Gita Piramal's - Business Maharaje

Genre : Non-Fictional
Rating : 4/5

No, I did not misspell the name of the book on the title. I read Marathi version 'Business Maharaje' but could not find the image for the Marathi version and hence the mismatch!

Lives of Dhirubhai Ambani, Rahul Bajaj, Aditya Birla, Rama Prasad Goenka, Brij Mohan Khaitan, Bharat and Vijay Shah and Ratan Tata adorn this book.

In spite of coming from the same coutry where they reign, it was surprising how less I knew about them. Growing up I had seen so many avertisement about their products but less did I know those were their brands! I wont put it as lack of knowledge. I would rather say that at that age (of 8-9) advertisements were more eye-catching than their manufacturers!

Book has detailed minute incidents of the businesses of these men. Their rise and fall, their rivalry, their struggle. As these men have/had lions share in bringing up the Indian Economy they were always in news. While reading this book I could associate few of the incidents which made news and was glad to know more about those events. Except Ratan Tata, everybody had a Marwadi background. So no wonder they chose to enter into business but the way they have walked their way all upto the top is fascinating! I have seen enough families in business to strengthen my belief that their kids are more keen in expanding their family business rather than getting an higher education. Though these days they have started earning foriegn degrees in Business Administration I was totally impressed to know that few of these businessmen are Harvard and MIT alumini!

Even before reading the preface of the book, I, somehow, had an impression that this book would bring into limelight the personality of these people rather than going deep into their business. I know that was wrong in my part, I should have not expected solely that. As long as the author spoke about their struggle, or their disputes, or their business startegy, the book kept me glued but the elaborative talks about the shares and the amount of loss and gain made the book a little drab. May be, because I do not have a wee bit of business sense, when the author started talking about their outgo and income in lakhs and crores I was not able to fathom whether it was really that bad or was it really that laudable. At times I felt I am not the targeted reader of this book yet I enjoyed reading about them!