The-Polyester-Prince

Dhirubhai Ambani had made it through the political travails of 1989~90 and was
unabashed-and certainly not strapped for cash or friends.
It was fattening to be there and to have a Reliance public relations manager take me
up to meet the Ambanis- flattening, within a month of arriving in India, to meet the
country’s fastest moving, most controversial tycoon. An interview was promised
shortly, once the festivities were over. An early cover story was clearly a possibility,
an antidote to the gloomy political news out of Delhi. It would help my standing at
the Far Eastern Economic Review if India was an upbeat business story and I was
right on to it.
That of course was the desired effect. Reliance was desperate to raise funds for
expansion and was looking to foreign sources, so some image-building in a
prestigious magazine was highly useful. A newcomer to India would be more inclined
to play down the controversies and look at the company’s prospects.
The interview, when it took place a month or so later, was stimulating. Dhirubhai
Ambani came limping around a huge desk when I was ushered to a sofa and greeted
me warmly. Despite the obvious effects of a stroke in a twisted right hand, his
mahogany skin was smooth and healthy, his hair plentiful and slicked back decisively
in a duck’s tail. His attention was unwavering. Disarmingly, Dhirubhai admitted to
many of the youthful episodes that were the subject of rumour, and responded
evenly when I raised some of the criticisms commonly leveled against him. He didn’t
mind people calling him an ‘upstart’s or even worse names. It just meant they were
trapped in their complacency while he was racing ahead. But the disputes were now
‘history’s and the former critics were now all his ‘good friend’s buying their polyester
and raw materials from him.
‘The orbit goes on changing,’s he declared airily. ‘Nobody is a permanent friend,
nobody is a permanent enemy. Everybody has his own self-interest. Once you
recognise that, everybody would be better off.’ However, Ambani did point to an
unfortunate trait in his countrymen. ‘You must know that, in this country, people are
very jealous.’ It was not like in Hong Kong or other East Asian countries, where
people applauded each other’s success, he claimed. In India success was seen as the
prerogative of certain families. But he didn’t really mind. ‘Jealousy is a mark of
respect, he said.
The interview resulted in a cover story for the Far Eastern Economic Review which
portrayed Ambani as the business underdog trying to break through the
government’s red tape and the prejudices of a tired Bombay business establishment.
Naturally enough, Ambani and his PR men were pleased. His one quibble, I was told,
had been my pointing out some glossed-over problem areas in the Reliance annual
reports, which had been put in the notes to the accounts, fine-print areas that only
the professional analysts re-ally read. The comments were true enough, but they
made it look as though Reliance was unusual among Indian companies in these
practices.
The Reliance public relations office continued to be attentive, supplying advance
notice of newsworthy events. At one point later in 1991, there was another glimpse
of Dhirubhai Ambani’s energetic mind. His Delhi office passed on a request for
information about Indonesia’s engagement in the late 1980s of the Swiss cargo
clearance from Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) to administer its imports and
exports, thereby sidelining the country’s notoriously corrupt customs service for