Reborn as the richest man in India

On the morning of January 11, 1986, Fraser International School, Mumbai, India.

"Mr. Gupta, are you ready for the tuition fees for the next semester? Are you ready to move to Dharavi in ​​a few days? That's really bad. Dharavi is the largest slum in Mumbai. Our Mr. Gupta Can you adapt to it?" A short, almost fat boy looked like he was in need of a beating.

Several teenagers beside him started laughing.

Standing in front of them was a thin young man, his face was a little pale and his mental state was not good.

"You don't need to worry." After Jogo Gupta said that, he ignored the fat man and his group, turned around and walked towards the school gate.

"If you don't have rupees, you can borrow them from me. I'm very generous. Then I'll see you after the holidays. I hope to see you again, haha~~"

Amid the mocking laughter from behind, Qiao Ge walked out of the school gate.

"Oh, I have traveled through time, but the situation is not good." Qiao Ge sighed secretly in his heart.

He was originally a young man born in 1995 in China. He grew up in an orphanage. Later, he went to college with the support of kind people. After leaving the society, he became a white-collar worker with a salary, and basically had no balance every month.

One day in April 2023, Qiaogo looked at a slightly outdated piece of breaking news on the Internet: Gautam Adani, the second richest man in the world, the richest man in Asia, and the richest man in India, was accused of short selling from Wall Street in January this year. The report caused his wealth to evaporate by US$100 billion in seven days.

Adani, who belongs to the lowest level of untouchable status in India, has a cheating life.

In early February 2022, Adani surpassed Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India for the 11th consecutive time.

Who is Mukesh Ambani?

He is a maniac who dotes on his wife and is the boss of India's Reliance Industries Group.

For his wife, he picked a geomantic site in the center of Mumbai and built a magnificent palace at a cost of US$1 billion. The total floor area of ​​the entire building reached 110,000 square meters, surpassing the famous French Palace of Versailles.

For this purpose, 600 servants have been hired, who will be responsible for taking care of the food and daily life of the Ambani family of six.

Coming back to Adani, he became the fourth in the world in July, the third in August, and in September surpassed Amazon CEO Bezos to become the second in the world with a net worth of US$146.8 billion.

In April 2020, Adani's total assets were only US$8.9 billion. At the beginning of 2022, they had reached US$85.6 billion, an increase of almost ten times in less than two years.

From the beginning of 2022 to September of that year, the price surged by 61.2 billion in less than nine months, equivalent to a daily increase of US$235 million.

…

"Even if it drops by 100 billion US dollars, there are still thousands of small goals of wealth." Qiao Ge lamented, "Is it so easy to make money in India? China is too complicated. If only I were in India~~"

Then Jhogo lost consciousness.

When he woke up last night, he found that he had traveled back in time to the 16-year-old Indian boy Jogo Gupta.

Jogo Gupta is a child of a relatively affluent middle-class family, and he can be said to have no worries about food and clothing.

It can be seen from the fact that he went to an international school, and the tuition for one year plus other miscellaneous expenses was at least 30,000 rupees.

Public schools charge almost no fees. A few dozen rupees per semester is enough.

The price gap is so big that you can imagine the gap in teaching quality and environment.

Qiao Ge is now in the eleventh grade, which according to Chinese terms, should be the first year of high school.

Let me talk about the schooling system in India. Generally, primary school starts at the age of 6 and lasts 8 years of primary school. Ages 1-5 are the lower primary school stage, 6-8 are the upper primary school stage, followed by two years of junior high school, two years of high school, and then Three years of college.

Fraser International School is not the top private school in Mumbai, it is considered mid-range, and even top-tier Chogo parents cannot afford it.

In the top private international schools, equestrian and golf are standard for boys, piano and ballet are standard for girls, not to mention other things, and they are completely in line with aristocratic schools in the West.

Qiaogo's father is a small private entrepreneur. To be precise, he is the owner of several small workshops. He mainly deals in cotton textiles, such as cotton cloth. In recent years, his annual income is about 100,000 rupees.

In 1986, the average monthly salary of employees in China seemed to be only about 106 yuan, which was a little more than 3 yuan a day.

At this time, the US dollar to RMB ratio is about 1:3.45, that is, 1 US dollar can be exchanged for 3.45 yuan.

Of course, this is the official exchange rate. In fact, China's exchange rate during this period was a dual-track system. If some people went to the black market to exchange privately, 1 US dollar could be exchanged for more than ten RMB.

In India, 1 US dollar can be exchanged for 12.6 rupees.

According to the official exchange rate, 1 RMB is equivalent to 3.65 rupees. (Before India’s reform in 1991, the exchange rate was almost like this. For easy calculation, you can think of it as 1 RMB for 4 rupees. In 2023, 1 RMB can be exchanged for 12 rupees, and the rupee has been depreciating...)

So if converted into RMB, Qiao Ge’s family’s annual income is 25,000 RMB, which is almost 20 times China’s annual per capita income. Not to mention the 1980s, even in the early 1990s in China, households with RMB 10,000 were a minority.

At this time, India's per capita GDP is higher than that of China. Unfortunately, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor in India. The rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. Most Indians are still poorer than the Chinese. After all, the poor make up the majority.

For example, the poor people in the slums starve to death every day and are struggling on the edge of life and death.

But the income of the Qiaogo family can only be regarded as middle class in Mumbai, India, a metropolis where rich people gather. Compared with the real rich people in India, it is not worth mentioning.

Jogo's father Dingwar Gupta is from Gujarat.

Later known as the Indian version of Guangdong, Gujarat's economy ranks among the best among Indian states.

"Fellow fellow." Qiao Ge sighed in his heart.

He lamented that he and Gautam Adani were fellow countrymen (a state in India is equivalent to a province in China), and even fellow countrymen with the later Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Thinking of this, Qiaogo couldn't help but remember looking at the history of Adani's fortune.

The big explosion behind this guy has a lot to do with Modi.

Modi met Adani when he was still in office in Gujarat.

One of the key points of Adani's fortune is the contracting of the Mundra Port in Gujarat. When Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat (the state's top leader), he acquired the port at a very low price and privatized it. ization and later became India's largest private port.

If you want to contract a country's port, it is impossible without some skills and political and business connections behind the scenes.

There are various signs that this has something to do with Modi.

When Modi became prime minister, Adani also contributed, providing money, publicity and so on.

It can be said that Adani's political investment is very accurate. It is betting on the great god Modi, and it will not make it prosperous even if it does not want it.

It is precisely because of this that the collusion between government and businessmen is a very important one in the report on short selling by Wall Street in the United States against the Adani Group.

This one is really hard to argue with.

In 2018, the Indian government approved the privatization of six airports, including Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and relaxed the rules to expand the scope of competition, allowing companies without any experience in operating airports to participate in the bidding, so Ada, who has no operating experience, The Adani Group was able to join the bidding, and later all six airports were won by the Adani Group. Isn’t it ugly?

The rules were changed specifically for the Adani Group. Who made Adani have a close relationship with then-Indian Prime Minister Modi?

Eating nakedly alone and conveying benefits is not giving any soup to others.

Adani's way of making a fortune is not universal and difficult for others to imitate.

Qiao Ge knows that Modi will be the prime minister in the future, so he can’t just run to Modi now, dragging the immortal to call him big brother, let’s become sworn brothers...

Moreover, at this time, Modi was not a senior official and did not have that much power.

However, the development history of Adani's other industries has given Qiaogo a lot of inspiration. If there is a chance to follow his path, it is best to be one step ahead of him, and maybe get a lot of rewards.

China failed to catch up with the reform and opening up in the last generation, and the Indian version of reform and opening up is about to begin. Jogo Gupta is ready to have the courage to risk everything.

Why do you think so?

Because his father was bankrupt and still owed a lot of debt.

His father has been in Mumbai for more than 20 years. He started picking up garbage in the slums of Dharavi. He worked hard and gradually became a small boss in the cotton textile industry. He bought a house in the center of Mumbai and sent his son to an international school. Successful people.

In order to make more money, the elder Gupta opened a foreign trade company six months ago to export cotton textiles produced by several workshops under his name.

At the beginning, the business went smoothly, with a lot of orders. Although the payment was not very large, the payment was collected in time. For a while, the old Gupta felt a little high-spirited.

In the past, he sold the cotton textiles he produced to foreign trade companies. Now that he has done it himself, he realizes how profitable foreign trade can be. It is several times higher than before.

Three months ago, a big order came in, worth several million rupees.

You must know that the largest order of the old Gupta was tens of thousands of rupees.

For this reason, the elder Gupta was so motivated that he borrowed a lot of money from the bank to purchase cotton textiles from other manufacturers. The goods from his few workshops alone were simply not enough.

Because he is an old customer and his previous payments were very timely, Gupta Sr. trusts him very much.

But this time, he was deceived.

The other party said that there was a temporary shortage of funds, and he paid a small deposit. After delivery, he hoped to take delivery of the goods first and then pay the balance. Old Gupta agreed with a soft heart.

Once the goods are picked up, the balance is forfeited.

This kind of foreign trade scam is very common, and I believe many people who were engaged in foreign trade in China in previous lives were deceived.

Not only did the elder Gupta lose his savings of more than 20 years, he still owed the bank nearly one million rupees, which he really couldn't afford to pay back.

In desperation, the elder Gupta jumped from a building the day before yesterday. He only jumped from the third floor. He did not die, but suffered multiple fractures throughout his body. He is now lying in the hospital.

Qiaogo's mother was so stimulated that she couldn't bear it and was admitted to the hospital.

Since Qiao Ge lives on campus, he only learned about these situations last night.

After suddenly hearing the bad news, the original Qiao Ge fell and hit his head in a daze, and then he became the Qiao Ge he is now.

Primary and secondary students in India are divided into three semesters each year, the first semester is from April to May, the second semester is from July to September, and the third semester is from October to March of the following year. The first semester is interspersed with summer vacation, the second semester is interspersed with the traditional Indian ‘Diwali’ (equivalent to the Chinese Spring Festival) holiday, and the third semester is interspersed with winter vacation.

The winter vacation starts tomorrow, and there are ten days of vacation.

You have to make money to pay off your debts. This is the first thing Qiaogo needs to do now.

Qiao Ge didn’t want to lose his place to live after traveling through time.

If everything was gone, he and his parents would probably have to settle in the slums.

Thinking about the description of the slums in India in his previous life, Qiaogo shuddered a little. Are those places where people live?

This is not the life he wants.

Now that you have come to India, live a good life.

We have encountered difficulties for the time being, but we also have great opportunities.

After all, the Indian version of reform and opening up is coming soon. In 1991, India liberalized its energy, power, mining, ports and other industries to allow private operations.

This created countless large monopoly companies in India later.

This does not exist in China. After all, these are related to the foundation of the country and are generally run by state-owned enterprises, making it difficult for private individuals to intervene.

In India, these industries are filled with large private monopolies.

Once you control energy, electricity and other resources, you can almost count money while lying down.

Because you don’t have to consume, but you can’t avoid using food, clothing, housing, and transportation, such as electricity and water, right?

In order to benefit from the wave of reform, Qiaogo felt that he had to accumulate some capital.

If his father hadn't been deceived and his family had a small amount of assets, it would have been much smoother.

Unfortunately, the start didn't go so smoothly.

Qiaogo's home is in a wealthy residential area one kilometer away from the school. He did not go home directly this time, but walked towards the branch of the State Bank of India (India's largest bank) in the North Central District of Mumbai.

This is where the elder Gupta got the loan. He decided to try and see if he could ask for a few days of grace.

After fusing the memory of the original body owner last night, Qiao Ge thought about it all night. No matter what, he had to buy some time.

There are various tuk-tuks, rickshaws, horse-drawn carriages on the road. Occasionally, cars produced by Tata Company come and go, and sacred cows take a leisurely stroll on the road.

Because the sacred cow is blocking the road, cars can only honk their horns or shout loudly, and pedestrians are crossing the road, creating a chaotic and noisy sound.

Not far away, a group of people were marching holding signs, pulling banners, and shouting slogans.

From the memory of the original owner, Qiaogo knew what was going on. It was the port workers who were on strike and marching. This was already the third day.

It is said that goods are piling up at the port and shipments are very small, causing many people's livelihood to be affected.

These workers usually load and unload goods at the docks. Now that the number of shipments at the port terminals is less, there are fewer workers hired. For this reason, they are demonstrating to ask the government to solve the food problem.

Qiao Ge didn't pay much attention. Demonstrations and strikes were common in India, so there was nothing surprising. He bypassed the group of people and continued walking towards the branch.

Kunal Singh, the branch credit manager, was a good friend of Gupta Sr.

Qiao Ge came here to look for him.

"Qiaogo, I have something to go to the president. You go to my office and wait." Singer happened to come out of the office and walked towards the president's office after speaking.

Qiao Ge was led into the office by an employee and sat down on a chair.

Could it be that my destiny after traveling through time was to go to the slums?

Or is God trying to rise from the slums?

Allow yourself to walk the old Gupta path again?

In Singer's office, Qiaogo inevitably had a lot of thoughts.

Thinking about how to seize opportunities in the wave of reform and opening up in India.

There was no one else in the office, and a white landline phone sat on a desk.

In today's era, just like China, only a few rich people and government departments in India can afford landline phones, which are very expensive.

If there is an emergency, ordinary people can only go to the post office and other paid public telephones.

In addition to the phone, there was a radio turned on on the table, which was playing local news from Mumbai.

"At 10 o'clock this morning, the Chief Executive, His Excellency Teddy Faga received the Chinese trade delegation at the city government residence. The two sides held friendly talks on bilateral trade... The Chinese trade delegation arrived in Mumbai on the 2nd of this month... However, the order It is a pity that China has not been able to find a trading partner..."

The top leaders in power in Mumbai are called administrators. The mayor, like the president and governor, is a mascot with no actual power.

Just as the highest leader in power in India is the Prime Minister, the highest leader in power in each state is the Chief Minister.

Hearing this, Qiao Ge's eyes lit up, and then he fell into deep thought.

About ten minutes later, Singh came back, holding a small black bag in his hand.

Singh is about the same age as Gupta Sr., in his early forties. His head is wrapped in layers of blue cloth, forming a headband like a 'big millstone'.

In India, this is a very visible sign that the person is a Sikh.

The Sikhs pursue equality and do not care about caste.

However, the Sikhs in India are basically classified as second-class Kshatriyas and belong to the upper caste.

There are four castes in India, from high to low, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras. In fact, there is a fifth class of Dalits who do not deserve their status, that is, untouchables.

Chogo belongs to the third-class Vaishya caste, which is actually considered a lower caste.

He doesn't know much about India. Like most people in China, he doesn't usually pay attention to India. Most of what he knows about India is Indian Asan, curry, Bollywood movies, and beautiful female stars.

The Indian movies introduced in recent years have excellent reputation and are indeed very exciting, so Qiaogo likes to watch Indian movies.

If you really want to know about India, you basically get it passively from movies and some news online.

The Sikhs are martial, united, and united in dealing with the outside world. They are the most combat-effective ethnic group in the Indian army. Moreover, the Sikhs have many officers and soldiers in the Indian army. The proportion is very high and they have great influence in the army.

Sikh men have the word 'Singh', which means 'lion'; women have the word 'Kaur', which means 'princess'.

Generally speaking, castes have their own social circles, and it is relatively rare to have deep friendships across castes. The fact that the elder Gupta and Singh can become good friends actually proves that the elder Gupta has a good character and has obtained Singer's approval.

Of course, as far as ordinary people are concerned, the original Qiaogo family was relatively wealthy.

Without money, you are nothing.

"One month's grace? Can you pay off the loan in one month?" After listening to Qiaogo's words, Singer put the bag on the table, turned down the volume of the radio and said, "Qiaogo, do you know that according to the agreement, The bank can seize your house after 3 days."

"Uncle Singh, the house is worth about 500,000 rupees now. Even if it is given to the bank, it is still less than 500,000 rupees." Qiaogo said, "You can't scrape 500,000 rupees from people who want to move into slums. Right? As long as you give me one month's grace, I dare not say that you will repay all the loans, so how can you pay back ~~500,000 rupees first?"

The house was bought by the elder Gupta in 1975. The total price at that time was 100,000 rupees. The apartment area was 120 square meters, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living rooms and a kitchen. The price was not expensive for a house in a wealthy area, and it was in the middle range.

Ten years have passed and house prices have risen a lot.

Being able to buy a house in Mumbai after working hard in the slums is amazing in itself, although it is not possible to buy luxury houses or large villas like those rich people.

Singer did not answer Qiao Ge's words immediately, but sighed and said: "I reminded your father when he took out the loan, but he was too hot-headed at that time to make a lot of money and couldn't listen. My friend who is young, I don’t want to see him end up like this. Is he okay?”

"Fortunately, my life was saved."

"Talking back to the loan, you can repay 500,000 rupees a month. Where do you have the confidence? What are you going to do?" Singh was still a little curious about what Qiaogo just said.

"I would like to ask Uncle Singh for another favor."

"Oh, tell me." Singer motioned for Qiao Ge to continue.

Qiao Ge thought about his next words in his mind. Uncle Singh had a good relationship with his father. He hoped to open a breakthrough from him, and he could only find hope from him.

If the other party is willing to talk to you, this is an opportunity and you must seize it.

"I want to borrow 200,000 rupees." Jogo took a deep breath and said.

"Did I hear correctly?"

"No, it's just 200,000 rupees."

"Qiaogo, do you know what you are talking about? Not only does your father not repay the debt, but you also want to borrow another 200,000 rupees?" Singh was amused by Qiaogo's words. He didn't know what this kid was thinking.