In 1978, in the quiet city of Saharanpur, a young man with a clear conscience opened his doors for the first time. What he built wasn't just a business — it was a relationship with people, kept fair and honest for nearly half a century.

He never separated the man from the merchant. The way he did business was simply the way he was — generous with his time, careful with his word, and always more interested in the person across the table than the deal on it.

Shikhar's early years were shaped less by the business itself and more by what his father insisted mattered first — a proper education, and the values to go with it. Justice and honesty weren't lessons taught over a ledger; they were simply how the household ran.

For him, modernising Mittal Associates was never about leaving the old ways behind — it was about making sure the same fairness his father built the business on could reach more people, faster, without losing what made it trustworthy in the first place.