NEW DELHI, Feb. 26 -- Last evening, I smiled at the vegetable puff my wife brought me with my tea. It wasn't the puff or tea that made me smile, but the tomato ketchup poured quite lavishly for me. I love tomato ketchup, and many, many moons ago, when Kissan was the only company manufacturing it in India, and it was a rarity in my home because those days, anything tasty or delicious was always rare in most homes, I decided it needed to have a place on our table.

So that birthday, not mine, but my mother's, what a pleasant surprise she got from her twelve-year-old son, to find he had gifted her a bottle of tomato sauce.

Even as she hugged me and thanked me for the wonderful present, she knew I was sure who would be the beneficiary of the...