‘Guru’ shishya
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Where the Ambanis started: their original chawl |
Anand Giridharadas of the NYT just penned a lengthy profile of Mukesh Ambani, who may soon become richest in the world on the strength of Reliance shares (thanks, Dad). He’s more a chowhound than a gourmand:
Ratan Tata cruises down Marine Drive on Sundays in fast cars and favors Hermès ties with matching handkerchiefs. Vijay Mallya is said to be trailed in his home by a butler holding a silver tray with a cigar and a Scotch. Adi and Parmeshwar Godrej are famous for soirées that attract Hollywood stars… [But Mukesh Ambani’s] idea of entertainment is not ballet but Bollywood; he watches as many as three films a week at home in a private theater… He has been known to walk out of fancy restaurants in search of dosas… “What the hell, man! We can do what we feel like…” [Link]
He’s not feeling the Nobu hype:
… they dined at Nobu, the popular Japanese restaurant. Mr. Ambani, a vegetarian, picked at the fare, finding it bland. At the end of the meal, Mr. Gupta recalls him saying: “That was nice. Now should we go have dinner?” … “It’s part of a broader shift in self-confidence that is happening, where people are no longer looking at Westernized symbols of having arrived.” [Link]
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Dhirubhai the patriarch, at Jamnagar |
After some sour early experiences, Reliance became very good at managing the government:
Sometimes it involves outright bribery of government officials; sometimes it might involve paying the American college tuition of a bureaucrat’s child…. his “intelligence agency,” a network of lobbyists and spies in New Delhi… collect data about the vulnerabilities of the powerful, about the minutiae of bureaucrats’ schedules, about the activities of their competitors… “If a meeting were to be held and the subject was affecting their business, they would know about it.” [Link]
Anand writes:
Reliance maintains good relationships with newspaper owners; editors, in turn, fear investigating it too closely… Ambani and Reliance are rarely the subjects of hard-hitting Indian reporting… [Link]
Nor, apparently, of American reporting 
on Saturday, June 14th, 2008, 9:20 pm in Business, Food, Profiles › 
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Was just reading this and rolling my eyes at the comparison between Mukesh and MK Gandhi. Does the NYT have some sort of Exoticism Editor who insists certain things and certain contrasts are always part of any article about the East? And our reporter seems to forget the symbiotic relationship between high-minded khadi-wearers and their less high-minded business backers - Gandhi was no enemy of the business elites.
Cow dung mention, check… though Somini Sengupta’s stuff ends up far more that way.
…. Nilekani says about Ambani, with no trace of irony, in an article whose lead photo and opening anecdote depicts Ambani sitting in his private box while attending an Indian Premier League match. I guess the cheerleaders didn’t show up that afternoon?
I wonder whether $70M skyscraper homes are indigenous to Gujarat :)
I, too, have been known to walk out of fancy restaurants in search of dosas. We must be related.
Here’s his house.
Its a bit more sinister than that. A biography of Dhirubhai Ambani the ‘Polyester Prince’ was actually banned in India. Mysteriously out of print, it is nearly impossible to find anywhere. One copy came up for sale on ebay for $800 a while back.
The Ambanis have a long list of dirty laundry. There’s no mention here of Dhirubhai’s wheeling and dealing to get benefits out of the license raj, or the various tax avoidance allegations, or Reliance’s famous deal with Pramod Mahajan to allow them to capture the cheap mobile phone market. And wasn’t there some sort of accusation of an assassination plot against Nusli Wadia?
Ambanis are into all kinds of business in India..
polyster sarees to phones to oil digging to funding mega movies..( I used Reliance US calling call to call India, it is super cheap and online u can keep adding money)
yap they avoided taxes too, but they managed to survive..Credit goes to the father Dhirubhai Ambani..with US economy so bad , they are getting into international business too last two years buying shares here and there..
At one time no one heard much of Ambani, it was Tatas and Birlas..
Reason Tatas and Birlas failed while Ambanis succeeded is, their second generation children are also business savvy and ambitious..I think Tatas are going to end with Ratan tata as he has no children..and birla kids never made it that big..
And other big shots that are surviving are the IT gaints like wipro, which will grow as long as India’s IT is in demand..
But long run Ambanis are going to be very successful because of diversified investments which is a very wise decision, getting into every indian need and industry..
I think anil ambani started big movie producing company recently..they know movies make money..
one of my cousin brother in law works in Hyderabad for one of the Anil Ambani companies..
It is fashionable in the “intellectual” and left-leaning circles to point out problems with Ambanis. What they fail to see is that Dhirubhai Ambani is the biggest creator of wealth for middle class Indians, who were his shareholders.
When the centralized economy was making people wait 6 months to buy a scooter and crushing any kind of employment creation (via licenece raj) , it was Ambani who was creating good paying jobs for average Indians that were based on organic growth of their company. In a centralized economy the state was supposed to create jobs for its citizens, but it failed miserably and only few industrial houses picked up the slack (some of it)
Anand keeps the balance reporting at IHT like Somini does at Nytimes but like you mentioned the reporting is primarily for Western readership who wouldn’t be intrigued unless India’s third world stature is upheld in such pieces in addition to $2 billion homes. Also Gandhi and Cow Dung go hand in hand :)
I read the article without noticing the byline. I would expect deeper analysis from Giridharadas, not this near-panegyric piece. Bringing him up in the same breath as Gandhi - the persona, not the person - just because they might be from the same bania sub-caste is really a bit over much. (Right on, SP!)
BTW, his un-named aide said $70 million, ultimately. I think what he means is ‘net net’ - after he’s rented out the lower floors and the sub-basement, and the parking plaza and the hotel - and discounted the cash flows to eternity, he’s $70 million out of pocket - or maybe he’s calculating the imputed rental value of the actual residential suite during the lifetime of the Shishya. (Umberdesi will explain which it is). But the building is going to cost him the $2B or thereabouts. Can’t imagine how AG swallowed this without the least bit of skepticism.
My opinion of Anand’s reportage came down a couple notches after I learnt he wrote this.
Also, while the story might have been written a few days ago for the Sunday paper - last two or three days have been full of stories about Mukesh blocking or interfering with a South African telecom that Anil is supposed to be doing - the family feud (sibling rivalry?) really deserved deeper analysis, even if this piece of latest news was left out.
Who knew that the mafia boss excuse of “I didn’t know anything about it, it was my henchment” still had uncritical buyers in this day and age? And that the distance between Indian modesty and western brashness was merely the difference between $70m and half-sleeve shirts, and $2B and tailored suits.
I love it! The Google PR flaks should hang their heads in shame. Even their coverage in the Times is not as fawning, despite the obvious effort they put into that exercise.
Don’t know why you folks are getting your langots in a bunch. If this article proves anything, it is that Mukesh Ambani is as good at spinning as MK Gandhi was.
Guru Sishyan is wery vunderphul thalaivar movie, vokay?
Chachaji #11,
I agree the building will cost of him $2b, the plot I read is about 4,500 square meters, It is waqf board land and it seems like he got it some ridiculously cheap price which is nowhere near the actual price in that neighborhood. An apartment in Usha Kiran building in the same area sold for INR 90,000 per square foot. So may be Mukesh’s people are calculating the ultimate cost at their acq and not marking it to market which the newspapers seem to be doing. Reliance have some very creative accountants so I think you may be right about the imputed rent method.
tamasha, that “home” is this week’s sign of the apocalypse.