From outsider to media mogul: Subhash Chandra unveils candid memoir

Essel Group Chairman Dr Subhash Chandra’s autobiography, titled ‘The Z Factor: My Journey as the Wrong Man at the Right Time’, was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on January 20, 2016.

The autobiography, written along with Pranjal Sharma and published by HarperCollins India, traces Chandra’s journey from Hisar, a small town in Haryana.

The book is being officially launched at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival on January 21 and is available in stores from today. It is already available on Flipkart and Amazon India for pre-orders.

Referred to as the Media Moghul of India, Dr Chandra is credited with revolutionising the television industry by launching the country’s first satellite Hindi channel Zee TV in 1992 and later the first private news channel, Zee News.

Chandra has been a perennial outsider, repeatedly aiming high and breaking into businesses where he was considered an interloper. Starting work as a teen to pay off family debts, Chandra had to rely on bluff, gumption and sheer hard toil to turn things around. A little bit of luck and political patronage saw him make a fortune in rice exports to the erstwhile USSR.

Several gutsy initiatives followed, though not all of them were successful. Chandra’s attempts to launch satellite telephony and a cricket league came a cropper. But the man continues to reinvent himself; he is now also focusing on infrastructure and smart cities.

This is an unusually candid memoir of a truly desi self-made businessman who came to Delhi at age 20 with Rs 17 in his pocket. Today, he has a net worth of $6.3 billion and annual group revenues of in excess of $3 billion.