Did you start with the bungalows as Mr Parkeh suggested?
Yes, but I was in a hurry to prove myself. The farmers had stayed together and waited for seven years to see this project so I also started a couple of apartment blocks. Where did you get the money to fund that? Oh, we were very stingy on our expenses. We hardly had any overheads, one small office, not charging anything to the company, the farmers with tractors were shifting the soil. We were doing everything ourselves. That was our second aim. Make the second-generation farmers our partners in the development process. We remember that everybody used say ‘Magarpatta is a great plan, but will it work’? Did you get the same reaction? Absolutely. In 1997, I showed this plan to someone in the US and he said, ‘great, when will it start working?’ What was your belief? Were you confident it would work or just hoping for the best? Probably I was overconfident. I had the confidence of all the landowners who were with me. I had faith in the concept. Magarpatta had not bought the land. We all poo
