Nearly two decades after ‘Pathbreakers’ first explored the journeys of India’s influential leaders, Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu return with fresh insights into what makes a transformative leader. By Nichola Marie
Nearly two decades after the original ‘Pathbreakers’, what prompted you to revisit it?
When we first did these interviews in 2006–07, it was a considered decision. ‘Moneylife’ had just been launched. We spent years looking at markets, institutions and companies from the outside — in Sucheta’s case, often by reporting on what had gone wrong. We decided ‘Moneylife’ should do something different: explore, in people’s own words, the lives and the thinking that made them successful. We wanted the milestones, the turning points, and how they dealt with challenge and adversity.
It was eye-opening. Our first interview was with KV Kamath. As we walked out to the lift, we knew that a conversation which had held two cynical journalists so completely would hold readers as well. The response was overwhelming. Not only readers but several people of standing told us how much they liked the interviews. One of them was Vijay Kelkar, former finance secretary and Padma Vibhushan awardee. He even suggested names.
Bringing the book back was entirely due to Kausalya Saptharishi, our editor at Rupa. She read the interviews and felt that many were still relevant; several of the pathbreakers had grown tremendously since then.
Consider Reliance. We interviewed Mukesh Ambani just after the brothers split. The combined market value of Reliance was then about ₹1.5–₹2 lakh crore. Today Mukesh Ambani’s empire is valued at around ₹19–₹20 lakh crore.
When we first spoke to Uday Kotak, Kotak Mahindra Bank was still a young private bank, valued in the low thousands of crore. After he stepped down as MD and CEO, in 2026, the bank’s market cap is about ₹4.2 lakh crore. Sanjeev Bikhchandani is a similar story: from having just listed Naukri (Info Edge), he is now seen as a pioneering architect of the internet economy and a successful early-stage investor.
You bring together personalities from business, banking, finance, entrepreneurship and cinema. What, in your view, makes someone a true “pathbreaker”?
A pathbreaker is not simply someone who succeeds. Plenty of people succeed by following a well-worn route. A true pathbreaker is an independent thinker with the confidence and courage to take calculated risks. The people in this book chose a path that was not obvious, and then stayed with it long enough for it to look inevitable only in hindsight.
Satish Magar built a township by making farmers partners, not adversaries. RH Patil built an electronic national exchange after a scam had destroyed trust in the old brokerrun market. Rajkumar Hirani made a handful of films that treated audiences as intelligent. Sanjeev Bikhchandani kept saying he was the most risk-averse person he knew, and used that caution to build Naukri and, later, a body of early bets. What they share is not background. Some came from pedigreed families; one from a typing institute. What they share is the ability to see a problem clearly, ignore fashion, and keep working on a conviction.
The new edition features fresh conversations, alongside revisited conversations. Which interview surprised you most?
Mukesh Ambani, still. He has always been known as media-shy. The first interview was an eye-opener — not because he suddenly became talkative, but because of the clarity of his thinking. You saw the engineer, the academic training, and Dhirubhai’s insistence on a rounded upbringing. Even then it was clear that his vision for Reliance went well beyond his father’s. 18 years later, we were glad he agreed to speak again. Apart from oil and gas, the group now straddles telecom, retail and green energy, and is building large-scale AI infrastructure. The surprise was the continuity of the original instinct: find the next essential utility and deliver it at Indian prices.
The other surprise was how consistent people remain in temperament. Kamath still talks like a man who wants to pilot, debug, and only then roll out. Parekh still talks like a trustee of other people’s savings, and Magar still puts farmers first.
Mukesh Ambani discusses succession at Reliance, while Kotak discusses his decision to challenge the RBI. What did these conversations reveal about the people behind the public personas?
Public personas are usually a simplification. Ambani is often reduced to wealth and size. In conversation, he is methodical. Succession, for him, is not a family drama; it is an engineering problem — how you design an institution that outlives the founder. That is a Dhirubhai idea he has never abandoned.
Kotak’s public image is of a banker who got a licence and grew steadily. The conversations, and years of knowing him, show a man who keeps asking what the baggage of history is, and whether the rules still make sense. Challenging the RBI is not theatrical when you hear him explain it. It is the same instinct that made him de-risk at every stage while building the bank. He has often remarked that our careers have run in parallel. That is true. We have watched him from the time Kotak was still a brand in the making.
Ratan Tata and Amitabh Bachchan represent very different worlds, yet both exemplify resilience and reinvention. What lessons from their journeys would resonate most with young Indians?
Neither life was a straight line. Tata spent years inside a group that did not always want to give him a hearing. He then took it global through acquisitions that many thought reckless, and still spoke as if the work was unfinished. Bachchan went from the peak of stardom to near-ruin and illness, and came back because he could adapt, reflect and understand the business of entertainment as well as the craft. What we remember from that conversation is the graciousness. There was no bitterness in the telling.
The lesson is unfashionable: the willingness to start again without rewriting your own history as a triumph. Young people are told to create “personal brands”. These two lives suggest something else: do the work, absorb the fall, and let the work speak.
Both of you have spent decades in financial journalism. What has kept you fascinated by business and markets?
Debashis: I trained as a chartered accountant. Numbers were supposed to be the end of the story. You quickly learn they are only the beginning. Very early on I realised that businessmen may sound confident but cannot control how things will turn out. I have seen far more failures than successes, partly because most did not see that they were deciding under uncertainty, much of it external. And yet entrepreneurs have to be optimistic; if they are not, they will not grow or try new things. The successful ones find a balance between risk and opportunity. That keeps me fascinated. Markets add another layer: they are complex, adaptive systems, responding in real time to money, mass psychology and business performance.
Sucheta: I came in through the daily reporting of business news. Markets were a beat, then a way of watching how power actually works in this country — who gets capital, who is protected, who is left holding the loss, and the methods used to evade responsibility. What has kept us both at it is that the characters change and the patterns do not.
The profession has become faster and noisier. There is more access and less patience. Long interviews of the kind in ‘Pathbreakers’ are harder to place. That is one reason we wanted this book back in circulation.
Sucheta, your investigative work on the Harshad Mehta scam earned you the Padma Shri. What has your career taught you about pursuing uncomfortable truths and holding powerful institutions to account?
The award is not the point. It came in 2006, and not merely for the Harshad Mehta investigation. The 1992 story happened because of an attitude. Most journalists covering Harshad were admirers; I was not. I was sceptical about where the money was coming from, so when a source had an explanation, I chased it. There was luck in that, backed by 10 years of covering the market every day.
The newsbreak was only the start. What unravelled afterwards was even more striking, since it revealed the deep rot that ran through all financial institutions. The learning does not stop. In 2015, when I published a whistleblower’s letter on the National Stock Exchange and its colocation affair, there was another lesson. Institutions one admires for pathbreaking work can go badly wrong when they are left unsupervised or grow too powerful.
Debashis, you are widely respected for your sharp reading of companies and markets, and your columns have often proved remarkably prescient. How did your CA background shape this ability to look beyond the numbers?
The ability to anticipate comes from years of self-learning, and the process is slow. At first you write what you see. Then you notice the gap between claim and outcome. What a company hoped would happen did not. What a policy was supposed to deliver did not. You watch those deviations and draw lessons. After a few years, a good analyst can anticipate, from such observations, independent thought and conclusions.
There are many professions you learn entirely on the job. Corporate and market analysis is one. Being a CA may help me read a set of numbers faster; but that is of limited value. What helps is remembering what actually followed from plans, promises and policies. As the Chinese saying goes, ‘Seek truth from facts. There is no other way’.
Through ‘Moneylife’ and the Moneylife Foundation, you have championed financial literacy and investor protection. What is the one financial lesson you wish every young Indian would learn?
One: salary will not make you rich; investing will. Start early, save consistently, and put money into a few simple products that beat inflation. Two: do not lose the money you already have. That sounds modest. It is not, given how many schemes are pitched. Treat every unsolicited product, every “relationship manager”, every promise of extraordinary return as a possible transfer of your savings to someone else. Keep records. Ask who is paid to sell you the idea. Compounding works only if you survive the first 20 years without a hole in the bucket. In short, a few dos and saying no to everything else.
