How Erode-native KP Ramasamy walked into the exclusive club of India's richest

AS the Internet is flooded with stories of budding entrepreneurs attempting to spin yarns of eminence, a web search on textile industrialist KP Ramasamy will belie the legend. Unlike most of his peers, the 74-year-old Ramasamy prefers to stay away from media glare as he walks firmly into the Forbes India's richest people list with a net worth of ₹9,143 crore. The tags such as 'farmer's son' and 'college dropout' have paled into irrelevance too.

- ARAVIND RAJ S & P SRINIVASAN

A visit to his native village Kalliyampudur will, however, lay bare endearing anecdotes of his philanthropy stitched across decades. The hamlet has also tucked away threads of the $2.3 billion-worth industrialist's humble beginnings as a poor farmer. "He did his primary education in a Christian school here. Then shifted to a school in Perundurai," said P Venkatachalam, a power loom unit owner and a resident of Kalliyampudur. To help his family make ends meet, Ramasamy, being the eldest of three sons, dropped out of school in class 10 and began to help his parents Palanisamy and Sellammal, with farming.

After a year, he resumed his schooling and later completed a pre-university course from Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Arts and Science at Periyanaickenpalayam. Though he had aspired to become a doctor or agricultural engineer, he could not secure a seat.