RKD buying Premchand Roychand's bungalow is such a magnificent Bombay Mumbai story. This city really is about money and dreams.
Both are big bulls. Both have their fortunes tied to the stock market. PC made it big during the Backbay Reclamation scam, RKD origins date back to Harshad Mehta.
When the US Civil war cut supply of US cotton to UK, the UK got its cotton from India. That boom led the British to connect Gujarat to Mumbai via train.
That rail gave Mumbai its first local train. That cotton boom gave South Mumbai most of its beautiful buildings, the Bombay Stock Exchange, etc
And of course, the Premchand Roychand family rose to fame, fortune, power. Legend has it that PR donated to build the Rajabai Tower because his mom was blind and the tower bells helped her tell the time.
Meanwhile, RKD - a college dropout who trained under legend Manu Manek (hat tip @nairsameer) shorted stocks for a living before turning long term investor.
At one point RKD was the biggest shareholder of HDFC Bank (post IPO, I think). By 2000 he began seeing up DMart. Everything else is history.
Both are media shy legends. One was near royalty in the time of the Parsi kings of Mumbai. The other is a humble, soft spoken Maheshwari man known for his obsession with free cash.
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