My Story

People think that I have been in business for a long time. My family may have had a business, so I took over. Many people have different opinions on my business career. However, many people don't know that I have only been a full-time businessman since 2017. I am a mechanical engineer. I was born in India and studied mechanical engineering. I got into the watch industry right after graduation. My job was mostly product design of complete watches. I worked for Titan Watches in India for five years. Then, in 1998, right after I married in 1996, I moved to Hong Kong. This opportunity came up while I was working at Titan. A company in Hong Kong was looking for a quality control engineer.

Moving to HK was the biggest step that I took in my life. When I came there, I joined a small watch company. I worked there from 1997 to 2017. It was not quite the same management. In 2000, the company was sold to another management, which was run by a Swiss family. I went along with the company; although the company name stayed the same, I worked for about 20 years in the same company. From the preliminary position I joined, I eventually became the company's Chief Operations Officer (COO). In this 20-year journey, I traveled extensively to many different places, learned many different things in manufacturing, sales, and marketing, and also traveled extensively in China—pretty much China, the US, and Europe, many countries. In 2017, I quit the job.

However, in 2016, when my wife had little time and wanted to start a business, I acquired an Indian grocery store right in front of our home. It was run by one of my friends. He offered me the business, and I said, okay, I will take it over and then do it. This was a business that I had never been into. I had no idea about this business. But it was almost in a dying stage. I took the business over and rebranded it, redid everything I could, and now have somewhat built it to be one of the most popular brands in Hong Kong. Yes, now it is MaharajaMart. In 2017, I left the company and started my own watch company. At the time, I was the only one in a small office. Later, one of my colleagues joined, and we slowly built the business.

I am a vegetarian. Since my birth, I have been a vegetarian because my family—my mother and dad—were all vegetarians. Although the choice was very limited when I came to Hong Kong, I was introduced to Woodlands. When I first came to Hong Kong in 1996, I already knew about Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant because that was where I always ate. When I moved there, it was destiny that my office was right next to Woodlands. So I had my food there almost every day, in the morning and evening. After I finished my work, I used to go to Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant and do whatever possible services I could for them. It was a great place where I could meet many people, talk to many people, and have a lot of interactions.

That's how my association with Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant started. Slowly, I became very close to the family who ran the business back then. After knowing the cuisine and the food so much because I used to eat there every day, I literally familiarized myself with the entire menu. In 2018, I learned that the business was going to close. So I decided overnight to take it over. That's how I took over this business. People think I've been running this business for a long time. That's not really true. But when I took this business over, it had been around for 36 years because Woodlands was started in Hong Kong in 1981. So after Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant, I picked it up. On December 12, 2018, we reopened the business. We renovated the entire shop, rebranded it, and gave the restaurant a fresh look.

I was literally in the restaurant for almost seven, eight months without a manager. My wife and I managed the restaurant to ensure everything went well. I used to be outside, and she used to be inside. We managed this place for a while. I also speak a little bit of Cantonese, the local language. So I used my marketing skills to talk to people, use my language, and promote vegetarian food, especially South Indian cuisine, which was completely unknown to people in this part of the world. We started promoting South Indian cuisine soon after opening. We reached our highest turnover within five months in the past 36 years.

Soon after acquiring the business in May 2019, we got busy with the restaurant and started focusing more on the locals, explaining our culture and food to them. We soon became a popular destination for locals to enjoy vegetarian cuisine. Immediately after we opened, we faced many hurdles, which had never happened in the past 36 years. Hong Kong had the biggest riots or protests since May 2019 until 2020. After that, Covid started, lasting three years, but we kept going. We worked very hard to get some government contracts. With all this, we opened our second Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant branch in exactly four years from the first one. I remember giving a business proposal to my landlord because they had questions about us using the place or renting it out. I wrote in the proposal that within five years, I would set up my second unit. Luckily, with God's grace and the support of our customers, we opened our second Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant branch on December 12, 2022, the same date as the first one.

The best and most interesting part is the location of Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant now. Wan Chai was an Indian vegetarian restaurant with a different brand name that closed during COVID-19 in 2019. They closed it, and in 2020, I was looking to open another restaurant and asked the landlord for that place, but the landlord rejected my request. So, I opened another brand called Hello India on July 1, 2020. Eventually, in 2022, the landlord offered me the same place for a slightly lower rent. I strongly believe that what is meant for you will definitely reach you. This is why I always believe that God has destined me to take over this brand. In 2021, we started MaharajaTickets, an extension of our business that sells movie and event tickets and screens movies in Hong Kong. In 2022, we opened Woodlands Wan Chai, and in 2023, we also started Maharajah Care, a healthcare service for non-Chinese-speaking people.

In 2024, we opened our third branch of Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. We are proud to share that we are the only Indian restaurant inside the prestigious University of Hong Kong that offers a vegetarian menu. In 2024, we opened our fourth Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant branch and our fifth restaurant in Macau. Macau will be a bigger branch, almost the biggest ever, with two levels. We are the first Indian vegetarian restaurant to open in Macau. We still desire to open more places, even though it is very difficult to manage so many people and things. Our team is so good. I love them as my family. I treat them like my family. They have all been very supportive of my decisions. We maintain our food quality to the highest standards. Even now, I visit all my restaurants daily to try the food and ensure we keep control.

The most important thing is I want to be connected with my customers. So as of today, apart from all the marketing activities I do for the restaurant, I am still responsible for responding to all my customers' Google reviews. I read all the reviews, especially if someone is unhappy. I like to respond to them straight away myself and ask them how we could improve. I am open to taking feedback from our customers to ensure we provide them with good food, service, and an unforgettable experience at Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant. We still have many future plans for Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant to make it one of the top destinations for vegetarians, vegans, Jains, and Buddhists. We want to show people that no other cuisine can match our variety in Indian cuisine. I want to promote this to everyone, especially sharing this cultural legacy in Hong Kong and the rest of the world. As long as I am in this business, I promise all my customers that Woodland will always remain vegetarian and serve only vegetarian food, especially South Indian cuisine.

I sincerely thank those who have supported us all these years and are happy to see us grow. The best part of my career and success is that I have always tried to be positive. Whatever I do, I give my best efforts. Moreover, even without knowing the business, I try to learn everything I didn't know earlier, and I always think from my customers' point of view. What would I expect if I were a customer of this particular service or industry? That is how I think about every step I take in my business. Because I think the customer is always right, we understand this and try to make our customers happy and leave them with a positive and great experience. This is why Woodlands Indian Vegetarian Restaurant is the highest-rated restaurant in Hong Kong. I am committed, focused, and never give up. That's how I am working on my business goals. I thank God for giving me this energy, my family, and, most importantly, you guys for supporting us all these years.