After finishing the book, I can understand why the Ambanis wanted it banned – but don’t think the government was right in banning it. The book is a regular biography – it has some very interesting nuggets about Dhirubhai Ambani and Reliance - but the readability of the book deteriorates markedly towards the end. It has quite a few allegations – direct as well as implicated – but as everyone knows, nobody could get any of the charges to stick against Reliance.
Ofcourse, having seen the movie Guru before reading the book, I was quite curious to see how much of the movie was real (i.e. matched with the book) and well, quite a lot did. Ofcourse the moviemakers took cinematic liberties and created the Vidya Balan character as well as made Kokilaben’s character (Aishwarya Rai) more glamorous and outspoken - well there are a lot of other deviations as well. But I will highlight a few similarities
- The scene where Mithun confronts Gurubhai and Gurubhai claims he has a golden chappal and a silver chappal for everyone – according to the book, the scene actually happened between Dhirubhai and Ramnath Goenka, publisher of The Indian Express where these words were spoken verbatim (there was no ‘khadi’ chappal though :) ) That conversation reportedly sparked off the Indian Express' battle with Reliance and Dhirubhai
- Madhavan’s character was based on the Indian Express reporter S. Gurumurthy – a tamil accountant with no reporting experience - who Ramnath Goenka hired to investigate Reliance accounts and foreign dealings. There was no expose of sand filled cartons (like the movie) but Gurumurthy did uncover the extra spinning lines in Reliance’s Patalganga plant – which caused a huge furore over excise evasion in importing of the equipment. What the movie also missed out was that Ambani managed to get Gurumurthy arrested and charged with Official Secrets Act, when he investigated Reliance’s overseas benaami investors
- The scene where Gurubhai talks to a young minister and tells him that his father had parked some funds with him and coerces the young minister into okaying the licence for the new plant. Well according to the book – Dhirubhai ACTUALLY pulled the trick on Rajiv Gandhi himself !!! And it worked !!
There are many more – and it makes reading the book after the movie more enjoyable.
But as the book progresses, even though it tries to be neutral in cataloging exactly what trick Dhirubhai pulled to make the government maneuver according to his requirements, you cant help but marvel at the audacity of this man. Agreed the laws of the land were less than perfect – and he showed enterprise in his creative interpretation. But more often than not, he was just a routine law breaker who should have spent time behind bars for what he did. I mean if some more people started playing with government like he did, we would be a complete banana republic.
People also say that he did what he did with a greater vision in mind – maybe he did have a bigger picture view – but some of the things he did had nothing to do with any lofty aims, and were just pure cheating. He trampled over business competitors because he got the government to skew the playing field in his behalf. And Reliance continues to uphold that tradition till date. You only have to look at the creation of the telecom USL (Unified Service License) to see how they still cheat and then get the law to be changed, so that their way of playing the game becomes legal.
And as for Dhirubhai's professed love for small investors – well he had love only for his company – and the shareholders just got lucky that they were holding some part of it.
The book is a must read for everyone I think – just to get some perspective on Dhirubhai Ambani – who is now projected as the visionary businessman. And Reliance – as the greatest Indian company.
As for ratings, well I think books like these are impossible to rate, compared to movies. What do you compare it against ?
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