HIGH & MIGHTY
50 POWER PEOPLE
“FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM,” goes the Lord’s Prayer, “the power, and the glory, forever and ever.” Let’s take one fragment first: the power and the glory. That’s one possible measure of an individual’s accomplishments in life, but it only traces the outer circumference of what is essentially an inner journey. The 50 people on our High & Mighty List were not born on another planet. Nor were those on the three supplementary lists on politics, the officialdom and Indians who made it big abroad. They are ordinary mortals, and yet extraordinary. Their little and big kingdoms were built out of each one’s special blend of savvy, will, imagination, tenacity...and sometimes the sheer force of personality. Some of them came out of anonymity to be where they are. Monika Shergill, content head of Netflix, grew up watching B&W television in Meerut. Nithin and Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha are a bank employee’s kids, regulation Bengaluru middle class. Narendra Modi’s past is legend. Even Mukesh Ambani has seen life in a Mumbai chawl and Kumar Mangalam Birla had no choice but to grow up fast after his father’s untimely demise. Both Mukesh and Kumar Mangalam grew their inherited businesses manifold. Each individual journey starts from scratch. In Rahul’s case, it began with the Bharat Jodo Yatra last year. Fortune traces a tenuous path between flux and certitude. A Gautam Adani got to be the second-richest individual in the world, but his sternest challenge came after that. Even billionaires must expect the unexpected. Under skies lately darkened by war and pestilence, “forever and ever” is straight out fantasy. But this is the Powernama of the Present.