After my FY-B.Com result, in which I had one backlog and had barely cleared the other subjects, my parents were obviously not over the moon, but they are the cool kinds so it was not a problem.  Sometimes girls would call at odd times but then, as I said, my parents were the cool types. Sometimes I would not come back all night, but as you know by now my parents were the cool types. One day, the police came to my house to arrest me for apparently having friends who turned out to be criminals of sorts (you guys know how at that age you want to hang out with the ‘bhais’ of the college). I hope I could say again how cool my parents were, but unfortunately  my cool parents lost their cool and packed my bags along with me and sent me to London for further education.

There was a time in India when apparently kids were naughty, and parents would say “isko hostel bhej do”. It was their magic formula, but I am not sure how much it worked. Since India has progressed and so have the parents, now they say “isko abroad bhej do”.  So the abroad theory was used on me even though I didn’t even clear my FY B.Com in India. Doesn’t make sense, but I was more than happy. Like every Indian student I was excited to live in London.

So, in February 2002, a 19 year old lad lands in the ‘City of the Queen’ with a lot of dreams. I joined college and found a part-time job for self sustenance as I did not want to burden my family back home.  They were also struggling to barely finance my education and more. So there was a tremendous financial crunch at home too. Hence, I was determined that this time I would not let them down.

Life was not a party anymore and my struggle period soon commenced. Things were very difficult as most of my day was spent at college and there was hardly anytime left to work. But no work or less work meant no food and no house. For the first time perhaps I realised what the millions of people surviving on the roads in our country go through. However my strength lies in something my parents taught me - "When the going gets tough, you get tougher”. I felt challenged and I wanted to fight and win over it. Win, not just for myself, but my parents back in India who had struggled hard all their life to raise me. I did odd jobs like working at a construction site and even cleaning toilets at a restaurant. This might sound melodramatic but it’s true. There was a time I did not eat for 48 hrs at a stretch as I did not have money. Eventually it came to a point that I left my studies and started working full-time. Life slowly got comfortable as I did not have to worry about surviving anymore. But right from a young age I had dreamt about being a successful man. So it was not just pure survival that I aimed for.

I started putting up stalls in a Sunday market, but every time it would be a new product, as the last one did not sell well. It’s funny to think of what all I tried to sell, from Corn to bhel puri to fruits.

I soon realised that the Indian market in London was completely saturated. So trying to sell Indian goods was a waste of time as there were too many Indians who were already doing that. As one would know, half of Gujarat and Punjab is in the UK. Cutting a long story short, I ended up importing Chinese snacks from China to sell to the Chinese supermarkets. This worked as if I had mined gold. I sold all my goods within a month and doubled my income. There was no looking back after that. And at the end of that year I saved up good money. By the way, I am pleased to tell you guys, I went for a dinner to the same restaurant where I use to clean toilets and gave a tip of 20 pounds!!! (That used to be my pay for cleaning toilets for 5 hrs). In an odd way it was a great moment for me.

By this time I had completed 4 years in London and I felt very lonely. I missed my family and friends. Above all, I missed my India. I had always criticised India while I was in India but when I left my country I realised that our India is the best. I was making money but I was not happy. So I decided to listen to my heart and against all odds I decided to come back as I was confident that if I can do well in a foreign land then I can do well in my own country too.

Having moved to India and after a few flop business ventures I was given the offer to take over Cad B (now Café Chokolade). It had only 4 outlets at that time and was making huge losses. Since it was a loss making company it was offered to me at a reasonable price, but it was enough to take away all my UK savings. I was in a huge dilemma as it was a huge risk to take because even though I had the money to buy the company, I did not have the money to pay for the monthly losses which at that point were 5 lakhs a month and I knew that if it doesn’t click I could be heading towards cleaning the toilets again. All my family & friends were dead against it but I knew to make it big I had to take big risks and as usual I did what I believed in and bought Cad B.

In the first month I brought down the loss from 5 lakhs to 1 lakh.  It was very difficult in the beginning and there were many bad days and several sleepless nights. At times I would issue cheques worth lakhs when there was zero balance in my bank, but somehow arranged for the money before the cheque would come for clearing. At times it felt more like war than business and during this war I even lost some close friends. But I have been lucky to find friends like Romi, Moiz and Hitesh, without them this would not have been possible. Also, thanks to Mr. Vinay Dias who was the first one to introduce me to Cad B (I would not be thanking him if things had not worked out).

There are 2 principles that have always kept my company afloat - Quality Products and Customer Care which in my case, are my franchisees and you wonderful people who come to enjoy our products.

Currently we have 95 outlets in 32 different cities of India. We always see American brands like Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Starbucks and so on, but I have dreamt of an Indian brand that will make its name globally. Hopefully with all your support my dream will come true.

 

Ameet Pahilani
Not even a graduate. If I can fulfil my dreams so can you!