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Publishing circles are abuzz with talk of an authorised biography of Ratan Tata in the works. Nobody seems to know who is doing it. But Tata is a subject that has interested many Indian publishers: how he transformed the group, removed powerful satraps like Russi Mody and Darbari Seth, did high-profile overseas acquisitions (Tetley, the trucks business of Daewoo, Corus, Jaguar-Land Rover), negotiated roadblocks in telecom, failed to get his aviation business off the ground et cetera. If it gets done, this one promises to be a cracker of a book.
That brings us to a point seldom talked about: the most interesting business books that never got written, breathtaking stories that never got told. Take the example of India's great pharmaceutical pioneers, Parvinder Singh of Ranbaxy Laboratories and Dr Anji Reddy of Dr Reddy's Laboratories. Both are dead after living extraordinary lives. They were both scientists (how many of the current crop of drug makers can boast of that?) with brilliant academic records and were responsible for putting the Indian pharmaceutical industry on the global map. They never told their stories in their lifetimes.
Parvinder Singh's case was all the more interesting because he fought a bitter boardroom battle with his father, Bhai Mohan Singh, so that professionals, not the family, could run the company. It was a no-holds-barred fight. Amarinder Singh, the former chief minister of Punjab, was on the Ranbaxy board at that time and was on Parvinder Singh's side; during one board meeting, he snapped a pencil into two right in front of Bhai Mohan Singh to drive home his point in a not-so-subtle way.
One hopes that Yusuf Hamied of Cipla (he, too, is a scientist) sits down to write the story of his life now that he has decided to step down as the managing director of his company (he will continue to serve on the board as the non-executive chairman). Heads had turned in the West when he started to supply inexpensive anti-AIDS medicine to poor countries on the face of stiff opposition by Big Pharma. Such was the opposition that lesser mortals would have given up in no time. But Hamied was in mission mode, unstoppable; and he had the last laugh.
Another man whose life-story I would love to read is Vijay Mallya. He may have become an object of ridicule now, but there is nothing to deny that he has had an eventful career in business: the battles he fought with Manu Chhabria, the rise and fall of his airline business, his life of glamour. Mallya is active on Twitter. And if you analyse his tweets, you will realise that he follows the news carefully, especially whatever is said about him, is still combative and has a wicked sense of humour - just the stuff for a great book. Will he get down to putting it all down in black and white? I hope he does.
I remember asking a well-known businessman of yesteryear why he never got down to writing his autobiography. "Let sleeping dogs lie," he had said. In other words, much of what he had done wasn't worth writing about. His life was spent cosying up to the powers-that-be and putting up roadblocks for rivals who sought licences. A lot of that has changed. Businessmen today are more open and there's some semblance of business what they do, though crony capitalism is alive and kicking in the country. And several biographies, mostly authorised, are indeed in the works.
The big question: will the Ambani brothers bare their hearts to readers?
bhupesh.bhandari@bsmail.in
