He started his first sugar factory in 1933 and gradually built up a vast business empire by venturing into various industrial sectors in the period before and after independence.

Modi thus grew up in exciting times, when his father was building the family fortunes, and the country was grappling with major social and political changes.

In 1959, at the age of just 19, Krishan Kumar accompanied his uncle Kedaarnath Modi (Gujarmal's step-brother) to several European countries, to explore the possibility of purchasing the latest textile machinery to produce higher quality cloth.

His birth in 1940 was greeted with unprecedented joy in the Modi household, because the family had pined for a son for over two decades.

His father's first wife, Rajban Devi, had borne as many as ten children, but every single one of them had died in childbirth or infancy.