Mumbai: Dhirubhai Ambani has always been a figure of endless fascination to even those who knew him, but nearly five years after his demise a pictorial biography by his widow Kokilaben attempts to demystify the man who built the Reliance business empire.
Kokilaben has relied on photographs to narrate the life of the late Ambani family patriarch from his birth into a family of limited means at Chorwad in Gujarat in 1932, his early years in Yemen and till his death in 2002.
While his friends knew him as a strict disciplinarian when it came to his sons, the 338-page coffee table book offers rare glimpses of the man as a loving grandfather, who celebrated his nine grandchildren as 'Navratnas' (nine gems).
The book Dhirubhai Ambani-The Man I Knew was released in English and Gujarati on the occasion of Kokilaben's 75th birthday on Saturday, sources said.
The pictorial biography, which comes Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Governor S M Krishna, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, Bihar Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson N K Singh, ICICI Bank Chief K V Kamath, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and veteran Congress leader R K Dhawan were part of the gathering, the sources said.
Dhirubhai, who passed away on July 6, 2002 at the age of 70, left behind a business empire--the Reliance Group--with a turnover of Rs 75,000 crore, though he is said to have started the enterprise with just Rs 15,000.
Though his two sons split the business empire between them in 2005, they have only helped it grow much bigger with the flagship Reliance Industries controlled by Mukesh now becoming the largest Indian company in terms of market capitalisation at close to Rs 2,00,000 crore.
On the other hand, Anil Ambani, who heads the ADA group companies, including telecom major Reliance Communications, is the country's third richest person.
While the book was a pictorial biography, there was no still photography during the event but it was, however, captured on video. years after Hamish McDonald essayed 'The Polyester Prince'-the official biography-also contains rare and unpublished family portraits from the archives of Kokilaben.
The Ambani scions Mukesh and Anil, their sisters Deepti and Nina along with their husbands, and all the nine grandchildren were present on the occasion of the book release.
The grandchildren paid tributes to their grandfather at a small private function, attended by late Dhirubhai's close associates and friends from the group companies, business circle and in public life.
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