What do you call a man who hates to lose? A winner? That is too easy, too glib, and buries the story. All Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani ever wanted to be is the biggest there ever is, the best there ever was. He wanted a piece of the action -- preferably all of it. If others wouldn't let him in, he would create his own turf and own it all.

And so the history of a corporate buccaneer will come to be written. If he allows an epitaph, as he must -- the petrochemical complexes and refineries that bear the name of Reliance will tell it better -- it could echo this line. A line he almost spat at me once, triggered by a provocation about competition: "Dekho," he snarled, "I'm not a loser."

So what is he really, this one-time cloth trader whose group now owns textile manufacturing companies? A ragged marketeer for Shell in Aden whose sons now oversee India's largest oil refinery in Jamnagar? A man who ran from pillar to post, begging for a break, and whose representatives -- solely on account of business interest -- now part of an unofficial negotiating team to Pakistan at the height of the Kargil war? A man who almost single-handedly exploded the somnolent share bazaars into frenetic activity, using it as a lever to gain funds and distribute wealth on an epic scale? Dekho, he will tell you, as his sons will, we're not losers. Failure was never an option.

The effort has been so simple in its brilliance that it's mind-numbing nobody thought of it before he did, the way he did. In a country where business routinely took consumers for a ride, Dhirubhai was the first who said: come, ride with me. We will get wealthy together, do you care what others say? So a licence, which detractors said was out of turn, with superb project management, has brought plants to manufacture textiles in Naroda, polyester in Patalganga, petrochemicals in Hazira and a refinery on Gujarat's coast a missile-hop away from Pakistan.The simple expedient of ensuring generous, timely dividends to shareholders -- in 1985 Reliance offered the largest dividend in the history of corporate India -- made investors feel part of his success.

It also ensured cheap stock-market funds on tap when corporate India was weighed down by expensive bank borrowing. Dhirubhai redefined economies of scale for modern India, integrating industries backward and forward, bulldozing clearances, always growing, as many said, too fast for his own good. He planned in such a way he wouldn't have to pay a rupee in corporate taxes. He raised funds and reduced his debt burden with the convertible debenture, rarely used until he did. And all the while, he would smile and tell us: "I'm the bubble that burst."

India Inc, such as it was, had thrived for decades -- it still does -- on a system of patronage, the cannibalistic politics-business nexus. Monopoly controls were the lock, licences were the key and corporate India was in the pocket of policymakers. Dhirubhai barged into that league, playing exactly by the established, shadowy rules of the game. Only, he wouldn't toe the line. He wanted the line to toe him. "I had the courage to defy the system," he said, "face persecution even."

For Dhirubhai, now 66, the end has always been as important as the means. That is corporate skulduggery in black and white, and for which he has paid a heavy price. Competition wanted to beat him down by destroying his stock, his investors' stock and Reliance's credibility as a fund-raiser. Dhirubhai ran an operation that bought Reliance shares for weeks, drove prices sky-high and bankrupted more than one broker. But he could not then and has not been able to now, dent arch rival Nusli Wadia's polyester empire.

By brazenly getting projects through in a licence environment, he made many enemies. One who almost brought him down was V.P. Singh. In the mid-'80s when Singh the finance minister flew as high as Reliance, Singh and Wadia won some wars. Dhirubhai has a debilitating stroke to show for it, a battle scar that effectively announced that while two could play the game, one has to lose; it also signalled his sons, Mukesh and Anil -- fiercely protective of their father -- to take over.

Today, Reliance is India's third-largest group after Tata and A.V. Birla. Its books are scrutinised in as fussy a place as Wall Street. When Mukesh and Anil talk about "the PM" or "the President" it would be incorrect to presume they are talking about our heads of state. When they go vacationing in Switzerland or on safari in Africa, they must sometimes think of where they come from, a one-room chawl in Mumbai. They must also think of the man who made so much possible. And while they plot and plan and go about their business, Reliance gets bigger.

Sudeep Chakravarti is senior editor, India Today