Secret Millionaire: Living On $14 A Day Is Hard
Episode 4 Recap by Jenny Lane
December 14, 2008
Tonight, Secret Millionaire takes us to the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. As a resident of the San Francisco Bay area, I’m looking forward to this episode. Our millionaire tonight is by far the youngest we’ve seen. Gurbaksh Chahal is just 26. He was born in India, and he and his family immigrated to San Jose, California when he was four years old.
When Gurbaksh was 16, he started ClickAgents, an advertising network. In 2004, he formed BlueLithium, another advertising network. In 2007, Yahoo! Bought BlueLithium for $300 million cash. He snow working on gWallet, an internet site focusing on finding shopping deals.
Gurbaksh lives in San Francisco in a $7 million penthouse that he bought after selling BlueLithium. In November of this year, he released a book called “The Dream,” which is his autobiography. On the day that the book was released, he was also a guest on Oprah.
Tonight’s episode begins with a look at San Francisco. Then standing in the middle of the city is Gurbaksh, who tells us that his friends call him “G” (good, I’m already tired of trying to remember how Gurbaksh is spelled). In his loft, he tells us that he’s the “$300 million man.” He gives us a tour of his penthouse loft, which is decorated with a lot of gold and marble. The letter G is all over everything, and he says “bam” and “boom” as he walks around showing us things. G says that Vegas is his second home, he loves dancing, music, and is “living the American dream.”
G tells us how his parents brought their family here with about $25 to their name. They lived in a one bedroom apartment, and there are seven people in his family. His parents’ struggles made him realize that he wanted to do something big.
As G gets ready for his experience, he says he’s a little nervous, and hopes he can find deserving people to help. He gets $98, so apparently he’s doing this one on his own. G walks down the street to the Tenderloin district, where a few blocks can make all the difference in the degree of safety. We’re told that 25% of all of San Francisco’s homeless live in the Tenderloin. (And, by the way, so does my nephew, even though he’s not homeless!)
G opens the gate to the apartment building where he will be staying. His apartment is sparse, but it doesn’t look all that bad. There are a few bugs crawling around, but it’s sure better than the streets.
Hitting the streets, G strikes up a conversation with a guy “selling” maps on a corner. G says he just moved here, and the guy advises G to “watch your back, 360 degrees, every second.” The advice seems to make G a little nervous, which seems surprising to me since he grew up around here.
The next morning, G tells us that he was up all night because his electricity went out. At three in the morning, someone knocked on his door, and his toilet ran all night. Apparently all of that was unsettling enough to keep poor G from sleeping.
G heads out with his $98 to get some groceries. He walks down to a little store, picks up a basket, and then spends the next several seconds trying to figure out how to tear a plastic produce bag off the roll. G spends a little over $35, and says he thinks living on $14 per day is going to be harder than he thought.
Back at the apartment, G says his goal is to find people in need, and it’s worth the sacrifices he’s making. He eats some peanut butter on some bread, and then hits the streets again. G runs across a line for people waiting for food at St. Anthony’s. He goes inside to volunteer, and is struck by the large number of people waiting in line to eat.
G is taken back into the kitchen, and introduces himself to the other volunteers. He introduces himself as G, which I find quite odd. I’m constantly surprised that the producers don’t insist that these people use a fake name, to help avoid getting recognized. G tells everyone that he just moved into the area, and that he’s staying in temporary housing. He kind of stammers as he talks, and I wonder if people can tell that he’s making his story up.
One of the guys working with him says that he’s a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Another guys says he was into heavy drugs for several years. G tells us that he has never done drugs, and it was shocking to hear the stories. G asks one of the guys what he thinks he’ll be doing in a few years, and the guy tells him that he can’t do that, because addicts need to live day to day. G finishes slicing oranges, says goodbye to the volunteers, and heads out.
The next morning, G heads out.....
Jenny lives in the Silicon Valley with her husband, daughter and five furry kids. In addition to all things reality tv, she loves Nip/Tuck, Big Love and the Food Network. She’s addicted to her laptop, so if you’d like to feed her addiction, you can e-mail her at Jenny@RealityTVCalendar.com.
Send Press Releases, Tips, News, Gossip:Click Here
All articles are the intellectual property of and copyrighted by the individual authors.
By submitting an article to Reality TV Calendar you are granting Reality TV Calendar
permission to display the article in perpetuity.
