What is your share in the Taj GVK Hotels & Resorts joint venture?
This is actually my passion. I got into this business out of my personal liking. I wanted to build the best hotel in Hyderabad. Before I came into this business, I was acquiring land at strategic positions. People were actually laughing at me. But when I started building the hotel, the MD of Taj – after seeing the details and design – called me and asked me if I was crazy to build such a hotel in Hyderabad. I told him that he was right but I was building for tomorrow. Of course, there’s more to it. I had acquired a big piece of land with the aim of building another large hotel with a golf course. Then the government built a road right through my land. The then chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Mr NTR who used to pass through that road wanted to build something on that land. Thankfully for me, I knew the chief secretary who told me that the Chief Minister was looking at the land. I immediately started building the next hotel on that land even before the first one had started making profi
