After so many years of struggle and consistent hard work, Shyam Gurjar has established himself as a respected hotelier of Udaipur.

Shyam Gurjar is a hotelier and owns the Rasik Priya Resort in Haldighati.

Shyam Gurjar hails from Udaipur. Most of his childhood was spent in his village Lachhipura. He recalls that he was a notorious kid growing up, who liked playing in the fields. He says that he was a below average student but was always focused on earning and had a dream of opening his own business. He says that his father wanted him to become a doctor and thus he had to take admission in Biology stream. Even there, he started selling frogs, that he had caught from a nearby stream, to his teachers and classmates to be used for dissection.

Shyam did his schooling from Navbharat school. Although he was not very good at studies, somehow he managed to pass tenth standard and took Agriculture Sciences in high school. Now this was something he had interest in, but the other subjects of his course like Maths and Chemistry again stopped him from obtaining good marks. Anyways, after passing out from there, Shyam did B.A. and M.A.(History) from Shramjeevi College in Udaipur itself.

After completing his studies, Shyam began working at a bank on a temporary basis. But after 15-20 days, his interest faded away as he had always planned on doing business and not a private job. Then he took another job which paid well, and with his savings, he bought his first scooter. Buying that scooter was emotional and also at the same time, a useful investment for him, as he was also doing a side job as a real estate broker and the scooter made it easy for him to meet clients. Now he had saved enough to buy a property so he bought a piece of land for one lakh rupees and invested one and a half lakh more in developing that land and thus became a developer himself.

But there arose a problem. There was a property of prominent developers adjacent to his land and they were planning to start a big project on that property. As they wanted to include Shyam’s property too in that project, they tried to buy it cheap. When Shyam refused to sell they resorted to unethical ways to usurp his property. But, Shyam resisted their moves. Overwhelmed by Shaym’s single-mindedness, the developers finally bought his land for 25 lakh rupees. This way he overcame a huge challenge in his life. And he believes that if you are really determined, you will definitely succeed and should not give up easily.

Now it was time for investing his hard earned profit, so Shyam bought various properties and then his profits only grew. Eventually he got into the hospitality industry and built the Rasik Priya Resort at Haldighati. The resort is a dream destination for tourists and he is planning to expand it even further, in terms of both area and facilities.

If Shyam could ever revisit his past and correct some mistakes he made, he would like to go back to the time of his childhood when he and his friends broke the tail of a buffalo while playing. He still feels regret over it and would like to rectify that mistake.

Shyam thinks that although education is important, practical knowledge is paramount. He says that the confluence of experience, education and practical knowledge will yield the best results.

The COVID period was terrible for everyone, especially for the people in the hospitality industry, Shyam was no different. He understood that it will take time to get normalised back again. So, he started cutting costs and he himself went to his resort to live with his family. He lived there till December and started farming in the fields of his resort with his family. He taught his children swimming and farming. And this way he spent the tough time easily. He also learned that living in nature is one the best experiences, he also taught his children the same thing.

In his free time, Shyam likes to play mouth organ and write shayaris.

Shyam says his philosophy of life is to focus only on the goal and if you do it you will definitely achieve it. He especially says to the youth that there is no shortcut to success.