Successful businessman Nat Puri seems at his most relaxed when watching India play England at Trent Bridge.
It is all the better when India triumphs in the fixture, as they did at Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club's home last year.
He admits he was not particularly good at the games, but he has a quick recall of scores and the finer details of the game.
His guests at, matches will frequently include cricket legends such as聽 Farokh Engineer who played for India and Lancashire.
Another friend is Ken Clarke, the outgoing Rushcliffe MP and distinguished ex-chancellor of the exchequer.
Sitting at home with the former India captain, Sunil Gavaskar, Puri, a former president of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, hatched the idea of offering 拢50,000 to the first Indian batsman to score 300 runs in a Test聽 innings.
At a glitterati dinner in 2004, he presented a cheque to Virender Sehwag for scoring 307 runs in an away test with Pakistan.
By some accounts, Puri, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, is one of Nottingham's richest men having built up a business empire in engineering, hotels, packaging, paper and plastics under the umbrella of Purico turning over $450 million a year.
Through his Puri Foundation, he has helped causes in England, India and Nepal. 鈥淢oney is not the thing for which people respect you,鈥 he says. 鈥淵ou make a place by helping others.鈥
His foundation distributes an average of 拢600,000 a year, two thirds of which finds its way to support education in Nepal and 2,300 schools.
Says Puri, an Indian citizen: 鈥淭he Nepalese Gurkhas helped the British Empire, even after fighting for you聽 in Afghanistan and the Falklands, they did not get anything from the 海角视频.聽 India succeeded because people locally created聽 educational facilities.聽 In Nepal, village after village there is no school.
鈥淚t is basic but a million聽 聽have come through those schools and received some education. Our aim is聽 that they can read, write and learn聽 arithmetic. Too much is thumb print, people don鈥檛 know what they are signing because they can鈥檛 read.
鈥淭he first time I went to a Nepalese school, a father and son were sitting in the same class. What can I say? The father wanted education but never had any but made time from work to try. I could have cried. With sadness and joy, sadness at why the situation existed and joy that I really helped one person who聽 wanted education and got it. They are simple things and I achieved heaven that day.鈥
Every year Anil, Puri鈥檚 nephew who today runs Purico, goes to Nepal with family for a week to help.
His contribution to the Indian community, charities and education was recognised with聽 an honorary CBE presented by Prince Charles.
Puri was born and brought up in Mullanpur. Chandigarh in the Punjab in 1939 into what he described as an upper middle class family. 鈥淢y father used to be a teacher but had a money lending business. We had land, buffaloes, cows and a horse.
鈥淚 did reasonably well at school, I would study but as temperatures got hotter, at lunchtime I would go to the small lake and not return to school and got caned.
鈥淚 was good at learning but didn鈥檛 study, I didn鈥檛 apply myself. I was very good at maths which is the thing in my family.
鈥淢y uncle used to say 鈥業f you can鈥檛 read and write, it is okay. But if you cannot add, subtract and multiply you are an idiot.鈥
At school he learnt Urdu, Hindi and English. At a college affiliated to the University of the Punjab, he studied pure and applied maths before adding psychology to his learning.
Psychology laid the groundwork for a successful business career, Puri says, banging the table lightly to stress the point. 鈥淚n negotiations, you know what you want聽 and you always want what you want. I look at what they want. If I understand what they want, and can satisfy them, then I can get a better deal.鈥
Aged seven at the time of聽 India鈥檚 partition in August 1947, Puri vividly remembers the turmoil as Muslims headed west to the newly formed Muslim Pakistan.
鈥淚 was on the Indian side but my mother鈥檚 brother, a court advocate, was in Pakistan. About a week before partition, we went to see him, fearing聽 a mess聽 and urged him to leave. He said聽 all was calm and sent聽 us聽 away. About August 12, passing through Lahore,聽 our eyes were opened and my uncle聽 came.鈥
In the evenings, the children would congregate, banging to sound warnings to their exhausted parents who had been working on the land. Puri recalls seeing the beheaded body of a man who had come to the village at night time聽 to warn everyone to leave ahead of his gang looting and pillaging it. The men had taken聽 the law into their own hands.
鈥淲hat else would you do? We didn鈥檛 have a jail,鈥 adds Puri.
The tensions聽 prepared him and his brother to fight and defend themselves, even as children.聽 Together, they had a go at making a bomb. 鈥淲hether it would have worked, I don鈥檛 know,鈥 he says.
Puri, a longstanding聽 Labour supporter until the advent of Corbyn was nevertheless聽 a strong advocate of Ken Clarke, who he backed financially for the Tory party leadership. Clarke should have led a cross party government as prime minister to stabilise the country faced with Brexit, says Puri.
鈥淚f I were Corbyn, I would have gone to Ken.聽 鈥楥ome and solve this problem, help stabilise the country鈥. Corbyn could have been his deputy.鈥
That Puri has had聽 conversations with politicians from the main parties shows the breadth of his network. Sir Vince Cable was briefly a non-executive director of Purico before becoming leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Puri arrived in England a few weeks short of his 27th birthday to study building services, essentially air conditioning and refrigeration, at Southbank Polytechnic, now London Southbank University.聽 He had scrimped and saved and borrowed money.
In search of his first job, Puri came to Nottingham for an interview, applying for a vacancy in the firm鈥檚 London operation. But they only offered him work in Nottingham. 鈥淪o I took my expenses and went back to London.鈥澛 It was 1967.
But then a job offer came from heating engineers FG Skerritt鈥檚 in Sherwood Rise in Nottingham on 拢850 year, less than an apprentice on 拢900.鈥
When he proposed leaving 17 months later, they offered him 拢1,550 subsequently offering 拢1,800 plus a car to keep him.聽 鈥淚 was the air conditioning man,鈥 he says.聽 鈥淣o one studied air conditioning in the 海角视频 then.鈥
Over time, Puri worked at 35 RAF bases, his prices were keen, 40 per cent lower than the next while making 30 odd per cent profit, he says. 鈥淐oming from India, I knew how to do things using my brain.鈥
A speciality was switching boilers from coal to oil fired, carrying it out without the expense to聽 the RAF of relocating families. He acquired a reputation for effectively executing supposedly impossible tasks.
Working all hours, for Skerritt鈥檚 and on properties he had acquired or for friends, he recalls聽 a聽 point聽 where money was聽 becoming his God. 鈥淚 did not want to become money-minded. My father helped people and I understood him more after he died.鈥
As he approaches his 80th birthday, Puri says he was not ambitious as such. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 think of becoming anything. I just wanted to be good at whatever I was doing, to be respected for what I did.鈥
Nevertheless, when the opportunity came to go it alone聽 in 1975, Puri took it, establishing Environment Design Consultants. He聽 won contracts to install air conditioning in hospital operating theatres, first in the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital聽 in Stanmore, again showing that he was slicker than competitors聽 by minimising downtime.聽
By January 1983, he was in a financial position to buy his old employer, Skerritts, and quickly added more building services to his ownership.
Puri had聽 won a legal action against the government earlier in the year聽 settling on the second day of the trial聽 for damages of聽 拢670,000 plus 拢78,000 in costs. It gave him the financial strength聽 to be acquisitive at a time when many businesses were struggling聽 in the early Thatcher era.
He bought what is now Bolton Plastic Components, today manufacturing聽 blow moulded products such as聽 engine air intake ducts for vehicles. In-house designers help customers with their聽 design concepts and聽聽 find solutions. It turns over 拢16.7m. A sibling business, Bettix, with sales of聽 拢5.6m, manufactures, among other things,聽 sophisticated twin neck聽 plastic bottles聽 used for dispensing liquids such as garden bug killer.
The Purico jewel in the crown is arguably Bolta Werke in Bavaria, the largest operation of its kind in Europe supplying high quality plated and painted plastic parts to car makers聽 around the world. The聽 company is famous for making specially moulded plastic with a painted, chrome or other metal finish.
Purico has invested more than 80 million euros in Bolta Werke and its 1,300 strong workforce聽 in recent years and now generates an annual turnover approaching 200 million euros. Factories聽 in Alabama and Mexico were formally opened聽 two years ago.
Chrome-plated badges, decorative trims, radiator grills and exhaust ends provide elegant accents, from bonnet to boot, on aspirational car brands such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen. The factory also produces parts for Ford, Lamborghini and Porsche. More than one million components are moulded every week.
By 1988, Puri was sufficiently successful and confident as a businessman to bid, albeit unsuccessfully, for Rover cars when it was privatised.
The聽 Purico empire embraces businesses in a wide range of聽 sectors from artificial salami skins聽 and tea bags聽 to a tea plantation producing fine Oolong tea, widely considered to be the best in the world. It is grown in Anxi County, the tea capital of China, and costs around $150 per 20g of tea.
All these businesses are聽 ultimately run from modest offices in Huntingdon Street in Nottingham. The walls of the boardroom display pictures of Puri聽 with distinguished political leaders. Four years ago, the President of India聽 awarded Puri the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award聽 made to non resident Indians for their achievements聽 outside their home country.
Expect the unexpected聽 with Puri. He is a generous host and every year pays for an extravagant firework display in the city centre for the people of Nottingham to enjoy. During this interview,聽 I found myself聽 in his car as he drove to his doctor鈥檚 surgery for his聽 flu jab. If only I had known, I had been there two hours earlier.
