The coupon he got with this purchase last year entitled him to a one-in-a-million shot at prizes like a Mercedes and Cielo in a shopping fiesta held in Mumbai's largest foreign goods market. But then came the twist. Nirav's wife threw away the coupon just days before the draw. But in the end, all ended well for him. On a balmy Saturday afternoon, this young director of JB Stocks and Shares company drove out with his family in the cool comfort of his swanky new Mercedes E-220, minutes after being handed the keys by members of the Heera Panna shopping centre.

Joining him was a marketing executive, Anuradha Pradhan, who bagged a Cielo and businesswoman Asha Gadre, who won half-a-kg gold. Fortune first begansnapping at Nirav's ankles on September 28 last year, when his wife Bhavisha took him to the shopping centre for a birthday gift. He selected a digital diary and was just walking out, when the shopkeeper called him back in and asked him to fill out a lottery card. He complied, and pocketed the counterfoil. Two months ago, Nirav was surprised by the same shopkeeper who arrived at his office. ``I was standing when he entered,'' says Nirav. ``I fell into a chair when he told me I had won the car.'' Then began the mad scramble for the elusive ticket and then the heartbreak which had him tear at his floppy hair. His wife Bhavisha had already torn up and thrown the ticket away. ``I thought the draw was over in January,'' she confessed innocently. They would indeed have come to pass, had the Fiesta committee not decided to extend the draw date by a month.

Committee members relied on the copy of the coupon left with the shopkeeper. And after going through Nirav's passport, driving licence and other documents, theydecided to award him his booty after a two-month wait along with others.

A firm believer in fate, Niraj points to the coincidences in his entry into the star club. ``I got the ticket on my birthday and the prize was announced on February 8, my wife's birthday,'' he says, driving away with the purr of his Mercedes. He didn't notice the looks of relief on the faces of the Fiesta committee, who had to periodically start up, maintain, and guard the Cielo and the Mercedes round the clock over the last six months. Faced with declining sales, owners of the 140 shops in the Heera Panna shopping arcade decided to hold a contest along the lines of the super-hyped Dubai Shopping Festival. ``We wanted to do something nobody had ever done in the country, like give out a Mercedes,'' informs Maharaj Padora, the shopping centre's secretary.