Dharampal Gulati was born on 27 March 1923 in Sialkot, Pakistan. Both his father Mahasani Chunnilal and mother Chanan Devi were religious followers of Arya Samaj. Dharampal spent his childhood in Sialkot, where his father owned a chilli-spice shop, named 'Mahashian Di Hatti'. His father was known as 'Diggi Chilli Wale' in that area due to the chilli spices he made.
Dharampal never took an interest in education. After failing in 5th Standard, he dropped out of the school. His father was saddened at first by his son giving up studies like this, but later he decided to teach them any workmanship and skill so that he could at least be able to stand on his feet.
His father sent him to a carpenter to learn woodwork. After learning the woodwork there for 8 months, Dharampal stopped going there. His mind was not happy with the work. Then his father put him to work in a factory in Chandwal. By the age of 15, Dharampal had left many careers ranging from clothes to hardware.
He could not sustain any work.
Eventually, his father made him sit at his own shop and he started learning how to grind pepper and spices there. Dharampal finally settled down and also started to pursue the chilli spice business.
Everything was going well, but after the partition Sialkot became part of Pakistan. Riots erupted in which many Hindus were killed, shops were looted and many were tortured. In such a situation, the feeling of insecurity among the Hindus living there and they had to leave Pakistan overnight.
Dharampal also left Sialkot to go to India. In the train from which they were coming to India, there were dead bodies lying in it. But somehow he reached Amritsar.
After stopping there one day, after catching the train the other day, he came to his sister's house in Delhi's Karol Bagh.
Dharampal had to start from zero again after coming to Delhi. He used to carry 1500 rupees in his pocket from Sialkot. That was his deposit. Out of that, he bought a tanga and horse for Rs 650 and became a tonga one.
He used to run the Tanga from New Delhi station to Qutub Road and Karol Bagh to Bada Hindu Rao. But for a long time they could not do this work. After all, he was a businessman.
After running the Tanga for two months, he sold the Tanga and bought a kiosk of wood from the money received, and built a small shop at Ajmal Khan Road, Karol Bagh. In the same shop, he resumed his ancestral business of spices. He named his shop "Mahashian di Hatti - Sialkot Wale".
Dharmapala, who once ran a good shop in Sialkot, started working hard to spice up and grind chillies on that small khoya. Gradually, their hard work started to bring color. As soon as people came to know that these are the Diggy Chillies of Sialkot, they started buying spices at their shop.
Also, the quality of the spices they made was also so good that people had increased trust in them. Their advertisements also became popular with advertisements given in newspapers and their business continued to grow.
By 1968, he opened his spice factory in Delhi. After that, their spices started being exported all over India and outside countries. Today, his "Mahashian the Hatti" MDH is a very big brand. He is MD and brand ambassador of MDH. MDH supplies more than 60 of its products in more than 100 countries of the world. Their top 3 products are - degli chilli, chaat masala and chana masala.
The total revenue of his company in the year 2016 was 924 crores.
