Sir Shri Ram (also Lala Shri Ram; 27 April 1884 – 11 January 1963) was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist. He was the son of Rai Bahadur Ram Kishen Das Gurwale, the founder of the Delhi Cloth & General Mills, which remains one of the oldest firms in India today. Early life Sir Shri Ram was born on April 27, 1884. First son of Madan Mohan Lal and Chando Devi. He belonged to an Agarwal family of Haryana. Sir Shri Ram got most of his early education from a Municipal Primary School in Bazaar Sita Ram. He matriculated in March, 1900 and later got himself enrolled for the Intermediate Arts course at Hindu College. Sir Shri Ram began as a humble worker and went on to set up one of India's largest business houses - the DCM Group. Born into a family of modest means, Shri Ram, in the 79 years of his life, built an industrial empire manufacturing a vast variety of goods like - textiles, sugar, chemicals, vanaspati, pottery, fans, sewing machines, electric motors and capacitors. Sir Shri Ram, the man who made DCM a household name, entrusting the business to his two sons- Bharat Ram and Charat Ram. (His eldest son, Murli Dhar died in a plane crash near Karachi immediately after Independence in 1949. DCM used to run a textile mill at Lyallpur, which was under Murli Dhar's charge; he was on the flight from Lyallpur to Karachi to buy jewellery for his son Shri Dhar's wedding and perished in the accident along with his wife.) Career When Sir Shri Ram was born Delhi Cloth and General Mills was just a pipe-dream. His uncle, Lala Gopal Rai, had been playing with the idea of a textile mill for some time but he was only a munim - a kind of private secretary - working in a pedhi, though his family was fairly well-to-do, if not exactly affluent. Within a few years of Shri Ram's birth, however, things had started moving and the Lahore Tribune carried the brief news items in its issue of February 28, 1891, under the heading, "Local and Provincial"- The opening ceremony of Delhi Cloth and General Mills Co Ltd will take place on Monday 2 March at 3 pm. The story of DCM is in essence the story of its secretaries. Later the work was taken over by the managing agents who