Makeover man

Having trained as an architect from Pratt Institute, New York, Mehta returned to an India that was going through the Emergency. Private construction activity had come to a standstill, so he picked the next best option, entering his father8217;s steel business and going from 8220;990th among 1,000 traders8221; to among the top manufacturers.

He remembers Diwali puja that year, when he told his brother Harendra, six years his senior, that in six months they should increase production from 200 tonnes a month to 2,000 tonnes. 8220;He looked at me like I8217;d landed from Mars.8221; Mehta got that look repeatedly through the course of his various proposals: when he suggested Dharavi8217;s makeover, a slum-free Mumbai, a slum-free Nagpur, a slum-free Hyderabad, among others. In any case, the Mehta brothers not only became the top steel traders in the country, selling steel and advising the big guns of steel manufacturing, but also went on to buy a series of steel mills, starting with a sick unit and adding five others in 45 months. 8220;The joke was that the Mehta brothers produced one factory every nine months.8221;

But separatist political movements in the country alarmed him, 8220;mistakenly, I admit8221;, and Mehta decided to migrate. 8220;Like Columbus, I sailed off,8221; he says. Like Columbus, because he neither had enough money nor a clear idea of where he would end up. Then, after several rejections from banks in the US, he told one banker: 8220;In three years, your bank will be too small for me. You8217;ll regret not having me as a client.8221; He got the loan, going on to 8220;teach the Americans how to live8221;, building top-of-the-line homes at super-luxurious Centre Island, Nassau County.

That cockiness remains8212;nothing is ever too big to dream about, nothing too impossible to achieve. When he was invited to attend Clinton Global Initiative8217;s recent New York meet, he made sure that besides catching up with journalists who8217;d interviewed him on Dharavi in Mumbai, he got five minutes with Bill Clinton. 8220;They8217;ve shown interest in my idea of slum-free cities globally,8221; he smiles, then winks, 8220;Let8217;s hope, huh?8221;

Today, Mehta is the official consultant on schemes to turn Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bangalore slum free. He8217;s also consultant to Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd, which will soon undertake the rehabilitation of nearly 80,000 shanties encroaching upon airport land. Include Dharavi and these are projects that cost over Rs 40,000 crore. 8220;With his average fee at 1 per cent of that,8221; says one bureaucrat whom he meets often in Mantralaya, 8220;Mukesh Mehta is making his money legally, so his image is actually rather clean.8221;

Mehta says he vowed to shed his 8220;petty manipulations8221; in business in 1998 when he was battling tremendous personal, professional and financial crises. 8220;Since then I8217;ve walked the straight line. I8217;ve paid off every penny I borrowed, even to those friends who8217;d written me off as a bad debt, with interest. Sometimes, with interest on interest.8221;

At 57, Mehta is as restless as a teenager. 8220;I get bored,8221; he admits. 8220;I8217;m now done with the creative part of slum redevelopment. Another thing I learnt in the US was time management. If there8217;s anybody in my organisation who can do the job, I delegate it.8221; Mehta is now busy with other creative processes, dabbling in oil on canvas and dreaming up new initiatives. 8220;I have all the time in the world,8221; he says. 8220;All I do is think.8221;