Open Letters: Dear Mukesh Ambani

Mainak Dhar is an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad whose career in the corporate sector has spanned almost a dozen years across Mumbai, Bangkok and now Singapore. Cubicle dweller by day and writer by night, he has written six books, including the bestselling novel, The Funda of Mix-ology. Learn more about it at www.getthefunda.com.

In this new series, Mainak writes open letters to people in the news, commenting on the state of affairs in the world today. Today's column is an open letter to Mukesh Ambani.

Dear Mukesh,

I could write to you about many things - for example, the fact that I do admire how you have managed to take on the huge task of filling your father’s shoes and taking the Reliance empire forward, or about how your company epitomises so many things people admire about the new India. However, what I did want to write about today is about your new home. First of all, congratulations -- every man, rich or poor, dreams of creating a home that perfectly reflects his dreams for himself and his family. And when that man has the kind of resources at his disposal that you do, those dreams, and the home that comes out of it, are indeed on a scale that boggles the mind.

Wakf Board chief shunted after filing SLP against Ambani | Mukesh Ambani's $2-billion home

I won’t comment on the lavishness of the home or the $2 billion spent on it -- it’s your hard earned money, and you have every right to do with it as you please. So before saying anything else, I would just ask those detractors to shut up who are criticising the lavish nature of the home you are planning to build. As they say, every man’s home is his castle, and you are perfectly in your right to create something that will be the perfect source of comfort and pride for you and your loved ones.

So my intent in writing to you about your home is certainly not to dwell on the money spent on it, or its Olympian proportions. It is to engage in a brief dialogue with you on whether this is the only monument to your success you could leave behind or whether your legacy could live on in other ways as well. Few, if any, of us, can hope to have the kind of wealth and resources you have, and with that kind of wealth, I suppose comes the desire to seek immortality and a legacy beyond just one’s immediate material possessions. I suppose this is what has led great and rich men, from time immemorial, to create monuments that they wished would outlast them -- from great temples and gardens to palaces. The problem is that creating a legacy comes from beyond creating structures and symbols of achievement. When I heard about your home, my mind went back to a poem we used to read in school -- called Ozymandias, by Shelley. Here’s how it goes:

“I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said -- "two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

It is a sad poem, about how a king’s desire for immortality through creating a grand statue came to naught, as bricks and buildings crumble and decay, and grand monuments, like the vanity behind them, will inevitably one day be lost in the merciless march of history.

Read all Mainak Dhar columns

However, buildings may crumble, but movements and institutions remain, and sometimes the best way of ensuring immortality is to create an institution or movement that will last long after one has gone, and one’s symbols of material success have decayed. To see a great example, consider business leaders like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who not only transformed our world through their business genius, but are now using their resources to help tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems through their philanthropic work like the Bill Gates Foundation.

So what is the point of all this? It is simply to make a request -- that as you grow your business and build this dream home of yours, do ask yourself what institution you could create, or what lasting difference to people’s lives could you make -- which would ensure that you attain some of the immortality these leaders will do? There are many problems we grapple with today -- poverty, disease, women’s rights, education, unemployment -- that ordinary people like us can gripe about but do little to impact. With your resources and influence, you are in a unique position to do something about them, and I beseech you to not let your legacy remain restricted to a palatial home or the money your business makes alone.

I am nobody to advise you on what to do, but there is so much to be done, and so few who have the money or the influence to do something about them. Helping create an institution that starts tackling some of these problems we face may be the best legacy you could leave. A century from now, even if your business or your palatial home remain no more than the ruins of Ozymandias’ statue, your legacy will live on through these.

Best regards,
Mainak Dhar

Learn more about Mainak and contact him at www.mainakdhar.com

The views expressed are that of author's and not of Sify.com