New Delhi, July 25 -- Away from the flashbulbs of Mumbai's corporate world, there has long existed another way of building businesses-quiet, understated and no less formidable.

Kandathil Mammen Mammen Mappillai, scion of the MRF and Malayalam Manorama family, exemplified that tradition. The family has been honoured with five Padma awards, but Mappillai's greatest legacy began with a 23-paise toy balloon business in a rented shed in Tiruvottiyur, Chennai. From those modest beginnings, he built MRF into India's largest tyre company.

Mappillai was never a conventional corporate swashbuckler. Long before MRF's low-float stock became a six-figure badge of honour on Dalal Street-surpassing Rs.1,30,000 a share-he had built an industrial powerh...