virtually controlled and ran the company. Sir Shri Ram appears on the scene first in 1905 (at the age of 21 years) when he attended an Annual General Meeting along with his uncle (Lala Gopal Rai, Founder and First Secretary of Delhi Cloth and General Mills). The uncle died the same year and Shri Ram's father, Madan Mohan Lal, was appointed in his place. Four years later in 1909, Sir Shri Ram was joined the company as an apprentice in the Accounts Department under Munim Ram Path; without a formal title but with sufficient authority to act on his father's behalf. He was then 25 years old. For another decade after that, he ran the company with his father, but the latter slowly faded out and Sir Shri Ram assumed full formal charge. Sir Shri Ram had persuaded his father to enter into a big contract for the supply of tents for the British Army during First World War (1914–18) and they had earned a lot of money quickly. The father-and-son combine is said to have netted between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, a lot of money in those days, the bulk of which was used in buying DCM shares. The commissions they obtained on the tent deal were not given under the table. Under a three-way contract between themselves, the company and an agent, they were entitled to receive 20 per cent of profits from the deal while the company received 50 per cent. It was Sir Shri Ram's idea and he used the money to increase his holding in the company from less than 5 per cent to 16 per cent (and to 20 per cent by 1925). In less than eight years after he gained control, Sir Shri Ram had raised the fixed capital, buildings and machinery, from Rs 11 lakh to Rs 43 lakh and pushed up sales more than fivefold, from Rs 16 lakh to Rs 91 lakh. Profits had gone up from Rs 3 lakh in 1921 to Rs 18 lakh in 1929. Sir Shri Ram parlayed the DCM Ltd with an assets totaling Rs 55 crore by 1963, the year he passed away. SIR SHRI RAM’S CONTRIBUTION IN NATION BUILDING: Education: As far back in 1920, Sir Shri Ram had decided to conduct the first experiment in vocation-oriented education by founding the Commercial Education Trust. The first school taken over by