My childhood was what fairy tales are all about.

The country’s premier industrial family, the Ambanis, have it all on a golden thali, so why does Nita Ambani have to work so hard? Shirin Mehta keeps an appointment with the First Lady of corporate India

She is the lady of the manor. The lady who lives in the fabulous modern mansion on Mumbai’s Cuffe Parade. The much-talked-about house with several floors of ramp-led garages, the wondrous cars and swimming pool, the gawking pedestrians peering through enormous gates.

Nita Ambani, 41, India’s first industrial family’s bahu (The Reliance Group is the country’s largest business house with total revenues of over Rs 99,000 crore) energetic president of the Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation, who is passionate about healthcare, education and dance, traces her ability for hard work back to her childhood. She did not always live in a modern mansion, surrounded by exotic blooms, in Mumbai’s most-chic address. She once blissfully occupied a large, sprawling bungalow in the Mumbai suburb of Santa Cruz, surrounded by acres of garden, the centre of a tumultuous mix of uncles, aunts, grandmother ‘Ba’, a blind uncle who dubbed her ‘Florence Nightingale’, a slew of girl cousins and one boy cousin. The emphasis, while growing up, was on education and hard work, for the girls as much as for their ‘brother’. “The values I treasure even today, to work together and bond together, were instilled then,” says the lady as she recalls her early days. “My childhood was what fairy tales are all about.”

The lady is sipping from her mug of coffee which she indulges in only once a day and in dashes her son from school. “My fish died,” he announces. All attention, she turns towards him, eyes wide. “How?” she asks. “He was sick and we could not save him!” In rush two Yorkshire terriers, Magic and Sparkle. The lady’s eyes light up as they rush to her. You know that she is a dog person, an animal person, as these two scamper over designer togs with scant concern. She cuddles them even as she relates the story of these tiny gifts from London, almost dehydrated before they could be released through customs. A two-year battle for their lives saw an intensive care unit being set up at home. Today, the two are dancing at her feet, as if in gratitude for her effort.

I ask the lady, what are the values that you wish to instil in your children? Pat comes the reply, “They need to know that nothing is available on a golden platter. I teach the quality of hard work through example. They say to us, Mama and Papa, the last two years you have been working so hard. They sat through Mukesh’s award ceremony in Washington; heard his lecture that he gave at Stanford. It is important to reinforce the fact that Mukesh has not achieved all this except by hard work and perseverance.” No wonder then that Isha eats, breathes and dreams Reliance. She begins her morning with the Economic Times and often reads it on the long ride to school. Twin Akash has his own way of dealing with the lessons of hard work, developing the very human quality of knowing all the workers at Sea Wind personally and their family histories too.

The lady’s lifestyle means things given up, perhaps with some regret. No family vacation in two years, until this summer. No time for the lady to do things of leisure – to go shopping or out to lunch. “I have to lead a very disciplined life and I pray every day,” she says. “I would love to take off with my children, to spend more time with my ageing parents but it is not always possible.” Instead, she is honing her talent at time management – juggling time and schedules to get the most out of each day – for as she says, “These last few years have been a whirlwind but I have never sat back in my life.”