuing a pointless engineering course when I could join the cavalry unit of the Indian Army. Brigadier Wadalia was persistent.” So much so that he got Singh to appear for an entrance test right there in London. After four days of physical and mental tests, Singh (unhappily) got through. Sense reigned over after numerous sessions with elders and peers. When Julie and the young Singh bid a tearful goodbye, their only consolation was that Singh planned to return. Life at IMA, Dehra Dun, was so tough and gruelling that Singh “hatched” a plan to return to England by abandoning the course. He wrote a tearful letter to Julie about it—not realising all cadet letters were censored. Again, he has no qualms in admitting that he was soon summoned by Battalion Commander Bali Singh. Instead of cooking the young cadet’s goose, he chose to counsel him. When he left the Academy, Singh was commissioned as a second lieutenant in Deccan Horse, the cavalry regiment of the Indian Army. Rules did not permit Indian Army officers to marry foreigners and it was finally then that he let Julie go. Singh met his match at the Feroz Shah Kotla Cricket Stadium. “Indira was 17. Before we knew it, she had left her protected existence behind to live life as an Army wife,” he remembers.
A MATCH MADE IN FIROZ SHAH KOTLA Stadium, Indira and K.P. Singh’s marriage withstood a few storms. In 2001, Indira Singh survived a Bell-404 helicopter crash, which was taking her from New Delhi to the Singh country estate in Mussoorie. “When I received the news of the missing helicopter, I went numb. I thought about our children, our 50 years together. In a single moment, life had no meaning anymore,” he says. Then a call came informing Singh that his wife was the sole survivor in a helicopter crash and had been admitted at the Dehra Dun military hospital. Singh rushed to Dehra Dun and flew back with Indira, battling for her life with multiple injuries compounded by severe complications. However, K.P. Singh was not ready to let his best friend go—he researched her condition in such detail that her doctors were caught by surprise. They informed Singh that the “best doctor” who could deal with Indira’s bone infection was Dr David Helfet in New York. Singh tracked the doctor down at a hotel in Davos at 3am and pleaded with him to come to India. Dr Helfet refused. Instead he wanted Indira to be flown in to where he was. “Indira’s condition was slowly deteriorating. She was septic and most likely to suffer a renal failure. I asked the good doctor, had it been him pleading for his wife’s life before me—how would he hope to see me respond?” After a few seconds of silence, Dr Helfet agreed. Post operation, Singh converted their bedroom into an ICU with doctors and nurses. On the road to recovery, Indira Singh suddenly developed internal injuries and went through several more rounds of operations. Each time, K.P. Singh was confident that he would bring her home. After a long period of convalescence, Indira Singh recovered completely. To celebrate, Singh took his “best friend” out to the lawn to hit a few golf balls—Indira loved the game. While she feebly hit a couple, K.P. Singh saw his wife nearly collapse due to a coughing fit. Singh was scared and suspicious enough to consult a doctor immediately and tests were conducted. When the biopsy report arrived, it was like a death warrant as Indira Singh was diagnosed with Small Lung Cancer. Having fought for so long, K.P. Singh was not going to give up then and he started the hunt for international oncologists immediately. The treatment was painful, but Indira Singh took it bravely, egged on by her husband. Dr Dattatreyudu Nori, Chairman, Department of Radiation Oncology at the New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York, felt it was Indira’s positive attitude and the support of Singh that made her pull through. “I have never met a couple like this in my 40 years of practice. KP reviewed every move of doctors and got her the best treatment that ultimately helped her defeat a type of cancer that is extremely difficult to treat,” he says. As for Singh, he never forgets—either the doctors or his friends—who stood by him and his wife during their dark times. Today, with her by his side, he says: “Unless you have waited in the dark, you cannot appreciate the miracle of a sunrise.”
DLF WAS ONE of those happy chances that fate loves to throw at Singh. When father-inlaw Raghvendra Singh requested him to join his manufacturing and real estate business—Delhi Land Finance Universal (DLF)—Singh was stumped. He knew nothing of business. He started small, managing a stud farm built on the rough, barren terrain in Gadaipur-Chhattarpur—a godforsaken place in those days. His love for horses made him work hard and turn the stud farm into a success. Singh then took over the family business of manufacturing batteries, working hard to streamline and modernise. But the state-of-the-art facility did not take off. Ironically, the technical expertise proved to be a handicap in the Indian market as the technology for making the verythin battery grids could not withstand the electrical systems of automobiles of that era. The business ran into losses and Singh was pushed to a corner trying to repay a loan. Friends suggested he get the loan restructured and rescheduled. After some thought, he decided to hive off the manufacturing business for a song and got into the DLF real estate business. Though it was a visible-enough brand, DLF in the sixties, was not growing as India’s real estate vertical was shackled by archaic land laws. Delhi offered no scope for expansion either. So Singh looked towards the stud farm and further—at Gurgaon. A barren, uncultivated, rocky and water-less land with patches of green. The more he looked at Gurgaon, the surer he was that he could build a world-class city there. People who heard him out thought that he had lost it. But, Singh was undeterred. He would drive to Gurgaon and stare at the spaces imagining modern edifices of glass and steel there. Plush offices and comfortable living spaces where people could walk to work. Man proposes, law disposes. Land acquisition turned out to be his main challenge, followed by finance and then getting people to move in. All the odds were stacked against him. DLF had no money. Banks did not lend to real estate companies. Housing loans were difficult to come by. He borrowed at huge interests to buy the initial land. To complicate the situation, farmers were reluctant to sell their land. For weeks, Singh interacted with the farmers—one by one—visiting their homes, till he built a relationship with them. “I would discuss my dream, explain why acquisition was necessary,” he remembers. He helped several farmers buy alternative land at a cheaper rate in places like Alwar (Rajasthan). Some he helped with agricultural implements. As his reputation as an “honest businessman” grew, Singh started to strike up conversation with some of them regarding their investment plans. Most did not have any. “I asked them to invest in DLF. I took the money and invested in construction. In return, I promised a monthly interest as well as the right to take back the full loan whenever they wished,” he says. The deal was attractive. As more people found it such, Singh found his land money trickling back. He ploughed it all into DLF. Every month on a particular date, farmers would get their interest in cash and trust in him grew further. It became simpler for Singh to get land—around 3,500 acres—without a single court case. In the history of land acquisitions, India (unfortunately) does not have a parallel to such a transaction. Spending time with the villagers helped him understand their realities. Over time, he became a part of a larger family settling their disputes, arranging school admissions and helping with medicare. He became a regular face during birth and weddings ceremonies. “I realised that the people who helped me grow should prosper with me,” he says. He extended a hand of friendship. he, however, did not anticipate the hurdles. A chance remark made by a tipsy party guest at a cocktail party hosted at Singh’s Delhi home led to a major hurdle. The remark aimed at Haryana politician, Bansi Lal, made the politician storm out of the party. Singh was Lal’s blue-eyed boy. That singular incident led to a misunderstanding and then to a legal and business tussle that went on for many years. “I tried to make peace with Bansi Lal, but he was not ready to let go and even took the matter to the Parliament. He lodged false cases against me. But I kept telling myself that I must act with dignity.” It was only towards the fag end of Bansi Lal’s career that he made peace with Singh. But the fracas between the two put DLF back by a decade. Today, DLF is drawing up ambitious plans for its Phase-V growth, with son—Rajiv Singh—at its helm. It will take years to complete, but Singh is optimistic as ever: “As economic development happens, it will lead to prosperity which in turn will create a demand for better housing. The real estate sector will grow. Bigger players have now got in and so the challenge for DLF to continue in its leadership position is greater. We are poised for the challenge.” He adds, “The future of Indian business is very bright as it is driven by entrepreneurs who are not only competent, but are hungry for growth. The challenge is to bring in the disadvantaged into the mainstream and ensure inclusive growth. Good governance can ensure that. We must realise that one of the hassles of a democracy and a free press is that the government sometimes slows down due to multiple pressures and growth suffers. China is developing faster as it does not have a democracy or a free press. But it is much better in the long-term to have a democracy and a free press as that is the only system that will ultimately survive.” Building DLF from a company that almost closed down, was not an easy one. But he knew that he would win at the end.
THE LONG HOURS SPENT IN the hospital corridor as his closest friend, partner and wife, Indira Singh, battled for her life after a helicopter crash, forced K.P. Singh re-examine his success. The crash brought home the uncertainty of human existence. It made him value his success more. And it forced Singh to pose one question to himself: had he repaid society? One day while Indira Singh was being wheeled out of the operation theatre in New York, he had a moment of epiphany—that he was one of those handful who were fortunate enough to be able to afford treatment. That day he promised to himself that a portion of his money, time and energy will go towards healthcare and education. Thus, he established the DLF Foundation in 2011, entrusting it to “build lives” by empowering communities and creating opportunities for the underprivileged in education, livelihood training, health and environment. Talking of DLF Foundation, Singh says: “The business community thrives because of the socioeconomic environment they function in. Apart from making money, they should be looking for remedies to the imbalances in society. It should be targeted programmes and not charity. Charity creates dependence between the giver and receiver. Philanthropy seeks to empower and enable sustainability. Charity is band-aid; philanthropy is medicine, and eventually, the cure.” Currently, a lot of Singh’s time is spend on DLF Foundation. He has used his substantial influence to rope in some of the better-known names in the business to provide quality healthcare at primary health centres near DLF sites. A modern veterinary hospital has been established in Gurgaon with an ambulance. Other initiatives consist of training and skill development programmes for educated youngsters. “If we can make the educated employable, then there will be at least one earning member in every family and thereby perceptible change,” stresses Singh. His pet project at the moment is a scholarship programme. “The idea is to create as many opportunities as possible,” he adds. He also takes prides in the fact that DLF uses eco-friendly building materials, recycles sewage and opts for piped gas to generate power instead of diesel. Energy management in terms of gas-based cogeneration power plants and wind power have helped reduce approximately 4,00,000 tonnes of carbon emission every year. Singh’s latest project is to leave a legacy of socio-developmental change. So we had to ask: is he happy with the way Gurgaon has shaped out? Not really. Singh is disappointed with the infrastructure—roads, pavements, drainage, street lights, parking spaces and parks are all begging for attention. The lack of it all has resulted in a complete mess. Roads are narrow and full of potholes. Parking is a serious issue. When it rains, the city gets flooded. It is nowhere close to a world class city despite its glitzy buildings and superbly built and designed gated communities. But no government wants to hand over infrastructure to the private sector. So the mess continues.