A day journey by train, legs stretched out on side berth, pleasant windy weather cooled by late monsoon showers and a book that grips you from page one. Sometimes things do work out! The book is ‘Polyester prince’ on life and times of Dhirubhai Ambani. Somehow got my hands on this book. It is systematically ‘banned’ in India for reason unknown. Written by an Australian author in dispassionate way, crude at times to an extent that one feels how ‘indian’ness is looked upon by an external eye.
My image, so far, of the protagonist or RIL for that matter is through recent biopic by Maniratnam. When started dealing in stocks in around 05, I have been told by those with established portfolios how good a pick Reliance is. Indeed, Reliance do give a huge gain, ‘on-paper’ as nobody want to offload it but gain nevertheless. In recent times, feud between the brothers and mammoth wealth accumulated through different subscriptions were also fresh in mind.
It might be mistaken to be more of the financial accounting history than a biography. It runs you through a narrative of the events that occurred and the actors of the plot, a plot as dense as it called out to be Textile Mahabharata of that time which influenced the course of politics. So intermingled was the government machinery of licence raj and the industry at large that it looked like one single complex.
Dhirubhai’s financial wizardry was illustrated in many places. How he used different accounting years whenever company hit some trouble or profits were plummeting, How the clause of the non-convertible debentures into equity stunt used to finance the debts of reliance ever expanding ambitions, how he managed to ‘smuggle a whole plant’ in spare parts when aam junta was wary of going through green channel with a watch or an imported sari for wife. How fictitious companies under names ‘Isle of man’ were floated in Tax heavens and loans were taken to finance the buying of the reliance shares, how these funds were used to defend against the bear attack on the reliance shares by cliques of brokers.
The deeds and gimmickry goes to an extent of Ekta Kapoor soap rich with scheming saas-bahus and revenge seeking characters. The rivalry of Dhirubhai with Indian express’s R Goenka and Bombay Dying’s Nusli wadia was told in rich in the details. How Swaminathan Gurumurthy, Goenka’s protégé and journalist with deep understanding of accounting, managed to launch series of attacks on the company in a land mark piece of investigative journalism in the history of India, how CBI harassed him instead for his sources (since RTI rule was not then), How the murder plot of Wadia had involvement of PR manager of Ambani’s and how the whole case was archived out of the public memories, how he used of CBI head Katre as one of the ‘reliance’s people’, How then finance minister Pranab Mukherji at time to time secured the interests of a business house is narrated with finer details or. No wonder it is banned in India! So true, Indians are hypocrites as Amartrya Sen says.
In his account of events in 80s through early nineties, author seems to be honest enough to separate rumours from factual data and nowhere had he tried to sensationalize or malign an image.
It is a must read for those who want to go beyond the surface level understanding of corporate world and its manipulation of stock prices. The tightly interwoven plots and subplots reveal how each actor is out there to seek his own political gain or business gain. It’s like living experiment in game theory. There are some great gossips on Bollywood like Tina and Anil affair and then marriage, or how the defence deal or ‘Matinee idol’ accounts saga of bachchans which VP Singh used to secure his interests in UP politics, how the takeover bids of L&T failed but later Reliance could get his hands on the tech-giant.
Going back in time and empathising with this ambitious Kathiwari entrepreneur who had little background except support of his community, one gets amazed of his zeal and resourcefulness. A truly inspiring story. It’s a journey of a person who made up his mind to reach the top of the textile business and did that in 10 years and beat the established parsi business houses like Birlas, Tatas, Mahindras or Wadias in their own game. At times he went overboard and influenced, manipulated the governments as they came and gone. In US corporate lobbying is part of open politics, but with judiciary and governments still maintains a good set of controls. But India is different story.
After having read this book and history between the line, and when I recall the cinematised portrait of Dhirubhai in ‘Guru’, the image left in my mind is now wrinkled and with dark streaks, like the picture of Dorian Gray.
My image, so far, of the protagonist or RIL for that matter is through recent biopic by Maniratnam. When started dealing in stocks in around 05, I have been told by those with established portfolios how good a pick Reliance is. Indeed, Reliance do give a huge gain, ‘on-paper’ as nobody want to offload it but gain nevertheless. In recent times, feud between the brothers and mammoth wealth accumulated through different subscriptions were also fresh in mind.
It might be mistaken to be more of the financial accounting history than a biography. It runs you through a narrative of the events that occurred and the actors of the plot, a plot as dense as it called out to be Textile Mahabharata of that time which influenced the course of politics. So intermingled was the government machinery of licence raj and the industry at large that it looked like one single complex.
Dhirubhai’s financial wizardry was illustrated in many places. How he used different accounting years whenever company hit some trouble or profits were plummeting, How the clause of the non-convertible debentures into equity stunt used to finance the debts of reliance ever expanding ambitions, how he managed to ‘smuggle a whole plant’ in spare parts when aam junta was wary of going through green channel with a watch or an imported sari for wife. How fictitious companies under names ‘Isle of man’ were floated in Tax heavens and loans were taken to finance the buying of the reliance shares, how these funds were used to defend against the bear attack on the reliance shares by cliques of brokers.
The deeds and gimmickry goes to an extent of Ekta Kapoor soap rich with scheming saas-bahus and revenge seeking characters. The rivalry of Dhirubhai with Indian express’s R Goenka and Bombay Dying’s Nusli wadia was told in rich in the details. How Swaminathan Gurumurthy, Goenka’s protégé and journalist with deep understanding of accounting, managed to launch series of attacks on the company in a land mark piece of investigative journalism in the history of India, how CBI harassed him instead for his sources (since RTI rule was not then), How the murder plot of Wadia had involvement of PR manager of Ambani’s and how the whole case was archived out of the public memories, how he used of CBI head Katre as one of the ‘reliance’s people’, How then finance minister Pranab Mukherji at time to time secured the interests of a business house is narrated with finer details or. No wonder it is banned in India! So true, Indians are hypocrites as Amartrya Sen says.
In his account of events in 80s through early nineties, author seems to be honest enough to separate rumours from factual data and nowhere had he tried to sensationalize or malign an image.
It is a must read for those who want to go beyond the surface level understanding of corporate world and its manipulation of stock prices. The tightly interwoven plots and subplots reveal how each actor is out there to seek his own political gain or business gain. It’s like living experiment in game theory. There are some great gossips on Bollywood like Tina and Anil affair and then marriage, or how the defence deal or ‘Matinee idol’ accounts saga of bachchans which VP Singh used to secure his interests in UP politics, how the takeover bids of L&T failed but later Reliance could get his hands on the tech-giant.
Going back in time and empathising with this ambitious Kathiwari entrepreneur who had little background except support of his community, one gets amazed of his zeal and resourcefulness. A truly inspiring story. It’s a journey of a person who made up his mind to reach the top of the textile business and did that in 10 years and beat the established parsi business houses like Birlas, Tatas, Mahindras or Wadias in their own game. At times he went overboard and influenced, manipulated the governments as they came and gone. In US corporate lobbying is part of open politics, but with judiciary and governments still maintains a good set of controls. But India is different story.
After having read this book and history between the line, and when I recall the cinematised portrait of Dhirubhai in ‘Guru’, the image left in my mind is now wrinkled and with dark streaks, like the picture of Dorian Gray.
