A rare view into the mind of a business stalwart who has shaped India’s financial sector A must read for its rare, yet untold insights, into the story of a shaper who breathed his own values of integrity and accountability into the dna of an institution, that still remains true to its middle-class values. The 1970s in India were dark times of high tax slabs, land sharks and black money. When loans were a last resort meant for emergencies and buying a house was beyond aspiration, possible only at retirement, nobody was willing to bet on the repayment capacity of the ignored middle class, except one man. This invisible class went on to become the primary potential customer base for Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC). The rest as they say is history. While HDFC was Hasmukh Thakordas Parekh’s brainchild, it was his nephew Deepak Parekh who shaped it. Parekh left a comfortable overseas job with a plum salary and exclusive perks to join his uncle’s mortgage company at a 50 per cent pay cut. He nurtured HDFC to become India’s largest and cleanest financial conglomerate—not just in housing finance, but later in banking, asset management and insurance too.