New Delhi, May 16 -- In the mid-1980s, when a personal computer in India cost as much as Rs.80,000, a young Tamil entrepreneur walked into the stalled market and crashed prices by more than half.

Chinnakannan Sivasankaran, known simply as Siva, had just bought Sterling Computers from Robert Amritraj, father of tennis star Vijay Amritraj. His opening move was to launch the Siva PC at Rs.33,000 with the tagline "The Power of Siva."

The market responded immediately as rivals were forced to cut prices. From a mere 1,200 PCs sold across India in 1985, sales climbed to over 50,000 by 1989. Sterling rocketed into India's top three computer companies, and Siva, barely thirty, announced himself as a dangerous disruptor and a wily competitor.

Bo...