THE GOSSAMER GIANT

Second-generation businessman S.P. Oswal has built the vertically integrated billion-dollar Vardhman Textiles into the country’s largest yarn spinner

- Vidya S.

EVEN AS IS show up early for our 10 am appointment on a Thursday, Vardhman Textiles Chairman S.P. Oswal is in his first meeting of the day. In about 15 minutes, I am shown into a room which could be mistaken for a meditation chamber. Ludhiana’s golden winter sunrays streaming through the all-glass windows illuminate titles on the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo. Seated on one of the grey sofas lining the three walls of the room is the bespectacled second-generation businessman. The octogenarian’s slight frame, on which his grey woollen suit hangs a tad loosely, belies the vertically integrated billion-dollar textile giant he has built the company into since joining the family business as his uncle’s reportee in 1966.

“I don’t like to beg from bankers,” says Oswal softly but firmly, harking back to a bloody incident in Vardhman’s history—which shaped some key decisions at the company. On April 14, 1982, a factory manager carries a pistol unbeknownst to Oswal; a skirmish and a gunshot kills a factory worker; violence leaves 72 people injured and rioters try to attack Oswal in his office. “I prayed to The Mother, ‘What can I do now?’ Instantly, (it occurred to me) to tell them, ‘You want to kill me? I have no arms. You can kill me.’” The unexpectedness of it calmed down the mob and helped start peace talks, he says with a laugh.