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Dhirubhai Ambani was arguably the most successful businessman in post-independence India. His overall warmth and humility won him many friends and well-wishers cutting across the entire spectrum of society. "Dhirubhai will go one day," he had said in an interview long back, "but Reliance's employees and shareholders will keep it afloat. Reliance is now a concept in which the Ambanis have become irrelevant." Now that Dhirubhai is no more, his sons, Mukesh and Anil, face the daunting task of steering the Rs. 65,000 cr behemoth into an increasingly competitive business environment.
Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani (Dhirubhai) was born in 1932 to Jamna and Hirachand Ambani. Dhirubhai was the third of their five children. Hirachand was the local school teacher in a village in Gujarat. From childhood, Dhirubhai was always thinking of ways to make money. Coming from a poor family, he couldn't afford to study much. As soon as Dhirubhai had matriculated, it was time to get to work. At the young age of 17, he went to Aden, a port city and then a British colony. Dhirubhai reached Aden wholly focused on earning a living. He lived and worked in Aden for almost eight years. In December 1958, Dhirubhai was back in India with a few thousand rupees to start a business of his own.
Dhirubhai took a loan and started the Reliance Commercial Corporation, a trading firm with a capital of Rs. 15, 000 operating out of a corner in a borrowed office in Bhatt Bazaar in Bombay. Initially, he was involved in general merchandizing. Dhirubhai quickly built an export house, which dealt in commodities like ginger, cardamom, pepper, turmeric and cashew nuts. Dhirubhai exploited his connections to export a wide range of commodities to Aden, which had tremendous demand for such items. He was also quick to seize any new opportunity which arose and started exporting items like sugar and ghee.
At first, there was little to choose between Ambani and the other yarn traders. But later, Dhirubhai became more ambitious and stood apart from the crowd. He would aggressively order huge quantities of yarn and sell them without a problem. In February 1966, Ambani made the transition from yarn trader to industrialist by building a new mill at Naroda. Dhirubhai registered Reliance Textile Industries with a paid up capital of Rs.150,000. To help him manage the growing business, Dhirubhai turned to his family and close friends.
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