India, 3rd December: ‘King of Spices’ Dharampal Gulati, the owner and face of masala brand MDH Spices passed away on Thursday at age of 97.
As per reports, Dharampal Gulati was undergoing treatment at a hospital in New Delhi where he suffered a cardiac arrest.
Gulati was born in Sialkot (now in Pakistan) on March 27, 1923, and later migrated to India after the partition. He dropped out of school and set up a small business in 1937 with the help of his father Mahashay Chunni Lal Gulati, before joining the family business of spices.
After the partition, Gulati opened a shop in Delhi’s Karol Bagh and restarted his family business of ground spices and under the “Mahashian Di Hatti of Sialkot” banner. MDH (Mahashian Di Hatti) now has 15 factories across India and exports nearly 50 different types of spices across the world.
Gulati, affectionately called ‘Dadaji‘ by some, was reportedly India’s highest-paid consumer products CEO in 2017 when he took home more than Rs 21 crore as salary.
Often referred to as the ‘King of Spices‘, Gulati appeared in several advertisements for MDH products. But he was also known for his work towards improving the quality of education and was associated with several educational institutions. In 2019, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian award.
