Memories of Dhirubhai leap at him constantly. He misses Dhirubhai's absence even today, almost five years since the Reliance patriarch passed away. The "kind and cultured" Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, unfailingly attends to all of Manubhai's needs.

But don't figures dwarf human expressions?

The figures are very inhuman, actually. The market capitalisation of Reliance Industries was almost Rs 190,000 crore (Rs 1,900 billion) on the day rediff.com's exclusive interview with Manubhai took place.

It is not an easily digestible figure for an original desi employee who, along with doing sundry clerical jobs, also swept and mopped the Dhirubhai's first office at 240, Narsi Natha Street, Bhaat Bazaar, Masjid Bandar, Mumbai -- 400 003.

The first employee of Reliance, however, is of not much use these days to the new Reliance empire. So he has kindly been made a trustee of the South Mumbai-located Harkisandas Hospital, which has been taken over by the Reliance group.

Yet, there is no denying the fact that the Manubhais of Reliance did everything -- right or wrong, decent or indecent -- out of sheer love for Dhirubhai.