It took just three words from India’s most reticent businessman to change Sundaresh Raju’s life. It is with a sense of pride that Raju says he was employee number 44 at Sun Pharmaceutical Industries. He joined the company, then housed in a small office in the Mumbai suburb of Vile Parle, on the first day of 1987 as sales manager and spent the next 17 years there before calling it a day. “The shrewdness and maturity that is associated with Dilip Shanghvi today was obvious even then,” says Raju, who was coaxed into joining the company from Tamil Nadu Dadha Pharmaceuticals (TDPL), where he was comfortably placed.