Person took birth on 28 December, 1932
in Night session of life at small village Chorwad, district Junagarh of Gujarat.
Chorwad was then, a small village about midway
between the historic fort of Diu to the south and the fishing port of Porbandar
to the north. Porbandar is the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi. Name Dhirajlal,
third of five children (2 girls, 3 boys). His father Hirachand was earning
little as the village schoolteacher. His father was, a man of simple habits and
lived a measured life. His mother, Jamanaben, was a thrifty woman and knew how
to stretch every paisa a long way. Long years of hardship had taught her to
handle with great care whatever little money Hirabhai gave her every month on
the pay day. But even her thrifty ways often failed to pull her growing
family through the month. On such occasions she had to borrow small amounts of
money from neighbours. She did not hide such stark realities like A Night from
her children, for she did not want to give them a false start in life. Dhirajlal
Hirachand Ambani known as Dhirubhai Ambani
Overall,
Hirachandbhai and Jamanaben lived a life of impoverished dignity with their two
daughters and three sons--Trilochanaben, Ramnikbhai, Jasuben, Dhirubhai and Natubhai.
Dhirubhai’s birth was like in A Dark Night of his life. His father’s income was
short and they were 7 lives to fill.
Though, Dhirubhai
was precocious and highly intelligent and also as highly impatient of the
oppressive grinding mill of the school classroom. Formal education was not his
forte, he realized very early in life. He was essentially an outdoors boy. When
asked to choose a task at home, at school or at the boys' hostel, he always
chose the most strenuous task that called for immense physical energy and
stamina. Not that he was poor in doing his school lessons but just that he did
not enjoy all the mugging up and learning by rote which school education
required those days. In these days of Dark Night, he was used to say his
mother Jamnaben that “paisa no to dhanglo karees." (Why do you keep
screaming for money? I'll make heaps of money one day.). Dream was bigger than
possibility in Darkness of Night of life.
He once
procured a tin of groundnut oil on credit from a local whole seller and sold
the oil in retail sitting on the roadside, earning a profit of a few rupees
that he gave to his mother. Next, he began selling bhajia or onion and potato
fries stalls at village fairs during weekends when his school was closed. (Few
steps to make Lights in Night).
When he was 16 years old,
just completion of his matriculation(10th) examination and before
results was out, his father called him home at Chorwad and told - "Dhiru,
do you know why I have called you here?" Hirachandbhai asked his son the
very Night he reached home. "Well, I'll tell you. You know I have been
unwell for past several months. I cannot work anymore. I know you want to study
further but I can't afford that any more (the Dark Night). I need you to earn
for the family. I need your money. The family needs it. You must work now.
Ramnikbhai has arranged a job for you in Aden. You go there."
Dhirubhai had really wanted
to study for a bachelor's degree, but his ambition melted when he looked into
the anxious eyes of his sick father. "I'll do as you say, Hirabhai,"
he said and the very next morning he left for Rajkot to get his passport. Those
days Indians did not need a visa for entering Aden but there were rumours
around that the no visa regime was about to change any day. So he needed to
hurry up before the visa rules changed. In a few days he was in Bombay to board
the ship to Aden. Dhirubhai had passed his matriculation examination in second division.
He moved to Aden, Yemen. He worked there as a gas-station attendant (filling
gas in vehicles) as well as a clerk in oil company for salary of just Rs. 300/-
with A.Besse & Co. Dhirubhai was first sent to the commodities trading
section of the firm. Later, he was transferred to the section that handled
petroleum products for the oil giant Shell. He was quick on the uptake. He
learnt the ways of commodity trading, high seas purchase and sales, marketing
and distribution, currency trading, and money management. During lunch break he
roamed the souks and bazaars of Aden where traders from numerous different
continents and countries bought and sold goods worth millions of pound
sterling, Dhirubhai felt tempted to speculate but had no money for that and was
still raw for such trading. To learn the tricks of the trade he offered to work
free for a Gujarati trading firm. There he learnt accounting, book keeping,
preparing shipping papers and documents, and dealing with banks and insurance companies.
Skills that would come handy when he launched himself into trading about a
decade afterwards in Bombay. At the Besse office during the day he polished his
skills in typing and Pitman shorthand, drafting commercial letters, and
composing legal documents. After 10 years of hardship he came back to in 1958.
This is the when he felt
SUN
RISE
IN
HIS LIFE
In India he first started
RELIANCE COMMERCIAL CORPORATION in partnership in 1962 and then separately in
1965. Today’s RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LTD.
Dhirubhai Ambani's his great achievement was that
he showed Indians what was possible. With no Oxford or Yale degree and no
family capital, he achieved what the Elite "brown sahibs" of New
Delhi could not: he built an ultramodern, profitable, global enterprise in
India itself. What's more, he enlisted four million Indians, a generation
weaned on nanny-state socialism, in an adventure in can-do capitalism,
convincing them to load up on Reliance stock.
Still, Ambani seems destined to be remembered as a
folk hero—an example of what a man from one of India's poor villages can
accomplish with non-shrink ambition. The Sun of Indian industries.
If
you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build
theirs.
Challenge
negative forces with hope, self-confidence and conviction. I believe that
ambition and initiative will ultimately triumph.
Dhirubhai Ambani
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