Ashok Khade and I were in the middle of our conversation at his Navi Mumbai office, when he held up two pens — one was a simple green pen and the other was a fancy Montblanc. These two fountain pens tell the story of his life. Ashok has owned the green pen for most of his life, ever since he bought it for Rs 3.50 thirty years ago.
In 1973 when Ashok had to appear for his Class XI board exam, he didn't have even four annas to replace its nib. His teacher had to give him the money to have the nib changed so Ashok could take the exam. He wrote the exam with this pen as an aspiring youth looking forward to his destiny. The Montblanc pen — worth Rs 80,000 — is a symbol of his success.
Ashok Khade is now managing director of DAS Offshore Engineering Private Limited. In 2011-2012, his company, which makes huge platforms used for extracting crude oil from the sea, filed a turnover of Rs 140 crore. DAS Offshore employs 400 people and has carried out the fabrication of the D.Y. Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. The skywalks built for crossing the road in Mumbai were put up by Ashok's company in a matter of months. Even though he is a big businessman now, Ashok still keeps the green pen to remain grounded — it is a constant reminder of his early life and where he comes from.
The Khade family lived through extremely terrible times. They started out in Ped, a tiny village in west Maharashtra. Ashok's father mended shoes near Chitra Talkies in Dadar, Mumbai — Ashok says that the tree under which his father sat and worked is still standing. His mother, Tanhu Bai, worked in the fields for twelve annas a day. Though it was tough to bring up six children on these meagre earnings, the parents sent the eldest son, Dattatreya, to a relative's house in Sholapur to study...
Then something happened which made Ashok realise how utterly poor his family was. And that was the day he made up his mind to rescue them from poverty. Ashok was in Class V then. It was the monsoon time, and his mother had sent him to get atta (flour). On his way back, Ashok slipped and fell in the slush, and all the atta spilled. When he returned home empty-handed, his mother started crying as there was nothing to eat in the house. She brought some corn and black hulge (horse gram) from his classmate Savarde Patil's house, and made bhakri from it to feed the children.
Everyone went off to sleep, but at four in the morning, Ashok's younger brother Suresh woke up feeling hungry. Their mother asked them to sleep and promised she would do something as soon as day broke. After an hour or so she made dough with some seeds and made bhakri with it and fed Suresh.
Eventually, the Khade family was able to fight poverty because they never compromised on the children's education. Ashok studied in Ped village till Class VII, then moved to Tasgaon to study till Class XI. He had somehow managed uninterrupted schooling till then, but 1972 proved to be the annus horribilis for all of Maharashtra. There was no rain and the state was gripped by the worst famine in the last 100 years...
When Ashok went back to the village his father said, 'Son, I'm not responsible for the famine. I can't be blamed for not being able to feed you bhakri. All the utensils in the house have been sold. But you don't give up.' And then he repeated a Marathi proverb which translated to: till the time the palash trees have leaves, don't think of yourself as poor. The palash needs little water; its leaves are used to make dona pattal (disposable plates). Ashok's father told him that even if the situation is such that their family has to resort to selling their utensils, they could rely on the palash and eat off its leaves — they will not be poor as long as the palash tree is in bloom.
This experience gave Ashok the incentive to take life head-on...
The next stop was Mumbai. Dattatreya had found a job in the shipyard of Mazagaon Dock as a welding apprentice — this spurred on Ashok's dream of becoming a doctor. He studied science in Class XI and was studying at Siddharth College...
The tide turned once again when his brother said that he could no longer bear his expenses. Perforce, in 1975, to support the family, Ashok had to give up his dream of becoming a doctor and start working as a welding apprentice at Rs 90 a month at Mazagaon Dock.
Mazagaon Dock provided employment to the entire Khade family. Dattatreya was already working there and, in 1976, Ashok's younger brother Suresh also became a welding operator as the family could no longer afford to educate him.
Ashok made up for the disruption in his studies while working at the dock. After training for four years, he got a permanent position as a draughtsman in 1978. He earned Rs 300 a month, and his good penmanship came to use as his work involved designing ships.
Though Ashok's life was now a far cry from the terrible days of poverty that he had grown up in, he was still not satisfied. He started studying mechanical engineering after work... After earning a diploma in 1982 he was transferred to the company's quality control department.
***
The Khade brothers didn't take the risk of giving up their jobs simultaneously. Suresh quit first in 1989, followed by Ashok in 1992 and finally Dattatreya. When it came to naming the company, Ashok felt that his caste was an issue... finally the company was christened 'DAS' after putting together the first letters of the brothers' names, Dattatreya, Ashok and Suresh.
The brothers started off by picking up petty contracts from Mazagaon Dock itself. But soon a major contract fell into their laps when Mazagaon Dock had to construct a jacket in the sea at Bombay High (an offshore oilfield) for the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). A Chennai-based company had abandoned the project halfway owing to labour issues; Mazagaon Dock's chairman and managing director, Capt. S.V. Nair, proposed that the Khade brothers complete the work, and he was not disappointed. Within three months, DAS Offshore had erected platform NLM-9 at the Neelam oil rig. This order was valued at Rs 1.66 crore, and there was no looking back after that.
***
Ashok is now 57 and the story of his life is nothing short of a fantasy. Today he visits his native village Ped in his BMW, driving along the same tracks where he walked barefoot 40 years ago. He has bought most of the land where his mother laboured every day for twelve annas. He says untouchability was prevalent in his village — they were given separate water to drink and bhakri was thrown at them. But he holds no grouse against the villagers and has in fact restored the village temple — the same premises where his ancestors were forbidden entry.
