There was a time when the Indian stock market belonged to a small circle of wealthy traders and established business families. For a middle-class household, saving meant gold, land or a bank deposit. Owning a piece of a large company was simply not part of the plan.

Then a man from Chorwad changed that.

Dhirubhai Ambani inherited no empire and belonged to no business dynasty. What he had was far rarer: the ability to dream on a scale others thought impossible, and the conviction to invite ordinary people into that dream. Long before India spoke of startups and unicorns, he was living the first-generation founder's story. In many ways, Reliance was India's original startup.

Lessons from Aden

Born in 1932 into a modest family in Chorwad, on the Saurashtra coast, Dhirubhai left for Aden in Yemen as a teenager in search of work. He joined A. Besse & Co., first as a clerk and later managing an oil-filling station linked to the firm's petroleum business.

Watching tankers, traders and merchants deal across borders, he learnt what no classroom could teach: business is not about what you own, but about the opportunities you can see.

Back in Mumbai, he started a small trading venture. Spices gave way to yarn, trading gave way to manufacturing, and in 1966 - a textile mill at Naroda in Gujarat gave India the Vimal brand, which soon became a household name.

1977: The year savers became shareholders

The defining moment came in 1977, when Reliance Textile Industries went public. The issue was oversubscribed seven times.

Dhirubhai had asked a simple but revolutionary question. If millions of Indian families saved diligently for their children's future, why should they remain only consumers of what big companies made? Why could they not be owners too?

Suddenly, a schoolteacher, a small trader or a salaried clerk could hold a share in a growing industrial company and follow its progress through annual reports, dividends and bonus issues.

Dhirubhai did not create India's stock exchanges; they existed long before Reliance. But he brought the market into ordinary homes on a scale never seen before. He was a pioneer in spreading the equity cult in India, turning share ownership from a privilege of the few into an aspiration of the many.

For many early shareholders, Reliance's growth created substantial wealth. More importantly, it created trust: the belief that a company's success could be shared with the people who backed its journey.

Gujarati asmita, expressed through enterprise

Gujarat has always understood commerce, thrift and calculated risk. Dhirubhai took that spirit somewhere new. At a time when Indian industry was dominated by names such as Tata, Birla and Bombay Dyeing, he arrived as a first-generation challenger and proved that the next great business house could rise from modest beginnings.

For Gujarat, this was a matter of pride, not merely a corporate milestone. In the state's cities and towns, where saving and investing run deep, Reliance found a receptive audience. Dhirubhai was one of their own. His success confirmed what generations of Gujarati families had always believed: that enterprise, perseverance and the courage to take risks can transform one's destiny.

It was Gujarati asmita expressed through entrepreneurship. And it is why Dhirubhai Ambani is remembered as

"Audhyogik Gujarat na Nath", the patriarch of industrial Gujarat.

An invitation that still stands

Dhirubhai's greatest gift to Gujarat in 1977 was not a factory or a brand. It was an invitation: to stop watching India's growth from the outside and become part of it. Those who accepted became partners in one of the country's great success stories. That invitation has since passed through two more generations, and it has never been withdrawn. For Gujarat, the question remains what it was nearly fifty years ago: when the next chapter opens, will you be part of it?