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Many Indian businessmen are religious, but few have managed to combine their faith with their industries

Gulshan Kumar is driving to NOIDA from his Greater Kailash home. People often wonder why the drive takes so long. Gulshan is about to reveal why.

First, he detours to the Kalkaji mandir, As he gets off, saying. "Main ek minute mein ho ke aata hoon," his driver runs back to the boot of the car to retrieve a steel thali laden with fruits, mithai, agarbatti and matches. He hands it to Gulshan who trudges off on the small, pot-holed bylane to pay obeisance to the goddess.

The prayers take about 10 to 15 minutes. When he returns, the thali is bare except for some flowers that the pujari has apparently given him. He swings back into his Mercedes, but no he is not ready for NOIDA yet. The driver veers off to another mandir along the road and Gulshan bounds out of the front seat. The driver produces another thali from the boot, and Gulshan repeats the old incantation. "Ek minute mein aata hoon." This time, he visits a Shiv temple and in ten minutes he has returned with yet another empty thali.

At last, the journey towards NOIDA is begun in earnest. But just before he reaches his office, the Mercedes makes another detour. It pulls up outside another Shiv mandir. Gulshan heads for a tube well near the temple and ostentatiously washes his feet and hands. The driver is ready with the third thali of the day, though this time, a plastic bagful of fruit is also produced. These prayers take another 10 minutes and it is only, after the gods have been propitiated that Gulshan is ready to play the music mogul at his headquarters.

The show of religious devotion is not for the photographer's benefit. Even Gulshan Kumar's worst enemies will concede that he is extraordinarily religious. The T in T-Series stands for trishul. a bow in the direction of Shivji, whose worshipper he has been for most of his life. Each year he makes suitable pilgrimages. His money pays for a free 24-hour langar for pilgrims at Vaishno Devi, and there are many stories of his largesse towards religious institutions and places of worship.

Many Indian businessmen are religious, but few have managed to combine their faith with their industries. Gulshan, on the other hand, is proudest of his best-selling devotional cassettes. They boast such titles as Shiv Mahima and Shiv Aradhana and the listener is left in no doubt that they represent Gulshan's own tribute to the god; many of the jackets carry photographs of Gulshan, looking suitably pious in a white kurta-pyjama and folding his hands.

Gulshan brags that these cassettes are hot sellers. "Aaj kal filmi music ki sale down ho gayi hain. Yehi chalta hain," he explains. He offers an interesting rationale: in the video era, people expect to see Hindi film songs rather than just listen to them. So, there is a greater demand for music that has no visual component (other than Gulshan's own picture, that is).

Moreover, he also has a religious motivation. He claims, that the religious movies that the T-Series assembly line regularly cranks out have the power to determine the popularity of various gods. 'I made a film on Shaniji. After it came out, the crowds doubled at Shaniji's mandir in Delhi," he boasts.

Of late, he has become more involved in the creative aspects of the productions. Many of the cassettes include at least one bhajan rendered in his own nondescript voice. And the religious films have at least one bhajan which is picturised on Gulshan himself.

The film industry is incredulous about his nerve, but as much as they knock it, the cassettes do sell and the movies all make money. That perhaps, is positive proof of the power of prayer.

If you were to pick one distinguishing characteristic, you would have to select Gulshan Kumar's ability to make money. But it would be a close run thing. The Midas touch is nearly eclipsed by his utterly unselfconscious desire to seek the limelight.

Nobody knows the names of the proprietors of India's many music companies. But it hard to buy a T-Series cassette without having Gulshan's personality shoved into your tape deck. For instance, his Geet Bahar (a Hindi top 10) series carries small pictures of the singers on the cassette jacket. The large picture in the centre is Gulshan's he is giving a jowly grin and wearing a red bow-tie.

Other cassettes continue the trend. In fact, just as every Playboy cover has a picture of a bunny, every T-Series cassettes, no matter what its content or subject, has a picture of Gulshan on the jacket. Here he is on another Geet Bahar cassette, still wearing the same red bow-tie, but his time he's giving a thumbs-up sign to the camera. There he is, on the jacket of Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin, a film starring Aamir Khan and Pooja Bhatt. He's shed the bow-tie but the soft-focus photograph is suitably star-like.

Often, he appears to be in disguise. The jacket to the soundtrack of Shiv Mahima carries a photo of the film's stars, another of Shivji and Parvati, and a third of a procession of pilgrims. But just when you think that Gulshan's taken a low profile, you realise that the leader of the pilgrims looks suspiciously familiar. Sure enough, it is our hero, only this time he is wearing saffron robes, and his neck is bedecked with holy beads.

Each cassette, even those where he has had no role apart from being the owner of the music company, carries his name, usually in a larger point size than everyone else's. Even Haiyya, meant to introduce Kavita Paudwal, Anuradha's daughter, has Gulshan's name in a large size than Kavita's. Some even carry such invocations as: "If you have the talent, Gulshan Kumar has a promise." An announcement of a talent contest.

At live concerts, he is as thrusting. Anuradha Paudwal, fine singer that she undoubtedly is, tends to sit quietly on the stage and sing devotional; songs without providing much drama or visual excitement.

No matter. By the third song, audiences are bemused to find that a short man in white terylene has dashed out from the wings and is swaying wildly, clapping his hands enthusiastically, and waving excitedly. It is, of course, Gulshan, and perhaps, this is his way of making up for Anuradha's lack of stage presence.

Despite this thrusting public persona, there is a strange vacuum in the private life of Gulshan Kumar. Take away the rumours about the affair with Anuradha Paudwal -- which they both deny strenuously -- and there's not much left. His wife Bubbly is a devoted sort who keeps going off on pilgrimages -- at the time this interview was conducted she was at the Vaishno Devi shrine, and was hoping to accompany Gulshan on his Amarnath Yatra on her return -- and as for his children, that is another story.

Kind courtesy: Sunday magazine

Gulshan! Continued