1976, I was all of 18, and when I stepped into the world of business, the capital I had in my hand was 20,000 rupees.

The vision that we and the Rothschilds have for India is to link Indian fields to the world and put the produce, as fresh as it can be, on Western tables in 4-5 days.

I started with capital of about $1,500, a princely sum for a student coming out of college, an amount I borrowed from my father.

We were in the market ahead of competition. We brought new products on the market ahead of competition. We rolled out our networks. We begged, borrowed, stole, put things out. And while they were never near perfect, they were first. And that gave us, to my mind, a lot of advantage.

The only pool of young people lies in Saudi Arabia, some of the Middle-East countries, and few African countries. But they are not prepared as Indians are... we travel well; we are accepted globally very well, and that makes India truly a place to source world's workforce.

On the ground, our operations are in India. We believe we are in a country where the growth is still to be captured, so we will remain reasonably focused in this country.

My first venture was to trade bicycle parts and hosiery yarn. The initial days proved to be difficult, and I earned very little from my business. But I kept at it. Each day, when I retired for the night, I told myself that money would come in the next day.

In my wide travels across the world and my meetings with various heads of states, be that Africa or South Asia, Singapore or in high level meetings in the U.S., U.K. or Japan, one common mention is about Dr. Singh's extraordinary reputation as a Wise Man, an outstanding Economist and a fine Gentleman.

If something goes wrong with my switch, there's no way anyone from Bharti can do anything about it. An Ericsson guy is going to have to come and fix it. I don't manufacture it; I can't maintain or upgrade it. So I'm thinking, 'This doesn't really belong to me. Let's just throw it out.'

I would say history is a clear witness to many of the problems that have erupted when two partners from the same industry or same country have come together.