From Topaz in the 1970s to Supermax through 2023, RK Malhotra was the man behind one of India's top razor blade brands. His unusual story is now told in ‘Ace of Blades: The Life Story of the Blade King of India’ (Jaico Publishing House). This is an account of a man whose obsession with the perfect edge built an empire and challenged a global titan.

Written by his daughter, Reenita Malhotra Hora (now a California-based novelist and screenwriter), the book blends business history with a family saga, offering a rare look inside the rise of India’s FMCG industry. From factory floors to personal turning points, the narrative exposes the price of greatness with remarkable honesty. With its mix of entrepreneurial grit, cultural insight, and dramatic storytelling, ‘Ace of Blades’ is a raw, revealing portrait of leadership, legacy, and the personal cost of greatness.
 
Here is an excerpt from the book:

He sat there slumped in his chair, his eyes staring off into the distance. I knew he was thinking about the years he had spent building Bharat, first, then Topaz, then Supermax; the countless hours spent slogging like a donkey—procuring bank loan after bank loan by the million, beginning in the 1980s after the family split, and persisting until the advent of Actis.

Each one of those loans had provided the fuel that powered his dreams—the goal of elevating his enterprise to a level where it could contend with the international juggernaut Gillette. But sadly, that day was never to come, and what faced him now was a far direr reality—a doomsday of sorts. He was gazing into a dark and cloudy crystal ball that foretold the crumbling of his life’s work, which would ultimately be reduced to nothing but dust.

A heavy feeling descended upon me. It was as if a big stone had lodged itself in the depths of my being and was dragging me inexorably towards the ground. In that moment, I too began to feel the physical pain from the punishing burden of 82 years of my father’s life. Six decades of his existence had been invested in the pursuit of a razor blade empire; and in the end, it amounted to nothing. How could this be? The answer still eluded me.

I turned my gaze towards my father knowing that our conversation was drawing to a close. I still had a long list of unanswered queries. To me, his life and experiences remained an enigma—a great puzzle begging to be solved. Yet, looking at him now, weakened and enervated, his countenance marked by defeat and perhaps a desperate yearning for a happier or more free existence, I knew that my questions would soon fall upon deaf ears. And so, I tried to keep it short.

“Is there anything you would have done differently?” I asked him.

RK seemed amused by that question. “So much,” he acknowledged. “But I never had the resources I needed to realize all my dreams. At first, I did not have any money from my family; and after that, I was perpetually indebted to the bank. I had to pledge my own assets of land and machinery to the banks to get the money to expand the business into a true international business. And when Actis showed up, it turned out to not be the help we needed, but a torch for our funeral pyre. And now I have to watch helplessly as it burns, and I am not allowed to put it out.”

His words didn’t startle me. Money and career had always seemed like cosmic forces in his life, rarely aligning as they should. His career path often careened at the expense of his financial stability. Money had consistently been the stumbling block in RK’s life—a tantalizing promise that lured him toward entrepreneurial freedom, yet paradoxically, it often turned out to be the very force that repeatedly clipped his wings.

“So, you were never able to ultimately realize all your dreams and goals,” I said, acknowledging the immense weight of his life’s work.

RK dismissed my comment with a wave of his hand. “To hell with dreams and goals. I have learned that private equity companies are not interested in partnering with me to do what I know is right for the business. They just want to come in and snatch it away, then sell it to someone else for a higher price. They will not let me help. So, in a matter of time—maybe only weeks or days from today—everything will be reduced to ashes.”

My mother, a silent witness, watched as her husband’s gaze fell to the ground, his fingers interlaced tightly. She reached out a hand and placed it gently on his shoulder, offering a small gesture of comfort.

In that heavy silence, the weight of the impending moments seemed tangible. My thoughts raced, reflecting on the past months, the backdrop of a global pandemic, my father’s deteriorating health, and the unshakable fear that this might be the last time I would see my parents. Yet, amid it all, a profound sense of gratitude washed over me. Gratitude for our reunion in England, despite the arduous journey from Mumbai for them and San Francisco for me, and the mandatory two-week quarantine. Gratitude for my brother Raju’s unwavering support, which had played a pivotal role in bringing us all together. Most of all, gratitude for my father.

Hindsight would later reveal that this would be our final meeting—the last time I would have the privilege of beholding the man who had so deeply touched my being for half a century. My intuition may have hinted at this inevitability; but I, perhaps deliberately, chose to disregard it. And so, with a sense of urgency and vulnerability, I mustered the courage to ask the question that had been tormenting me, the one that I knew might have no answer.

“Do you regret anything, Papa? Do you feel that anything is left undone?”

My father’s eyes met my own and for a moment, we held each other’s gaze. He sighed heavily before answering, his words heavy with the weight of a lifetime of experience. 

“I cannot have any regrets,” he confessed. “I put everything into this. There is nothing I did not do for the business or the family—my parents, my brothers, my wife, Rocky, Raju, or you. But life is not in my hands. That is all left up to the Creator.”

A lump lodged in my throat, rendering me speechless, as I grappled with how to respond. My father continued to speak, his voice tinged with a sense of finality.

“Before Alexander the Great died,” he continued, his voice infused with a sense of inevitability, “he gave instructions that his hands be left hanging outside his casket, a testament that in this life we come with nothing and we go with nothing. I am no exception. I came with nothing and I will leave with nothing. My duty is fulfilled; I have done right by all three of my children.”

RK’s story came to an end, enveloping the room in a solemn silence. But after a moment of reflection, he broke the silence once more, uttering words I had heard consistently throughout my five decades—a reminder that even the most accomplished among us owe a debt of gratitude to the fickle hand of fate. If nothing else was said, this quote was the one that summed up the RK mindset:

“As I have always told you kids,” he reiterated, “in life, all success is 99 percent luck, and 1 percent bloody good luck.”

[The excerpt reproduced with the permission of the publishers.]