Mumbai college rejected him, Adani built $220 bn empire; called to deliver lecture at same college

Gautam Adani had in the late 1970s applied to join a Mumbai college for education, but the college rejected his application. He did not pursue education but turned to business and went on to build a USD 220 billion empire. About four-and-a-half decades later, he gets called to the same college to deliver a lecture to students on Teachers Day. Adani had moved to Mumbai at the age of 16 and started working as a diamond sorter. Around the same time in 1977 or 1978, he applied for admission to the city's Jai Hind College. "But they rejected him," said Vikram Nankani, President of the Jai Hind College Alumni Association, as he introduced India's second richest person before his lecture. He had applied to Jai Hind College because his elder brother Vinod had earlier studied in the same college. "Fortunately or unfortunately, the college did not accept him and he went on to work full time and pursued an alternative career," Nankani said, declaring Gautam Adani as a "deemed alumni" since he had applied to join.