Both are equal, says Dhirubhai confidante

These days, Mehta’s an office bearer of the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra (he’s had stints in the Congress and BJP too). He was a senior member of Jayaprakash Narayan’s Praja Socialist Party in the 1950s. When Dhirubhai Ambani came to Bombay in 1959, his friends in the party directed him to Mehta’s store in the heart of Pydhonie’s yarn bazaar.

He introduced Ambani to people in the business and the two became friends. Soon, they were meeting every Sunday at 10.30 am for coffee and conversation at Ambani’s Usha Kiran residence in Carmichael Road. The ritual lasted 30 years.

In 1980 the duo sat on either side of Indira Gandhi at a Delhi dinner hosted by Mehta when Gandhi became PM.

Later, the sessions got infrequent as Ambani became busier, but Mehta stayed close to the family. He says Kokilaben is like his sister — she was the person by his wife’s bedside when she passed away. And Dhirubhai’s wife asked him on more than one occasion to help sort out the dispute.

‘‘But why would the boys listen to me? My relations with Dhirubhai were different. I could fire him, but I don’t share that kind of rapport with the boys,’’ says the man who will never forget Anil’s entry into the business in 1983.

The younger Ambani was brimming with ideas and came up with the radical suggestion that Reliance hold its shareholder’s meeting in a football field. ‘‘Dhirubhai was furious, but Anil told his dad that if he didn’t get 15,000 people to the meeting, he would never go against his wishes again.’’ Anil had his way, the AGM was held at Cooperage and some 20,000 shareholders turned up despite the rain.

Mehta believes Mukesh has a manufacturing mind and sales and development is Anil’s forte. ‘‘Both are capable of managing the companies; it’s unfortunate that some interested parties created a rift,’’ says Mehta, who thinks it all began when Anil decided to join politics.