'Till the palaash tree has leaves, don't think of yourself as poor.'This was the motto of Ashok Khade's father. It was a tough one to remember when a single mistake Ashok made—a stumble that spilled a pack of flour—meant that his family would go hungry. The crippling famine of 1975 forced Ashok to give up his college education to keep his family afloat. From his dreams of becoming a doctor he was forced to face reality as a welding apprentice on a ship dockyard. But that did not stop him. Through hard work, strategic thinking and enormous courage, Ashok built his own company from scratch, DAS Offshore. He called himself K. Ashok so that his caste would not define his success, and fought to make his company one of the most respected and upstanding in its field—and in the process became a Dalit Millionaire. Read on to find out how he did it.