Lounge 5 December

New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Chandigarh, Pune

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Saturday, December 5, 2009

Vol. 3 No. 48

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

space age

THE NEW BUSINESS LOUNGE WITH MERCEDES­BENZ’S WILFRIED G AULBUR >Page 8

GHOST RIDER

One of the first owners of the just­launched Rolls­Royce Ghost tells us why his new set of wheels are perfect >Page 6

Five innovative, yet functional luxury home concepts that will change the way you live >Page >Page 10 10

Author Henning Mankell, 61, is best known as the creator of the iconic detec­ tive, Inspector Kurt Wallander.

The wall at the coffee shop at Bangalore’s ITC Royal Gardenia has around 25,000 plants.

LUXURY CULT

THE GOOD LIFE

RADHA CHADHA

SHOULD GUCCI DO A SARI?

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was at ISB Hyderabad last month for a panel discussion titled “Bending Global Brands”.

The underlying premise was that while global brands may get away by selling the same stuff across the world—perhaps with minor tweaks to suit local sensibilities—for the Indian consumer they will have to do some serious “bending” if they want big time success here.

Nokia bent significantly with its specially-for-India low-priced phone, and it is raking in $4 billion a year. >Page 4

REPLY TO ALL

SHOBA NARAYAN

LUXURY IS WHAT YOU CAN’T HAVE

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uppose you took a high-end handbag and stood outside Kimaya or Ensemble to conduct an experiment. Not a recognizable brand like Louis Vuitton, but an underground cult favourite, like Lambertson Truex, recently bought by Tiffany & Co. At $1,500 (around Rs70,500) a pop, the brand’s Quilted Turino Gstaad Hobo isn’t cheap but in terms of style and craftsmanship, it offers more buckles for the buck than brands which cost thrice as much. >Page 4

AAKAR PATEL

THE MOON ON SALE

Books are the latest entrants to the luxury realm, with titles priced as high as Rs3.3 crore >Page 15

A STAR IS AIRBORNE

Ranbir Kapoor’s rise to the top is scripted like that of a yesteryear star >Page 16

DON’T MISS

in today’s edition of

INDIA’S RICH DON’T HAVE CIVILIZATION

I

ndians have culture but not civilization.

Culture is how we entertain ourselves; civilization is how we entertain others. Culture is our attitude to beauty and ugliness, to power, to religion, and to family. It shows in our music, in what makes us laugh. Civilization is our attitude to mankind. It’s defined as social development of an advanced stage, but civilization never actually arrives; it is only reached for. It assumes there is high purpose to life, to wealth, to culture. It believes that man will exhibit... >Page 18

BOMBAY THEN AND NOW

HOME PAGE L3

First published in February 2007 to serve as an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian Dream.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

FIRST CUT

PRIYA RAMANI

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (MANAGING EDITOR)

ANIL PADMANABHAN TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY NABEEL MOHIDEEN MANAS CHAKRAVARTY MONIKA HALAN VENKATESHA BABU SHUCHI BANSAL SIDIN VADUKUT (MANAGING EDITOR, LIVEMINT)

FOUNDING EDITOR RAJU NARISETTI ©2009 HT Media Ltd All Rights Reserved

THE ONE LUXURY I CAN’T DO WITHOUT

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n my first couple of months grade love. as the editor of CosmopoliDon’t have a big wedtan magazine, a starry-eyed ding. Save the money for a gent insisted on predicting my house, a boat, a round-thefuture. I don’t believe in all world trip, diamonds your this mumbo-jumbo, I told child will inherit, or whathim in my brutal best. My ever it is that turns you on. glare bounced off his grin and Mr Right comes fully eventually I realized he would trained. I know this is a rare only leave the premises if I trait in this part of the world allowed him to peer into but being married to an tomorrow.

Indian man is infinitely eas“In your 40s you will be ier if he knows how to cook, writing best-sellers about dust or, miracle of miracles, marriage and divorce,” he do both. And if he does, you said wisely. “Divorce?! But I know it’s only because his only just got married. Am I mother taught him early. going to get divorced?” I Milestone: It’s a long, winding road so learn to have fun.

And if she did, she’s your yelped, falling neatly into his biggest ally in this relationtrap. “No, no, you will have a fabu- marriage is a big luxury. ship. Which brings me to the next point. lously fun marriage. You’ll have a great Maintaining a marriage is much easWhat’s not to love in your mothertime together,” he said. ier than getting married, Margaret Kent, in-law? If you married him for the way It was 10 years yester- author of How to Marry the Man of Your he turned out, at least half the credit MARRIAGE day and, so far, the Choice, told Lounge when we inter- goes to her. Besides, if you respect his astrologer’s prediction viewed her last year. Her husband- family, he’ll respect yours. has been spot on. pleasing tips were comically simple: At Live lite. Have fun. Don’t get bogged Not many of us seem to be having least once a week, tell him that he is down by possessions and all the multifun with our spouses though. Indian unique and that you are happy to be his ple stresses of urban living. Don’t dismarriages are falling apart faster than wife; sit and listen to him for 15 minutes cuss petty things when you’re both in ever before. A recent book on the sub- daily as though he is the most impor- bed at the end of the day. Occasionally ject was titled Love Will Follow: Why the tant person in the world; and keep him at least, use this time to discuss the Indian Marriage is Burning. sexually satisfied. things you would if you were lying Maybe it’s because 64% of us still I still haven’t hit the 40s or written under the stars. Don’t obsess about don’t share our sexual fantasies with that best-seller but now that I’ve stayed anniversaries and birthdays. each other. Or because nearly one-third (happily) married for 10 years, I like to Always put your spouse first. If he of Indian men who fantasize about role think of myself as an expert too. In addi- returns the favour, you’ll have the solid, playing have imagined themselves pre- tion to the usual basics such as good unblinking love you know your parents tending to rape their partners, accord- food and good sex, here are some sim- will always give you. ing to the latest India Today sex survey. ple/simplistic pointers from which, I Discuss the non-negotiables All of us know of at least half-a-dozen believe, every marriage can benefit. beforehand. Mine was a cup of tea in marriages that have come apart. With Marry for love. Not for his looks or bed. Every morning. some couples, you just know from the geographical location or the size of his first moment you see them together car. And please, not clichéd, paper- Write to lounge@livemint.com that they don’t quite fit. With other back love that is born over candlelight seemingly perfect pairs, you wonder dinners and that grows every time you www.livemint.com what could possibly have gone wrong. unwrap another branded present. To Ramani blogs at Hell, even the impeccable Tiger Woods make a marriage work, you need rust- Priya blogs.livemint.com/firstcut couldn’t get it right. In short, a good proof, industrial strength, export

inbox

Write to us at lounge@livemint.com SHOE STRINGS ‘Boot up’, 28 November, points out remarkable changes in shoe technology.

There was a time when India did not participate in the football tournaments at the Olympics because our players did not wear shoes while playing.

Yet India won its first football title in the 1951 Asian Games, playing without shoes. Footwear and football had no connection. Today, we have appropriate shoes to enhance performance and confidence.

In the same issue, ‘Zinedine Zidane’s movie moments’ by Rahul Bhattacharya was a superb blend of cricket and football. His analysis of Zidane made me love the footballer even more.

ANITA BHASIN

FAMILIES ON FACEBOOK Lounge is doing an amazing job of providing content that appeals to intelligent readers. I am a fan of Shoba Narayan’s brand of sarcastic humour.

With regard to Narayan’s column ‘Why Facebook is like low­fat ice cream’, 28 November, I would like to add that there is another category of Facebook users who are part of the same family, like sisters, who proclaim their love for each other on the site. I find it pointless and annoying that two sisters who live in the same house, and in all probability practically spend all day with each other, leave comments on each other’s walls.

I thank Narayan for sharing humorous and intelligent thoughts with us.

AKSHATA BHAT

FACEBOOK JUNKIE My mother and I love Shoba Narayan’s columns, especially the one on Madras (I can never get myself to call it Chennai) and on coffee. I agree with Narayan’s views in ‘Why Facebook is like low­fat ice cream’, 28 November. I’m a student of class XII and one of my projects is: “Have social networking websites changed traditional interaction patterns among youth in India?”, focusing on Facebook. Ever since we got a better Internet connection, I log on to Facebook every once in a while. But Narayan’s column gave me a new perspective.

SHARMADA SIVARAM

EDITOR’S NOTE: THE LOUNGE LUXURY ISSUE Starting this issue, Lounge introduces a Luxury Lounge on the first Saturday of every month. Don’t send us nasty emails about consumerism, but do have fun reading the issue and tell us what you liked/disliked about it. While the flavour of the issue is luxury, there’s also lots to read for those of you who are not interested in the subject. Enjoy.

ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

L4 COLUMNS

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

RADHA CHADHA LUXURY CULT

Should Gucci do a sari?

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was at ISB Hyderabad last month for a panel discussion titled “Bending Global Brands”. The underlying premise was that while global brands may get away by selling the same stuff across the world—perhaps with minor tweaks to suit local

sensibilities—for the Indian consumer they will have to do some serious “bending” if they want big time success here. Nokia bent significantly with its specially-for-India low-priced phone, and it is raking in $4 billion (around Rs18,800 crore) a year. McDonald’s abandoned its core product—the beef patty burger—and is coasting along happily instead on McAloo Tikki and McChicken Burger, and its business has grown to over 160 restaurants. Suzuki, a pioneer in bending for India, launched its cutesy low-on-price, high-on-performance Maruti in the 1980s which rapidly became the No. 1 car in India, and even today with intense competition honking at its heels, it holds on to half the market. Kellogg’s is an oft-quoted example in the reverse direction—it didn’t bend to local eating habits—and Indians ignored its global-standard breakfast cereals in the initial years and continued to munch on parathas and idlis.

Global companies are now bending over backwards to innovate for India—there’s even a new term for it, “Indovation”—and the key theme is to skin prices down till they fit into the Indian hip pocket, while creating a product, often from scratch, that fits Indian needs like a glove. It is happening across the board with hi-tech companies such as GE building a hand-held ECG

machine that costs one-tenth and can operate in rural areas, to PepsiCo putting the humble nimbu pani into a bottle and watching its sales curve bending upwards. And management gurus are writing about how all these cheap-and-cheerful Indovations could be sold back to the West in a rush of reverse innovations thereby keeping global P&L’s pumping in both emerging and developed markets.

Which brings us to luxury brands. If going desi is the key to success in a we-are-like-that-only India, what should luxury brands do? Should they bend? Should they too Indovate?

This is where the problem gets particularly piquant as two of the basic building blocks of the luxury business are: high price and Western appeal. In an emerging economy by definition there is predominantly one kind of money—spanking new—and luxury brands with their sky-high prices help meet the human urge to show off new wealth. Western appeal works because the West, especially Europe, is seen as the cradle in which the finest luxury brands are made, and secondly, most people in emerging economies tend to look up to the developed West and want to emulate it. No luxury brand wants to dilute its “Western-ness” because that’s like taking the chocolate out of a chocolate cake. And no luxury

brand is going to drop prices drastically because that’s like taking the sugar and butter out too. Indovating for luxury brands runs the risk of being left with just a heap of flour.

There are no precedents as luxury brands have enjoyed enormous success in other emerging markets without ever having to go native. Louis Vuitton in China, for instance, has done so well that Chinese consumers, shopping at home and abroad, have reportedly become the brand’s biggest buyers.

Many luxury brands in China, even in these global gloom-and-doom times, have posted 40%-plus growth, and the Chinese consumer now accounts for 11% of the global luxury industry.

But for India I believe that luxury brands will have to “bend” considerably if they want to achieve the kind of scale they have achieved elsewhere in Asia, where they cater not just to the wealthy but enjoy a very wide following, counting junior executives and secretaries among their customers.

One, they will have to create a part of their portfolio afresh for India. The reason is this: While people in almost every Asian country have abandoned their national dress and slipped comfortably into Western attire head-to-toe 24/7, we Indians wear both Indian and Western outfits. The Japanese kimono and the Chinese cheongsam may have disappeared from everyday life, but the sari, the lehenga, the salwar-kameez are alive and well, in fact they are thriving and evolving under local designers. If I look at my own wardrobe, at least half the stuff is Indian, and global luxury brands simply don’t play in this segment as of now, leaving a big opportunity lying unattended on the table. Furthermore, luxury accessories—bags, shoes, jewellery, in

particular—will have to work with Indian clothes, and importantly, meet the Indian colour-and-bling quotient, which is a lot higher than elsewhere in the world. And then there is the big fat Indian wedding market—think Shilpa Shetty in a Versace lehenga—ripe for luxury brands.

Two, luxury brands will have to rethink their price-value equation, because we Indians are obsessed with value. I am not suggesting that luxury brands do a Nano on their prices—that would be suicidal—but I do believe they need to widen the net by lowering price points for their entry-level products, even if it means creating new ones for India (wallets and small leather goods typically play that role, but a Rs20,000 wallet is on the high side for India). At the same time, luxury brands will have to up their perceived value in fussy Indian eyes, and figure out how to give them a bigger luxury bang for their buck. (Hermès Birkin is a classic example—at $5,000-plus a bag, it is seen as great value for money.)

The bottom line: If luxury brands don’t Indovate, they will miss out on a large part of the action. If they do, we are all in for a treat—a kurta by Dior, a sari by Gucci, these might become the new to-die-for items for Indian fashionistas.

Radha Chadha is one of Asia’s leading marketing and consumer insight experts.

She is the author of the best-selling book The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love Affair with Luxury. She will write a monthly column on the luxury business for Lounge.

Write to Radha at luxurycult@livemint.com

Inspired: Indian embroidery and jewellery were seen in John Galliano’s Fall collection for Christian Dior.

SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE

Luxury isn’t money; it’s what you can’t have

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HARIKRISHNA KATRAGADDA/MINT

uppose you took a high-end handbag and stood outside Kimaya or Ensemble to conduct an experiment. Not a recognizable brand like Louis Vuitton, but an underground cult favourite, like Lambertson Truex, recently

bought by Tiffany & Co. At $1,500 (around Rs70,500) a pop, the brand’s Quilted Turino Gstaad Hobo isn’t cheap but in terms of style and craftsmanship, it offers more buckles for the buck than brands which cost thrice as much. Best of all, Truex hasn’t caught the eye of the Guangzhou fake handbag industry, which means that if you see someone carrying a Gstaad Hobo, it is probably an original—worth $1,500.

So anyway, you carry this handbag and stop every person exiting Kimaya with a simple question: How much would you pay for this handbag? You ask 40 people and then take the same handbag to Westside or Shoppers Stop, and ask the same question. Same handbag; different locations; same question. If you answer that the ladies exiting Kimaya, presumably after paying Rs1 lakh for a lehenga, would pay a higher price for the handbag than the folks exiting Westside after buying a kurti for Rs800, you would be right. What surprised me was how wide the disparity was, because I assumed that the same group of women shopped at both Westside and Kimaya. Maybe they do—mixing bangles from Colaba Causeway with blouses from Amara is, after all, the norm in India. But the

women outside Kimaya mentioned a number in the range of Rs20,000, which wasn’t that far off the mark. Outside Westside, however, the same bag was valued at a paltry Rs4,000.

Behavioural economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky call this “anchoring”, which implies that once you walk into Ensemble and see clothes with a lot of zeroes in the price tag, any handbag you see, even outside the shop, is going to look like it is priced with a lot of zeroes. Behavioural economist and author V. Raghunathan calls this the “framing” effect, which means that you can influence price through body language, clothes and how you present yourself. Had I worn torn jeans, my Kimaya customers would have considered the bag a fake and me, a scalper. How you dress influences or frames what you peddle.

Luxury marketing is about framing— and I am dropping economic terms here, not making accusations. It has to do with creating a perception in the customer’s head that the bag is a status symbol.

“Creating a demand out of pure human ego is what luxury branding and marketing are about,” says Raghunathan.

“It has nothing to do with the cost of the product. Like they say about Lacoste, it is

Splash­worthy: The Louis Vuitton store at The Oberoi, New Delhi. a $5 T-shirt with a $50 alligator.”

My question is why Indian goods haven’t become luxury products. Most designers say that our “finish” is the problem. French and Italian houses such as Hermès and Versace talk about detailing and how it takes a craftsman 18-25 hours to create an Hermès Kelly bag. Well, it takes a lot longer to create a Paithani or ikat sari, but these handcrafted items cost a fraction of a Balenciaga gown. Behavioural economist Dan Ariely calls this “relativity”, which in my mind is another word for what Indian college kids call “arbit”, or arbitrary pricing. Consider it this way: A beautifully finished blouse at the Tirupur tailor’s shop costs Rs800. The same blouse with a Pratap label costs Rs8,000.

The same blouse with an Anne Fontaine label costs Rs20,000. In his witty book, Predictably Irrational, Ariely uses the example of black pearls, which, thanks to clever marketing, changed from being an unsaleable item to a must-have; and

Starbucks coffee, which thanks to clever “framing”, was able to price itself at three times the market price.

That said, luxury brands touch only a tiny sliver of the Indian populace. Even Louis Vuitton’s Yves Carcelle realized this when he talked about the man who “gave his wife an Airbus”. The man, of course, is Mukesh Ambani, frequently held up as an example of today’s Indian luxury consumer in both good and bad ways. “Today’s generation (post-1991) doesn’t have any of the mental, cultural, social or economic restrictions that characterized mine,” says economist and epicure S.L. Rao. “The extreme example of that is Mukesh Ambani, who is spending $2 billion on an obscenely large home in narrow Altamount Road with a view of the slums.” Rao predicts, and I agree, that in the coming years, the ostentation that characterizes luxury spending in India will get “toned down”, now that the “shackles are off”.

The good news (or bad, depending on

your point of view) is that the bulk of India, even prosperous India, doesn’t care about luxury brands, surveys by Technopak notwithstanding. Gucci and Fendi don’t feature in their lives. This was driven home at the 12th day death ceremony of a Konkani gentleman, my friend’s father. There was a banana-leaf lunch with delicacies I had never tasted before: a young cashew nut curry called bibbe upkari, five kinds of bajjis (fritters), poli, kook or Chinese potato, and other new flavours. Across the table were two beautiful Konkani matrons, Geeta and Lalita, with two grown sons each. We got talking. They wanted to know what I do.

I write, I replied, about things like luxury.

Jimmy Choos, for example. Never heard of them, they replied. “You know what a luxury is,” said Lalita after the kheer course. “A daughter-in-law. With all these live-in relationships, you can even get a grandchild, but not a daughter-in-law.”

We all laughed. And in that moment, I experienced the luxury of life in India: eating bibbe at a death ceremony and talking to two beautiful strangers about the demand for daughters-in-law. How can you script this? Luxury is what you can’t have. And in today’s India, it seems, a good daughter-in-law is the greatest luxury.

Shoba Narayan is hunting for Konkan daughters-in-law for madames Lalita and Geeta. And some bibbe upkari for herself.

Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/shoba­narayan

www.livemint.com

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

L5

News Fit for a king: (clockwise from left) The Maharajas’ Express has two restaurants; a presidential suite; and deluxe bedrooms.

A new rail romance Two luxury trains take you through India, with spa carriages, international and Indian cuisine and cocktails at sundown

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hat mixes old-world charm with new-age opulence better than a luxury train journey? Indulge in an idyllic week-long journey, ensconced in the comforts of a luxury saloon, while India rolls past.

Apart from the famed Palace on Wheels, there are two new luxury trains, offering lovers of old-style travel more destinations and choices of routes.

Last month, Thomas Cook began the charter of The Indian Maharaja. Its seven-night itinerary takes you to the Taj Mahal, Ranthambore Tiger Reserve and National Park, Lake Pichola, Jag Mandir Palace, and more.

In January, Cox and Kings will unveil the Maharajas’ Express, a pan-Indian luxury train with 23 coaches that can accommodate 84 passengers. You can travel like royalty in any of its five deluxe carriages or suite carriages. But if you want to indulge yourself a little more, then the presidential suite is the carriage to check into. There are two restaurants in the train that serve gourmet food—both international and Indian cuisine. Though it’s not mandatory, your dinner jacket would be appreciated. And if you are the sort who gets withdrawal symptoms if you’re away from email and TV, worry not. The trains are fitted with Internet connectivity and satellite television. In the evenings, you can amble over to the observation lounge and play cards with fellow passengers, shop in the boutique or enjoy the view outside while sipping your favourite sundowner.

Other than a tour that goes from Mumbai to Delhi via Rajasthan, the Maharajas’ Express also offers a six-night itinerary that will follow the Delhi-Agra-Gwalior-KhajurahoBandhavgarh-Varanasi-Gaya-Kolkata route.

Prices start at $800 (approx. Rs37,000) per day per person.

The presidential suite is $2,500. Christmas and New Year departures cost more.

Veena Venugopal

L6 NEWS

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM RAMESH PATHANIA/MINT

India on their mind

Ghost rider One of the first owners of the just­launched Rolls­Royce Ghost tells us why his new set of wheels are perfect

We can’t get enough of bags, shoes and collections inspired by the subcontinent

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Owner’s pride: Jain’s new Rolls­Royce Ghost set him back by more than Rs2.5 crore.

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arun Jain, 26, owns a Lamborghini, a Bentley and an Audi Q7. And, he is one of the first in India to book the latest offering from the Rolls-Royce stable, the Ghost.

Also known as the Baby Rolls, the car will hit Indian roads in January with a base price of Rs2.5 crore. Though positioned as the less flashy Phantom, the Ghost comes with all the flourishes that the car maker is famous for—brollies on the doors, upright monograms on the wheels, etc. Jain tells Lounge why he is charmed by the Ghost. Edited excerpts: Why did you choose the Ghost over other luxury cars such as the Bentley?

I already have a Bentley.

Rolls-Royce is one of the best cars you can buy and this would be my first Rolls. I didn’t want to buy the Phantom

(

because it was too big. Ghost is not only a smaller car but it is also younger-looking. It’s more comfortable and is meant to be driven by the owner. I won’t look like a driver if I drive the car myself.

When did you first see the car?

I first read about it on the websites www.worldcarfans.com and www.germancarfans.com.

This was about three years ago.

The buzz that Rolls is coming out with what was being referred to as a Baby Rolls has been around for that long now.

I booked it even before it was launched. I saw the first pictures of the car when a spy picture was leaked on the Internet. This was about 15 or 20 days after I had booked the car. Then, last November, Rolls-Royce took us (my father and I) to Singapore for the launch. That was when I first saw the car.

What did you think when you saw it?

It was perfect. I was convinced that I had made the right choice.

What are your favourite features?

Oh, lots of them. Like the fact that the angel on the hood can be retracted. The lighting technology on the car is excellent—it has adaptive headlights, the lights move with the car as you drive and turn.

The music system is also excellent. It’s perfect.

What customization have you asked for in your Ghost?

I am getting the two-toned colour version with the silver paint on the hood. I have asked for bigger wheels, tan leather interiors and the panoramic sunroof.

Where will you take the car on its maiden run?

The car is expected in Delhi in the middle of January. I’ve told them that I will take the delivery of the car at the airport. There are some formalities to be completed and then, of course, I’ll first take it to a temple.

nternational fashion houses and designers continue to be fascinated by India. John Galliano has used ikat prints and silhouettes resembling Indian outfits for his Fall/Winter Ready-to-Wear Collection for Christian Dior. Embroidered chiffon dresses in jewel tones such as mustard, rani pink and red were offset with silver jewellery. Patiala-style harem pants also made an appearance.

This year Jimmy Choo gave Indians one more reason to love bling. To correspond with the brand’s New Delhi store launch, two bags and two pairs of shoes in gold were released, just for the Indian market. A few pieces are still available at Jimmy Choo stores in Mumbai and New Delhi.

Bottega Veneta has also paid tribute to India, since their Mumbai store reopens this month. A limited edition Indian version of the label’s iconic Knot clutch will be on shelves. A shimmering surface of leather sequins replicates the look of Bottega Veneta’s signature intrecciato weave.

Parizaad Khan Local flavour: (clockwise from right) India is a muse at Christian Dior, Bottega Veneta and Jimmy Choo.

Veena Venugopal

Now available for Rs1.5 lakh: ‘The Gandhi Collection’, a limited edition ‘khadi’­bound book with 18 rare photographs of the Mahatma shot by Kulwant Roy. The first copy was gifted by Manmohan Singh to Barack Obama at the White House.

Contact publisher Aditya Arya through www.adityaaryaarchive.com

)

Watch it: get insured A free insurance scheme promises to keep your Tag Heuer watch safe from accident, fire, theft, and even terrorist activity

Test of time: A Tag Heuer Carrera watch.

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hen you pay as much for a watch as you would for a small car, a bit of security wouldn’t go amiss, especially in these penny-pinching times.

The Ethos Swiss Watch Studio offers a free insurance scheme when you buy a Tag Heuer watch from it.

This scheme—for which Ethos has tied up with Oriental Insurance—promises to cover any damage to your trusty timepiece that might result from accident, theft, fire, and strangely, even terrorist activity, riots and strikes.

The good news for those contemplating a Tag purchase (the watches range between Rs30,000 and Rs3 lakh) is that Ethos pays the premium to the insurance company, and that cost doesn’t trickle down to the customer. If there are damages, the liability of the watch owner is Rs1,000 or 10% of the claim, whichever is higher. According to Raja Sekhar, chief financial officer of Ethos, repairs for a Tag Heuer usually range anywhere between Rs400 and Rs50,000.

What will happen to the policy after the first year seems hazy;

the company is still in the process of figuring out the nitty-gritty.

The policy seems like a smart way to attract potential Tag buyers, away from other watch stores, by giving them what no Indian can resist—more bang for your buck. “In this economic climate, it takes away the guilt of spending so much on a watch. You have the comfort that it’s insured, and that helps to make the purchase,” says Sekhar.

Parizaad Khan

NEWS L7

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

The season of colour

View from the top MADHU KAPPARATH/MINT

For 2010, Raseel Gujral Ansal’s new furniture store offers orange, plum and olive

Mumbai’s newest rooftop bar at the Four Seasons offers a panorama of the city that never sleeps

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hile giving Lounge an exclusive peek into her new, 14,000-sq. ft Casa Paradox outlet at The Gallery on Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road, New Delhi, Raseel Gujral Ansal describes it as a “voyeuristic space that will make you feel like you are part of someone else’s lifestyle”.

Located on the ground floor of this yet-to-open mall, the store’s show windows flank both sides of the mall’s main entrance. On one side is Ansal’s office-cum-consultation studio, along with a space (under construction) for showcasing two international furniture brands that Ansal has been importing.

On the other side is Casa Paradox’s range of indigenously designed and manufactured furniture, wall finishes and treatments, furnishings and internationally sourced accessories.

Though Casa Paradox already has one outlet (at DLF Emporio mall), Ansal felt the need for a larger space because “people respond better to physical products than to pictures or drawings or concept notes”.

Everything you see at the store can be duplicated—whether it is stencilling or embossing for walls, furniture pieces, accessories such as lamps, vases, planters, mirrors and small bric-a-brac.

Ansal updates the accessories every six-eight weeks and never orders the same collection twice.

The good stuff Ansal is keeping up with the trends for 2010 and this is reflected in the store.

Purple and lavender were huge last year, but this autumn onwards, says Ansal, plum and dusty pink are hot. “Orange is even bigger. Everything next year onwards—you can already see it creeping in—will have lots of hues of orange: cinnamon, peach, apricot, coral.

Another colour that has already made its presence felt is gold. We already have accessories in gold hues—from large oversized lamps to horn-embellished small boxes, etc.”

Leather furniture is also making its mark at Casa Paradox. Look out for the faux leather chair in orange,

A

Small wonder: The chair represents three trends: the colour orange, the use of leather and miniaturizing furniture; (below) olive mother­of­pearl vase from DK Home.

Rs1.2 lakh (taxes extra) or the faux leather chair with armrests in silver, Rs1.46 lakh (taxes extra). Olive is the other colour Ansal is rooting for—from its dullest shade to its brightest, almost acid-like, avatar. Our pick: a disc-shaped, flat, oversized vase from the new mother-of-pearl collection from DK Home (part of a Dutch designer’s collection); prices start at Rs30,000.

In the last six months or so, says Ansal, the trend is towards clean and contemporary lines once again, but with some degree of ornamentation.

There are some miniature pieces in the store. “I have always liked oversized furniture but what I have seen internationally is the creation of ‘mini-me’ ranges.”

They are tightly proportioned pieces of furniture—such as the orange chairs—which are quirky

and charming. Ansal is planning chairs, small consoles, cocktail tables and small writing tables in this range.

The not­so­good The overly ornate Narcissus martini tables, with hanging crystal tassels, don’t go with the rest of the current stock. And Casa Paradox should not shift focus from its strength, which is luxury, and try to incorporate elements such as small side tables in stainless steel.

er, Mumbai’s Four Seasons Hotel’s soon-to-be-launched rooftop bar, will function as a showcase for Mumbai. Set 34 storeys above the Maximum City, everything pales in comparison to the view—the Haji Ali mosque, the Bandra-Worli Sealink, and Lower Parel with its modern towers standing alongside old mills, highlighted by twinkling lights.

The bar occupies both halves of the slim building, and is joined by a corridor in the middle. True to Four Seasons standards, the decor is contemporary and minimal. The neon-lit elevated circular bar is very reminiscent of Sirocco, Bangkok’s most famous rooftop bar.

Clients will have to climb a flight of stairs flanked by walls fitted with a beautiful pattern of mirrored glass.

Like south Mumbai’s other rooftop favourite, Dome at InterContinental, Marine Drive, Aer’s decor is also primarily white. The space is dotted with curvy outdoor chairs padded with soft black cushions. However, the cigarette butt-shaped bar stools are not the best base for an evening.

Known names in interior design, from Bob Bilkey, Oscar Llinas and Nozer Wadia to Ritu Nanda and Elsie Nanji, have contributed to the space.

The food and beverage options have been kept simple. Food is a range of 20 hot and cold meze—a selection of primarily Lebanese-style appetizers— out of which 13 are vegetarian or have vegetarian options (we didn’t try any as the kitchen was not operational).

Pita is baked fresh on order and the usual suspects, such as tabouleh, baba ganoush and hummus are offered, as

well as other favourites such as muhammara and kibbeh. The menu diverts from Lebanese in a few instances—mini cheeseburgers, a veg maki roll tempura and bruschetta.

The desserts seem intriguing.

Executive chef Giancarlo di Francesco says each has an alcohol element: pistachio ice cream with kirsch and amarena cherry, rum and raisin ice cream with banana frites, and sorbet with fruit and Grand Mariner.

The few cocktails I sampled weren’t anything out of the ordinary. Horizon featured Absolut vodka muddled with curry leaves and fresh coconut water.

The mix, with a hint of lime, was interesting; it’s a drink you would probably order once to explore the flavours, but not again. The shooters (not on the bar menu) were more interesting. Verteligo, the best of the lot, had citrusy freshness with fresh orange juice, Absolut and cranberry juice.

Caribbean was a revamped piña colada with coconut syrup instead of milk.

Four Seasons has kept the prices here in the same range as those in its other restaurants. Appetizers range between Rs450 and Rs900. The cocktails are Rs600-650, while champagne cocktails are Rs600 before 8pm and Rs1,100 after. A pint of Kingfisher is Rs250. Aer serves champagne by the glass, starting with Rs1,000 and going up to Rs5,000 for Dom Perignon. Champagne is half-price before 8pm.

Aer will be closed during the rains, as the hotel doesn’t want to cover up the open-air space. It will undoubtedly be one of the best spots in Mumbai to sip champagne and watch the city hum and pulsate down below.

For reservations, call 022-24818900.

Reservations only for groups of 10 or more. No cover charge.

Parizaad Khan

Talk plastic The Arca collection (small boxes, vases embellished with horns, in muted gold tones) starts at Rs78,000; The Formiasrl range (coloured glass accessories, including a range in plum) starts at Rs28,000. If you want designers from the studio to visit your home for consultation, you have to pay Rs50,000 (adjustable against future furniture order).

For more details, call 011-65679378.

Seema Chowdhry

High life: Enjoy this stunning view of Mumbai at Aer from 11 December.

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

Business Lounge WILFRIED G AULBUR

His other car is also a Merc The physicist­ turned­CEO of Mercedes­Benz believes 2010 will be their year in the luxury car segment

B Y P OORNIMA M OHANDAS poornima.m@livemint.com

···························· e lifts the satin drape from an iridium silver Mercedes-Benz E350 CDI BlueEfficiency. Like a savvy marketing man, he leaves the podium and struts the stage, taking the media through the features of the car at the Ballroom of The Taj West End hotel in Bangalore.

Wilfried G. Aulbur, the bespectacled managing director and chief executive of Mercedes-Benz India Pvt. Ltd, is, ironically, neither a businessman nor a salesman. He is a physicist.

In 1999, the German, who has a PhD from Ohio State University in the US, made the big switch from academia to join DaimlerChrysler AG (now called Daimler AG, after the marriage with Chrysler Group Llc fell apart) because he just “wasn’t making enough money”. In his three years of research as a postdoctoral fellow, the ash-blond Aulbur authored several research papers on semiconductors and solid-state physics.

I meet him soon after the media launch at the same hotel. We settle down at the Blue Bar, an outdoor bar nestled amid tropical vegetation and enveloped by a moat. He removes his jacket as we order pints of Kingfisher beer on an unseasonably sultry November afternoon, amid a week of relentless showers. As he sees me turn down a Pilsner glass in favour of the chilled green bottle, he chuckles, removes his red and white striped tie and undoes his top button.

I can’t resist asking: Don’t you miss German beer? “No. When I drink German beer in India, it just doesn’t suit me as well as a

H

Behind the wheel: Aulbur says the Indian community closest to the Chinese, who are more outgoing, is Punjabis.

JAYACHANDRAN/MINT

Kingfisher,” says Aulbur, who has lived in India for six years.

The 44-year-old’s entire corporate career has been with the German auto maker. He started by implementing information technology (IT) processes in the aerospace division of the group, then moved to head business development and strategy at the Mercedes-Benz research and development (R&D) set-up in Bangalore. He went back to Germany as executive assistant to the head of the Mercedes cars group.

In January 2006, he came back to India, taking over as the head of India operations.

He first came to this country in 1994, when he got engaged to his Indian girlfriend Rekha Srinivasan, whom he met in Ohio. He returned to India in 2000 to work at the company’s R&D unit in Bangalore. He reminisces about the “old” Bangalore, much like its nostalgic citizens. “It used to be a nice place when we were here. You could get from Defence Colony, where we used to live, to Taj West End in 25-30 minutes. Today, you need a helicopter to make that happen,” says Aulbur, laughing. Defence Colony is a posh residential locality in east Bangalore, about 6.5km from the hotel.

Aulbur expects MercedesBenz India to close 2009 as a year of flat sales. Indian auto market sales dropped with the global financial slowdown as banks increased car loan rates. Since July, car sales have picked up smartly, posting double-digit growth over the comparative period last year. Mercedes-Benz witnessed its highest monthly sales ever in October, with 325 passenger cars, more than double of October 2008.

“The worst is over. Next year will be a year of growth,” says Aulbur, who speaks extremely clear English, thanks to a US education, but with a distinct German accent.

Mercedes-Benz has just launched the more fuel-efficient E350, and he adds mysteriously that the company has “a slew of exciting products” lined up for the Indian market. He promises to bring the entire range of sustainable vehicles, be it electric or hybrid cars, to India once the right-hand drives roll out. In November, the German parent unveiled its first hybrid, Mercedes-Benz

IN PARENTHESIS Aulbur first came to India in 1994. “At that particular point in time, there were only two reactions to India: You either loved it or you hated it,” he recounts.

Aulbur was smitten and has never looked back.

“Exciting, fascinating, extremely warm, extremely friendly,” is how he describes the country. He rates India much higher than his homeland in the foreigner­friendliness quotient.

“A country is perceived through the people that you meet. India is a country with significant strength, significant soul.” He worries that India is losing a lot of this soul in the process of getting more and more prosperous. “But that’s life and that shouldn’t keep us from prospering.” Aulbur counts India as one of the best countries to live in. While he claims to have repeatedly said the same to journalists, he adds, “I think they don’t believe me.”

S400 hybrid, and is building a bouquet of electric cars.

Despite its 38 product variants in India, with prices ranging from Rs24 lakh to more than Rs5 crore, Mercedes-Benz sales were overtaken by German peer Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, better known as BMW, in 2009. Mercedes-Benz had been the market leader in luxury cars since its entry into India in 1994.

Has the brand that Indian royalty imported since the 1920s, the brand that helps every upstart seal his position in high society, become a little staid, especially with the younger generation?

“BMW had the advantage that they hadn’t been seen before. So they looked new,” says Aulbur.

But he says Mercedes-Benz is better suited to Indian roads. He likens the recent change in customer preferences to a married man who suddenly fancies a new girlfriend. “It doesn’t mean that your wife is old or unattractive.

You only need to spice up your marriage.” So brand communication has been spiced up, made “significantly younger than it used to be”.

In the 15 years that the company has been here, business has grown steadily, encouraging Aulbur to open a plant in Chakan, near Pune, earlier this year. “The plant is built to serve us for the next 5-10 years,” he says.

The luxury car market forms just 0.06% of the overall Indian market; small cars make up nearly three-fourths of total sales. Hence, for the German car maker, which sells around 1.1 million vehicles globally across at least 250 countries, revenues from India are still small. “Growth has to come from markets like India,” says Aulbur. Comparatively, “China is a factor 20 or 30 ahead (of the Indian market)”. In China, Mercedes-Benz sold at least 53,300 vehicles in the 10 months till October, compared with 2,798 units in India.

The Chinese culturally are more outgoing and like to spend on luxury products, observes Aulbur. “The closest community in India would be a Punjabi. They have a tendency to say, listen, this is who I am,” he adds.

Aulbur, who is also president of the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, is counting on a changing India to pump up sales as the young working population begins to earn more and nurture higher aspirations. “The young generation basically wants to enjoy life, they don’t want to save for their children,” says Aulbur, who sees the Indian market growing for decades.

While Aulbur owns an M-class and an S-class, and alternates between driving himself or using a chauffeur, he swoons over the power-packed AMGs. He says he has used a Merc almost all his life, except for a Chrysler 300C. He now lives in Pune, where the company is headquartered, in a quaint Parsi bungalow in Koregaon Park. Ironically, his wife Rekha, who has a PhD in chemistry and a master’s in business administration, currently works in Mercedes-Benz, Germany. “I’m trying to get her back (to India).” Interestingly, he and his wife, who have no children, have spent nearly half of their 13-year married life living in different cities, most often in different continents.

Through these years apart, at least over the last few, MercedesBenz has been one of the common bonds between the two.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

www.livemint.com

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Trend Sheet TREND TRACKER

t FCUK: Stretch fit

First­aid fashionistas

dress with multiple ribbon panels, at Shoppers Stop in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi; Vama, Kemps Corner, Mumbai; and Select Citywalk mall, New Delhi, Rs4,499.

Herve Leger’s iconic bandage dress is the new red carpet staple; it has also inspired high street lookalikes B Y R ACHANA N AKRA rachana.n@livemint.com

···························· he dress that has had Hollywood stars and models in thrall for years has found fans in our country. In the early 1990s, French designer Herve Leger brought back the body-con look with Lycra and spandex-rich bands that curved around the female form to give it that coveted hour-glass shape.

Since then, he has created innumerable variations of the bandage dress, which doesn’t require accessories—just the right attitude.

From star wives Gauri Khan and Suzanne Roshan and socialites Queenie Singh, Parmeshwar Godrej, Natasha Poonawala and Avanti Birla to red carpet scene stealers Katrina Kaif, Shilpa Shetty and Priyanka Chopra, everyone can be found wrapped in this miracle of elasticity.

T

Wrap around: (clockwise from top, middle) Pooja Batra, Sophie Choudhry, Queenie Singh, Malaika Arora Khan and Kangana Ranaut have all been spotted in Leger’s iconic dress.

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

YOGEN SHAH

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

pForever New: One shoulder dress with sequins, at Forever New stores in Bangalore, Ludhiana, Mumbai and New Delhi, Rs7,800.

p Mango: Stretch dress with front zipper, at Mango stores in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi,

Rs3,690.

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

t Taxxi: Raw silk dress with bands, at Taxxi and Vitamin K, Khar (West), Mumbai, Rs3,800.

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space age

Concepts: (clockwise from left) The gold drop chandelier from Klove Studio in Delhi is made in blown glass—each drop costs Rs10,000; the four Vertical Gardens at the ITC Royal Gardenia hotel, Bangalore, are each embedded with 1,500 plants; SICIS—The Art Mosaic Factory’s Gustav Klimt wall mosaic can be commissioned to suit any wall dimension (the one in the picture costs Rs11 lakh), while the Maxima bathtub is priced at Rs15 lakh; and the multifunction rainshower with chromotherapy from Gessi’s Private Wellness range is priced upwards of Rs4.18 lakh.

THE NEW

Five innovative, yet functional luxury home concepts that will change the way you live

B Y A NINDITA G HOSE & V EENA V ENUGOPAL ······························ ure, the multi-jet shower console was exactly what you wanted three years ago, but now you feel like a relaxing soak in a tub while watching your favourite movie. The heavy crystal chandelier was perfect when you bought it, but now just looks so Bollywood. We picked five new ideas to update your luxury home.

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Bathroom boudoir You’re soaking in a claw-foot bathtub, water jets from your newly installed hydrotherapy system massage your muscles, and a Gustav Klimt created with gold and platinum-coloured glass chips dresses the wall before you.

You feel too rested and want to spruce things up: You turn to your chromotherapy rainshower.

The new-age bathroom calls for a neologism that encompasses all that it has come to be—home spa, art space, television den, music room. Several products launched in the Indian market this year cater to this changing definition. The Italian art mosaic store, SICIS-The Art Mosaic Factory, inaugurated its India flagship store earlier this week too. Wall and floor mosaics are available in the range of Rs1.80 lakh to Rs4.75 lakh per sq. m. Once a design is selected, mosaic chips are air-freighted from SICIS’ Italian workshop.

Bangalore-based architect Sandeep Khosla says that every two of his 10 clients these days ask “at least” for a chromotherapy shower. “The bathroom is now seen as an extension of one’s living space where you can read, listen to music and watch television,” says Khosla. He suggests having sofas, benches, shelves, paintings... The possibilities are endless, as long as the dry and wet spaces are separate.

The influx of international luxury bath brands such as Duravit, Kohler, Gessi and Jacob-Delafon have made the Indian bathroom’s transition to its new avatar easier.

Gessi, for instance, offers showers with spray selections that include rainfall, water blades and atomization effects. And its multi-hued chromotherapy options include fixed or changing coloured light.

And if you want to make your bathroom more of a boudoir—a place to relax in for long hours— you can now avail of the wonders of digital entertainment even while you soak in those aromatherapy oils. The Korean company Saturn’s bathtub made with liquid acrylic resin comes fitted with a television (www.saturn.co.kr). Created by

maverick industrial designer Karim Rashid, the foot of the oval bathtub structure holds a waterproof LCD screen which allows you to watch television and DVDs, listen to MP3 format music and even surf the Net. Other brands are also incorporating digital entertainment into bath artefacts: Kohler launched DTV I last year, with chromotherapy and pressure jet features. But Sharad Mathur, managing director, Kohler India, says an increasing demand for digital entertainment in the bathroom prompted the brand to update with audio features this May. So in Kohler’s DTV II, which has an amalgamation of various spa techniques that create hydrotherapy experiences, users can listen to their pet tunes via an iPod plug-in. That is, if the system’s extensive pre-fed music doesn’t make the cut.

Lighten up If you have a big crystal chandelier, now would be a good time to take it down, pack it up and store it. Lighting is no longer just about illumination, it is about enhancing the talking point of the room.

“The hot new concept of lighting luxury houses is more about making the light source an art piece rather than a light fixture,” says Prateek Jain from Klove Studio. Jain makes 30ft installations out of blown glass, crystals and metals. The lighting is often part of the installation itself.

Experts say the design and constituent materials of the centrepiece should reflect the design philosophy of the house itself.

The influence now, Jain says, is more Scandinavian. These installations could cost anything from Rs1 lakh to Rs10 lakh, depending on the size and nature of materials used. Blown-glass pieces tend to be expensive, as are installations made of brass and copper.

“Lighting is now done scientifically. It is important to use lux (a measure of lighting) values before designing the lighting of the house. Also, earlier lighting luxury homes meant simply hanging a big chandelier irrespective of the design ethos of the room. Now, if you have leather sofas and the room is done up in tan colours, you have a choice of unusual materials, including leather for your lights,” says Varun Verma, of Jaquar Concept Lighting.

The global influence is high, especially with the influx of European lighting brands such as FLOS, Artemide, etc. These lights start at Rs60,000 and go up to Rs3 lakh. If you must have a chandelier, then Swarovski crystals mixed with blown glass is the way to go.

Control freak A photo frame that magically becomes a video screen? A luxury home needs some cutting-edge technology. And that’s in its security systems. The security structures of luxury homes follow a multi-layered model. These start with access-controlled doors and gates and videophones and can go on to systems that unleash gas blankets on intruders. Video door phones and fingerprint access systems are the basic security that any luxury home must have. Videophones need not be ugly screens mounted on the wall; they now come wellcamouflaged as photo frames.

When the phone is activated, the photograph recedes and the image of the person outside the door becomes visible. Fingerprint access is usually installed on the doors of bedrooms or cupboards. So if you are not at home, you do not have to worry about someone accessing the jewellery cupboard or the clothes wardrobe. Fingerprint locks cost upwards of Rs25,000.

These apart, the must-have

HEMANT

MISHRA/M INT

security systems are linked to mobile phones now. All alarm systems are wired to the mobile phone. This means that each time you arm or disarm an alarm, you get a message on the phone. If an intruder breaks in while you are away, it would trigger the alarm and you would get a notification on your cellphone. Zicom’s systems take it one step forward and offer you access to the company’s control rooms. Once you get the information on your phone that your security system has been breached, you can call up the control room and tell it what to do.

This would include calling the neighbours or the police.

The other interesting security feature is the home occupancy simulator. This device, when turned on, would simulate sounds and actions as though the house is occupied. This means opening the curtains in the morning, emanating normal household noises such as children playing, the hum of the washing machine and the refrigerator, switching on the lights after dark, closing the curtains at night, etc. These can also be controlled with the phone. Some systems even offer you the option of providing limited access through the phone. For example, if you are out of town and a family member wants to go to your house for some reason, you can press the access code on your phone and open and close the door. These systems costs upwards of Rs2.5 lakh, depending on the equipment you buy.

Go earthy With all the talk of sustainability, harvest one of the most abundant elements to live green: earth.

Rammed earth walls—created by ramming a mix of soil and sand with minimal cement—have an embodied energy and carbon footprint about four times less than country-fired bricks. The differently coloured components and the layers of ramming create a natural pattern that imitates a cut-rock surface, eliminating the need for wall paint entirely. If au naturel is not your thing, you can opt for motifs to be engineered into your design.

This yet-to-be-popularized concept is an extension on the lines of compressed earth blocks that architects have been using over the years. But it is trickier since the entire structure needs to be created on site, making the technology redundant for apartments.

Also, all structural elements such as electrical and other wiring need to be worked in at the initial stage.

So if you’re set to commission a villa or a farmhouse, this could work fantastically.

Rammed earth walls encourages utilization soil from the site, eliminating the need for fuel consumed in transportation, and rendering the process highly sustainable. Though this technology requires some initial investment for the formwork, construction prices are 10-15% less than conventional fired brick walls.

Young architects Ganesh Bala and David Nightingale from Auroville used this technology in 2005 at Vérité, a community structure in Auroville with a focus on alternative technologies. It was in sync with the architectural philosophy for Vérité—a community that seeks to employ renewable energy systems.

Bala and Nightingale consulted the French architect Satprem Maïni for this project. Maïni, who pioneered this technique in Auroville in 1995 for the Mirramukhi School, is the director of the Auroville Earth Institute (www.earth-auroville.com) and the Unesco chairperson of earth architecture for Asia. He has pioneered several earth architectural concepts. His institute is dedicated to researching, developing, promoting and transferring earthbased technologies, which are cost- and energy-effective.

Another high-end sustainable solution is the earth tunnel air conditioner.

Bangalore-based green residential builder Biodiversity Conservation India Ltd (BCIL) uses the earth without actually taking from it. With its earth tunnel air-conditioning system, BCIL will arguably house the world’s largest residential earth tunnel cooling system

when its residential project in Bangalore is ready early next year.

So what is an earth tunnel system? In a city such as Bangalore, for instance, the temperature at a depth of 4m into the earth is around 23-25° Celsius. By facilitating a thermal exchange with tunnels dug into the ground, the geothermal system conditions the temperature of the ambient air, reducing or increasing it to 25° Celsius. Vertical ducts then take this conditioned air to the spaces that need air conditioning and several shafts remove hot, stale air from the room. At approximately Rs160 per sq. ft, the cost of incorporating this in a 3,000 sq. ft villa would be Rs4.8 lakh (www.ecobcil.com).

Living walls The Vertical Garden, known as Le Mur Végétal in French, goes by many names—Living Walls, Green Walls, Vertical Green.

Popularized by French architect Patrick Blanc, vertical gardens are a great solution for those who yearn for green but have to battle with a lack of space.

Canadian company Elevated Landscape Technologies Inc.’s first project in India was at a residential space in Mumbai earlier this year. The ELT Easy Green Living Wall panel is a modular panel that can either be pre-grown or planted in place. The panel consists of 45 individual cells and each cell is independently designed to contain enough space to add a growing medium and sustain water supply to the roots, maintaining a healthy and growing plant. Small ridges are pro-

vided at the back of the panels to allow airflow and prevent moisture damage. These cost Rs1,800-2,500 per sq. ft, depending on the choice of plants.

Anuradha Barpande, a horticulture contractor who represents ELT India, currently has 85 kinds of grass, ferns and shrubs on offer.

She explains that the plants are picked with a variety of factors in mind—light intensity, available water sources and humidity. Flowering plants such as balsam and chrysanthemum are also possible but would need more care.

This design concept is being used in commercial spaces too.

The ITC Royal Gardenia that opened in Bangalore recently had Jikki Parthasarathy, a horticultural expert from Singapore, create four, 30m-high vertical gardens in the hotel’s non-air-conditioned lobby as well as in the coffee shop and spa. The Vertical Garden at the hotel’s multi-cuisine coffee shop, The Cubbon Pavilion, covers an entire wall and has around 25,000 plants and reaches up to the 12th floor, to a skylight at the top.

Landscape architect Sriganesh Rajendran of Apeiron Architects, Mumbai, has been experimenting with living walls for about a year.

He says these can elegantly spruce up an otherwise staid façade. He also points out other benefits of having vertical foliage on the exterior of your structure—it acts as an insulating barrier, reducing the need for artificial air conditioning. So you can look green and be green too (www.eltlivingwalls.com) anindita.g@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

Style DAY

B Y R ACHANA N AKRA rachana.n@livemint.com ·························

Top coat RETAIL THERAPY

1. Aquascutum: Wool and linen jacket with herringbone effect and contrast collar, Rs31,000.

2. Tom Ford: Metal rim aviator sunglasses, Rs17,800.

3. Duchamp: Multicoloured striped woollen scarf, Rs12,000.

4. Hackett: Black biker jacket from the Aston Martin collection, Rs24,000.

5. Salvatore Ferragamo: Orange and grey sports shoes, Rs26,000.

6. Ravi Bajaj: Ivory crepe wool bandhgala with ombré dyed panels, Rs25,000.

7. Just Cavalli: Brown wrap­around sunglasses, Rs4,400.

8. Salvatore Ferragamo: Printed red silk tie, Rs9,000.

9. Rajesh Pratap Singh: Indigo denim single­button jacket, Rs13,750.

10. Tag Heuer: Tag Heuer Carrera automatic chronograph with leather strap, Rs1.87 lakh.

11. Dolce & Gabbana: ‘Martini’ white jacket with blue detailing, Rs1,37,513.

12. Diesel: Red washed canvas blazer, Rs15,300.

Look sharp and get kitted out this party season in our picks of day and evening jackets in shiny linen, velvet, leather and polka dots

STYLE L13

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

NIGHT

1. Versace: Cropped blue leather jacket with zipper pockets, approx. Rs1 lakh.

2. Ermenegildo Zegna: Cherry red moccasins with tassels, Rs42,800.

Rs22,000.

jacket, Rs35,850.

6. Dolce & Gabbana: ‘Martini’ silk blue and white­dotted evening jacket, Rs1,47,992.

10. Emporio Armani: Blue velvet slim fit jacket, Rs50,000.

11. Etro: Purple polka­dot silk tie, Rs7,616.

7. Tod’s: ‘Gommini’ winter boots in brown leather, Rs30,000.

12. Dolce & Gabbana: Leather belt with studs, Rs48,825.

4. Versace: Deep blue scarf in rex fur, approx. Rs50,000.

8. Montblanc: Sport chronograph watch with metal strap, Rs1,74,200.

13. Etro: Evening jacket with yellow printed collar detailing, Rs99,909.

5. Ashish Soni: Gold silk single­button jacket,

9. Narendra Kumar: Grey metallic linen double­collar

14. Kenzo: Red and black woollen scarf, Rs12,500.

3. Ravi Bajaj: Black and white polka­dot jacket, Rs18,000.

SHOPPING GUIDE Aquascutum: The Collective, Bangalore; and Palladium, Mumbai u

u Ashish

Soni: DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi u Diesel:

Coming soon to India. Visit www.diesel.com Dolce & Gabbana: Thanks, Worli, Mumbai u

Duchamp: The Collective, Bangalore; and Palladium, Mumbai u

Emporio Armani: DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi u

Ermenegildo Zegna: Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi u

Etro: Thanks, Worli, Mumbai u

Hackett: The Collective, Bangalore; and Palladium, Mumbai u

Just Cavalli: At all leading optical outlets and department stores nationwide u

Kenzo: JW Marriott, Mumbai u

Montblanc: Montblanc boutiques in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and New Delhi u

Narendra Kumar: Aza Men, Mumbai u

Rajesh Pratap Singh: Aza Men, Mumbai u

Ravi Bajaj: Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi u

Salvatore Ferragamo: The Galleria and Grand Hyatt Plaza, Mumbai u

Tag Heuer: At UB City, Bangalore; Grand Hyatt Plaza, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi u

Tod’s: At UB City, Bangalore; The Galleria, Nariman Point, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi u

Tom Ford: At all leading optical outlets and department stores nationwide u

Versace: DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi u

LOCATION COURTESY: TOTE ON THE TURF, MAHALAXMI, MUMBAI PHOTOGRAPHS: ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

Books BIOGRAPHY

The man who played day and night COURTESY HARPERCOLLINS INDIA

Much of this biography is conjecture and hearsay—not befitting a pin­up boy, legend, politician and ladies’ man, all rolled into one B Y S ALIL T RIPATHI ···························· he first time I saw Imran Khan was on black and white television in India, in 1978, when the Faisalabad Test began, as India took on Pakistan after a gap of 17 years. As he came bounding in, bowling to Sunil Gavaskar, for a moment I thought this is what a classic duel is about: the world’s most exciting allrounder bowling to the world’s greatest opener. Gavaskar excelled in that series, scoring 447 runs, including two centuries in the last Test (and two more near-centuries); Khan’s swashbuckling exploits played no small role in winning the series for Pakistan.

Later, he joined the Packer circus: Images of him wearing a T-shirt saying “Big Boys Play at Night” exuded a sex appeal cricketers possessed but had never exhibited. He was cricket’s first pin-up model.

Then I saw Khan in Sharjah: I was a correspondent with India Today, and I was there to cover a tri-nation series, which Pakistan won with ease. By then, Khan had become royalty: He had added an arrogant swagger to his persona.

Men danced when he hit sixes, women swooned and boys had dreams of emulating him. Two years later, he won the World Cup for Pakistan.

All along, Khan was never far from the gossip columns. The paternity trial he faced in England did little to dent his reputation. For some, his mystique was enhanced when he married Jemima Goldsmith. That marriage did not last, though, and Khan became a politician, angry with the successive rulers of Pakistan and their duplicitous policy of appeasement with Americans on the one hand, and pretence of being holy at home.

Khan himself flirted with dangerous politics, his views often appearing in alignment with oddball fundamentalists.

Khan’s is a fascinating saga: A world class sportsman who propelled his country to the top of the cricketing world, albeit briefly;

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Imran Khan: The Cricketer, the Celebrity, the Politician: HarperCollins, 402 pages, Rs499. lover of many women whose hearts he broke easily; a quixotic politician who failed to translate his personal popularity into political appeal in a country crying out for heroes; a man deeply affected by the death of his mother, which prompted him to make a herculean effort to raise nearly $60 million (around Rs281 crore now) to build a world-class cancer hospital in Pakistan.

In fact, his mother had a deep impact on his life. Early on in Imran Khan: The Cricketer, The Celebrity, The Politician, his new biography of Khan, author Christopher Sandford writes, quoting him: “‘Once, when I was 13,’ Imran recalls, ‘I was stopped by the police while I was driving my father’s motor car. Of course, I didn’t have a licence. So I did the only thing possible under the circumstances.

I bribed the policeman. He took the money and I drove away again scot-free. But later that day the chauffeur, who’d been sitting next to me in the car, reported the incident to my mother. She was livid.’”

The den: Khan at his London home in the 1970s; one visitor’s impression of it was, ‘a Sixties’ art gallery crossed with a sultan’s harem’.

Those who witnessed (or even heard of) the fury of this normally serene, well-bred lady would long marvel at the scene. By resorting to bribery, Khan had brought a terrible shame both on himself and his family. No punishment was too severe for this uniquely heinous offence. Khan’s spluttering attempt at a defence was cut short by his mother’s abrupt verdict on the matter. “You’re not other boys,” she reminded him, decisively. “You are a Pathan.”

How dramatic would such a life be! And yet, in the hands of Sandford, whose past biographies include works about cricketers Godfrey Evans and Tom Graveney, musicians Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain and David Bowie, and film-maker Roman Polanski, this book fails to rise above the tedium and trivia, making it read like, well, Wisden’s Almanac without the essays. Not only does the cricket fail to stimulate, so does the titillating promise of sex.

Much has been made of the book’s most interesting nugget,

involving Khan and the late Benazir Bhutto at Oxford in the 1970s.

Did they or didn’t they? Sandford claims that Bhutto, then 21, became “infatuated” with the dashing Khan, and the pair had a “close” and “possibly sexual” relationship. Given the conservative nature of Pakistani society (and Bhutto’s subsequent arranged marriage), and given their proximity, you yearn for more. Add the fact that Khan and Bhutto never admired each other’s politics. How neat, and how Bollywood-like an explanation would it have been, if you could trace the origins of their political rivalry to a failed love affair at Oxford? But Sandford’s confidante can only tell him that Bhutto was “visibly impressed” by Khan, and may have been the first to call him the “Lion of Lahore”.

All Sandford can say: “It also seems fair to say that the relationship was ‘sexual’, in the sense that it could only have existed between a man and a woman. The reason some supposed it went further was because, to quote one Oxford

friend: ‘Imran slept with everyone.’” This is conjecture, not an insight or a disclosure.

What’s interesting is the description of Khan’s apparent contradictions, even as he turns to God. Citing Syra Vahidy, a friend of Khan’s, who with her husband invited Khan and his then German girlfriend to a shooting party in 1994 in rural Pakistan: Khan was wearing Pakistani attire, and throughout that trip, he kept talking about his new-found interest in religion. He talked about his rediscovery of his own faith and traditions. He kept telling his girlfriend of the proper Islamic protocol.

Instead of cricket, he spoke of God. “Imran seemed almost to have reinvented himself as a man of God. Of course, he and his girlfriend still slept together at night.”

Sandford quotes Vahidy as saying, and in that juxtaposition, offers all the contradictions about the man.

Indeed, it is such observations, where people who have known Khan offer insights through anecdotes, that redeem the book. There

are many other interviews, including with musicians and rock stars who were Khan’s friends on the party circuit, players and managers from the world of county cricket, and politicians who know him. But banality rules, as does anonymity—particularly when it comes to women talking about their relationships with Khan. But oddly enough, given that they are granted anonymity, their impressions are often pedestrian. Taken together, these insights reveal Khan as a selfish, misunderstood man who is, in the end, flawed.

That would have made a great story, but it would have required a different book.

Salil Tripathi writes the fortnightly column Here, There, Everywhere for Mint.

Write to lounge@livemint.com IN SIX WORDS A cursory examination of Imran’s life

KEYNES: THE RETURN OF THE MASTER | ROBERT SKIDELSKY

The soothsayer Why we still have a lot to learn from the work of John Maynard Keynes B Y N IRANJAN R AJADHYAKSHA niranjan.r@livemint.com

···························· t would not be incorrect to say that one of the few economists who came out of the financial crisis with an enhanced reputation is John Maynard Keynes, the English economist who died in 1946.

There was a time not too long ago when Keynes was dismissed as a loose thinker whose theories neither stood the test of time nor met the requirements of modern academic rigour. Nobel Prize winner Robert Lucas had written in 1980, “At research seminars, people don’t take Keynesian theorizing seriously any more; the audi-

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ence starts to whisper and giggle to one another.”

Modern macroeconomists who were believed to have won a final victory over Keynes after the global stagflation of the 1970s were neither able to predict the terrible economic downturn of the past two years nor able to offer any compelling policy solutions. Governments saved economies from total collapse by increasing their spending budgets and cutting taxes, the classic Keynesian solution.

However, there is more to Keynes than the use of fiscal policy to fight recessions. Robert Skidelsky does well to show in Keynes: The Return of the Master that the man he describes as “the most important economic thinker in the world” had more to offer than an intellectual justification for higher government spending.

Keynes believed that we operate in a world of radical uncer-

AFP

trast, the crisis that the world is now struggling to get out of began in the financial e c o n o m y because of a huge underpricing of risk.

Later disciples of Keynes, such as the American economist Hyman Minsky— Keynes–The Return of whose work was the Master: all but forgotten Allen Lane, Think tank: Keynes (right) in the 1940s, during the till about two 214 pages, Rs550. formational days of the International Monetary Fund. years ago—built a more coherent tainty where the future is essen- cal factors that drive economic explanation about how ecotially unknowable, which is in cycles, something that economists nomic instability has roots in stark contrast to the belief in aca- Robert Shiller and George Akerlof financial instability, even though demic seminar rooms and invest- have tried to develop in their the calls of these post-Keynement bank trading floors that recent book, Animal Spirits. sians for the socialization of there is little about the economic I am not sure that the standard investment seem impractical. world that a bit of math cannot Keynesian explanations tell us Skidelsky is better known as reveal. His insistence that people everything about what has hap- the author of the monumental allocate savings according to their pened since August 2007. Keynes three-volume biography of Keyliquidity preference or that entre- believed that crises start in the nes, widely regarded as the most preneurial investment is driven by real economy after a collapse of authoritative in its class. His new animal spirits is an early attempt what he described as the mar- book is elegantly written and perto examine the deep psychologi- ginal efficiency of capital. In con- suasively argued, but it has

clearly been published in a hurry to meet the requirements of the post-crisis reading market. The first 30 pages on the current crisis read like an overview of what bloggers and newspaper op-ed writers have had to say, and is a bit of a let-down.

But the book gets better. The biographical chapter on the many lives of Keynes is one of the best. It shows that Keynes was a man of the world: Cambridge don, investor, civil servant, member of the avant-garde Bloomsbury Group and journalist. Keynes lived in the real world, which is why his economics was driven by practical considerations rather than theoretical elegance.

Keynes had a mercurial mind and formidable intellect.

We still have much to learn from him—and his contemporaries such as Irving Fisher, Joseph Schumpeter and F.A. Hayek. Skidelsky’s new book is a good starting point to understand Keynes.

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha is managing editor of Mint.

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM MADHU KAPPARATH/MINT

Handle with care: A staffer at CMYK holds open a volume of Later Chinese Painting and Calligraphy (Random House) that costs Rs32,000.

POSTSCRIPT

LAKSHMI CHAUDHRY

THE POSITIVITY MYTH

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COLLECTIBLES

The moon on sale Books are the latest entrants to the luxury realm, with titles priced as high as Rs3.3 crore

B Y A NINDITA G HOSE anindita.g@livemint.com

···························· wning a piece of the moon isn’t an outrageous metaphor any more. You can have it, and if you do, it would rest in an unlikely place in your house—your bookshelf. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing, Taschen, the publishing house that specializes in books on art and design, will soon bring one of the 12 Lunar Rock editions of Moonfire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11 to India.

Combining the Pulitzer Prizewinning Norman Mailer’s seminal text with previously unpublished photographs from the vaults of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), each copy comes with a unique specimen of lunar rock, ranging in weight from 1.4g to 348g—one of the largest lunar meteorites ever found on earth.

Depending on size, the prices are between €60,000 (approx. Rs42 lakh) and €480,000.

Vasant Kamat, general manager of Dolphin Publications Pvt. Ltd that runs Indus—a high-end book retail chain with its flagship store at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai—is proud to host a slice of the moon. “One out of the 12 copies has been allotted to Asia and it

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Stamped for value: Signed copies of Damien Hirst’s process manuals cost around $150. A selection of his paintings, From the Cradle to the Grave, is priced at

Rs48,000.

MADHU KAPPARATH/MINT

One of its kind: Prices for the Lunar Rock editions of Moonfire start at Rs42 lakh. will come to us,” he says, with obvious pride. Several copies of Moonfire are already in the store.

But without the moon rock, these are priced at Rs51,600.

Indus stocks several other limited edition books such as Walton Ford’s gorgeously illustrated Pancha Tantra and a book dedicated to the fashion maestro Valentino, for Rs76,000 and Rs60,000 respectively (Taschen). Then there’s the store’s pièce de résistance—a signed copy of the biography of Brazilian footballer Edson Arantes do Nascimento, aka Pelé. Priced at Rs1.28 lakh, the 2ft-long book is currently the most expensive book at the store. That will change, however, once the book with the moon rock arrives, packaged in a case made from a single piece of aluminium.

Indus’ coup points to a potent market for luxury books in India.

Several bookstores dedicated to high-end coffee-table books

have emerged over the last few years, indicating a growing customer base. Indus has expanded to two more branches in Mumbai and one at the Taj Residency in Nashik. And three stores—Bookwise, Photoink and CMYK—have opened in Delhi over the last two years.

And now, UK-based publisher Opus, which calls itself “the most luxurious series of publications ever created”, is coming to India.

Opus has previously featured personalities such as Maradona, Prince and Vivienne Westwood and is now working on the Sachin Tendulkar Opus. The publishing house characteristically includes something to further raise the ante of its extensively well-researched books. And the Tendulkar Opus will reportedly come with a vial of the cricketer’s blood.

As a segue to its Tendulkar release, Opus will enter the Indian market with the half-finished

Michael Jackson Opus this month.

So exclusive are these books that they are delivered directly to the buyer’s home once an order has been placed through bookstores that host dummy copies. CMYK, a Roli Books initiative, will host a copy of the Jackson Opus.

Kapil Kapoor, a director with Roli Books, says he was inspired

by Opus’ equated monthly instalment (EMI) system to offer a partpayment scheme for books. “The target consumer for a Michael Jackson book is not one who can afford to pay upwards of Rs2 lakh upfront,” he says, adding, “We’re in talks with several banks to set up a monthly payment scheme.”

Kapoor isn’t absolutely sure that his plan will work. “When you take an EMI for a car, the bank can seize your car if you default. But we’re finding it difficult to convince lenders that these luxury books can work as a collateral,” he says.

While banks may not appreciate the monetary value of these books, stores go the whole hog to perpetuate an aura of luxury. At CMYK, attendants encourage customers to put on handling gloves while browsing through rare books kept on specially designed stands.

“This three-volume set on Chinese calligraphy, for instance, is the only copy of the book we have and we don’t want it to look worn out,” Kapoor explains as he leafs through its pages.

Apart from limited editions, CMYK strives to acquire out-ofprint books such as a book of nude photography by the controversial Japanese photographer Araki.

Pointing to copies of Damien Hirst’s process manuals and catalogues, Kapoor says the artist’s signature raises their price from $35 (around Rs1,650) to $150.

Another Delhi bookstore that specializes in coffee-table wonders, Bookwise, has its staff clingwrap every book on its shelves.

Aarti Walia, who runs the store, says a store executive will gladly unwrap a book if someone wishes to browse through it. She says that the mechanics of unwrapping the book in front of the customer ensures that they are handled with care. “It’s to establish that we care how the books are handled and so far it’s worked.”

At both CMYK and Bookwise, readers are served tea and coffee, without charge of course. The Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi has a reading room with its most valuable art books, around 1,200 titles, apart from a retail space that stocks around 2,000. Poonji Nath, gallery executive at Vadehra, says the reading room provides a chic environment for art and design lovers to browse, with drinks on the house.

As Walia puts it: “It’s all for the luxury experience.”

merica has long been addicted to hope. Apart from a couple of rude interruptions—Vietnam, Nixon, and a brief flirtation with Bush Sr’s sour-puss conservatism—Americans have always bet on a rosy future. They fell in love with the promise of Camelot in the 1960s, Ronald Reagan’s feel-good rhetoric in the 1980s, elected the self-described man from Hope, aka Bill Clinton in the 1990s, and spent much of the past decade embracing the delusional optimism of his successor. Hope is what put a black man in the White House.

These recessionary times, however, have tested the faith of even the cheeriest citizens, many left with little else than their tattered mantle of optimism. Ballooning deficits, rising unemployment, the housing crisis and two wars have released America’s inner grump.

And its most eloquent spokeswoman is Barbara Ehrenreich, whose new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, documents the dark side of optimism, when hope becomes “our ideology—the way we explain the world and think we ought to function within it”. Positive thinking, Ehrenreich argues, is less about comforting the afflicted than bullying them in the name of empowerment. Sparked by Ehrenreich’s brush with breast cancer, the book opens with her efforts to find support within the cancer community that has little time for anger, depression, or other “negative” emotions.

The “magical” premise of positive thinking is that individuals can change their circumstances simply by changing their attitude. In Bright-Sided, Ehrenreich connects the dots between the Laws of Attraction preached by the New Thought Movement in the 19th century, popular self-improvement manuals penned by Norman Vincent Peale, Dale Carnegie, et al, in the 1950s, motivational corporate bibles such as Who Moved My Cheese, and the ALEX BRANDON/AP

Poster boy: Obama’s first book is called The Audacity of Hope. present-day popularity of The Secret. Thanks to Rhonda Byrne, many of us now believe that we can attract the right mate, job, or car simply by “visualizing” them into our lives.

Delusional optimism is no longer an American affliction, but a global epidemic. Our bookstores are crammed to the gills with editions of The Secret and its sequel. There’s no dearth of management voodoo manuals, be it Robin Sharma’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and Guide to Greatness or the more shamelessly acquisitive I Bought the Monk’s Ferrari by Ravi Subramanian. Subramanian’s book is a home-grown contribution to the prosperity gospel, which expediently conflates material and spiritual well-being: God really, really wants you to be rich. This isn’t exactly news to a nation that worships the goddess of wealth, but Subramanian’s book marks a new low. Have book, but no Ferrari? Then you either didn’t dare to aspire or settled for less than the best. It’s your fault if the lemons—cancer, unemployment, bankruptcy—don’t transform themselves into lemonade.

The feel-good song of 1988 was an infectious jingle based on an expression coined by Meher Baba, one of the swamis du jour back in the 1960s. The music video, coming on the heels of the infamous Black Monday on Wall Street, seemed to hint at a darker reality.

Don’t worry, be happy, sings Bobby McFerrin, as a ruined banker jumps off the ledge of his office window. Devotees of The Secret would do well to heed its message: The line between delusion and hope is wafer-thin; we cross it at our peril.

Write to Lakshmi at postscript@livemint.com

FREE VERSE | PETER GRIFFIN

Halflong The clouds here aren’t lonely.

They caress hillsides, embrace trees, play with leaves.

They lounge on the roads, rising lazily to let a car pass Settling down again even before the tyres go around the corner.

They talk to the flowers, and play with the dogs And, I hear, in partnership with campfires, Disorient the birds in nearby Jatinga, So that tribesmen can club them out of the air.

They laze, cradled like pet cats, In the laps of high valleys.

Damp with promise, they leave traces of their passage In the grass, and in the smell of the carpets.

The clouds wander here, But it’s only me that’s lonely.

Peter Griffin is a Mumbai-based writer and poet.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

Culture STALL ORDER

RAAGTIME

NANDINI RAMNATH

A star is airborne Ranbir Kapoor’s rise to the top is scripted like that of a yesteryear star

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ditya Chopra wants him.

Mani Ratnam wants him.

Katrina Kaif wants him (okay, I made that up). The point is, everybody in the film industry wants a piece of Ranbir Kapoor.

Almost every director of repute wants to sign up the young talent, who started his career two years and one month ago. The list is so impressive that film-makers who don’t want to work with Kapoor are likely to feel left out. Has the latest superstar been born? Or has the movie business created one by casting him even before he proved his box-office worth?

Industry insiders must have been hugely relieved when Kapoor’s latest release, Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani, earned all the money it did. The Raj Kumar Santoshi movie sailed home on the strength of some zany comedy and fabulous chemistry between Kapoor and Kaif. The movie provided a return on investment for punters who had bet on Kapoor when he first showed up in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya. The failure of Bhansali’s soporific romance did nothing to harm Kapoor’s chances.

His next outing, the rom-com Bachna Ae Haseeno, did average business, but it helped him build on his Noughties’ conflicted lover-boy image.

Next in the queue is Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year, which until a few months ago was a “Shimit Amin movie” and a “From the Director of Ab Tak Chhappan and Chak De! India” project. The 11 December release is now, quite simply, a “Starring Ranbir Kapoor” film.

Kapoor has everything going for him. He has a face that can suit a variety of roles. He has physical grace. He is 27, several years younger than the Khans, all of whom are above 40, and Hrithik Roshan, who is 35. He Right pitch: represents not just a famous Kapoor in a still family but a decades-old from Rocket tradition of performance.

Singh: Salesman Most importantly, unlike of the Year. his contemporary and

rival-for-a-month Imran Khan, Kapoor has talent. Last year, it briefly seemed that Khan, who is Aamir Khan’s nephew, was the next big thing after his first movie, Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na became a hit.

Khan is a year younger than Kapoor and has equally heavyweight family connections to flaunt. He also has an attractive face, but unfortunately this face doesn’t change expression too often. The chatter about the two friends as friendly competitors fizzled out soon after Kapoor’s Bachna Ae Haseeno and Khan’s Kidnap were released.

The only other actor who can give Kapoor a run for his money is another Kapur. Shahid Kapur is 28, talented and popular.

However, he is regarded as somewhat mercurial and independent-minded. He has been around longer than Kapoor, and has had to struggle hard to convince both film-makers and audiences of his talent. Plus, his lineage isn’t as illustrious as Kapoor’s.

Kapoor’s rise seemed guaranteed even before he underwent the box-office test. The offspring of star actors and film-makers are assumed to be smarter at handling the industry’s ways than the children of army officers and bank managers. Yet the box office has a cruel way of reminding the Esha Deols and Zayed Khans of the world that whosoever your father or mother may be, you are nobody unless you make money for other people. Even Hrithik Roshan, who started off with a huge bang with Kaho Na…Pyaar Hai in 2000, was dumped back on earth by a series of flops before his father scripted his comeback.

Kapoor has incrementally paid back the trust reposed in him. His career has gone from flop to average grosser to big hit, all in three easy steps. He is the perfect star for a decade that has no patience for long drawn-out success stories and that values instant gratification above everything else.

Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year releases in theatres on 11 December.

Nandini Ramnath is the film editor of Time Out Mumbai (www.timeoutmumbai.net).

Write to Nandini at stallorder@livemint.com

SAMANTH S

THIS GURU IS COOL

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he first few times I played Guitar Hero, the ridiculously addictive video game, I played it safe. I am not known, in the circles I move in, for my physical dexterity, so it was daunting to manipulate those coloured “frets” on the little plastic guitar, pretend-playing along with a rock band. As a result, when I was confronted with a long list of songs, most of which I had never encountered, I only picked ones I had heard before (my first conquest: Message in a Bottle). It wasn’t perhaps the most courageous way to begin playing the game, but it was certainly one of the most illuminating.

Simulating the songs on Guitar Hero, it has been pointed out, forces you to actively listen to the music, even to anticipate it. For me, that process revealed less about unfamiliar songs and more about the songs I thought I knew. It turned out that I really only knew the lyrics and the simplest layer of the tune of Message in a Bottle. It took Guitar Hero—and the sort of close listening I would otherwise never have devoted to Message in a Bottle—to teach me how the chord patterns shifted and what the beat structure was.

The American composer Michael Gordon recently wrote about his idea for Orchestra Hero: “What if I could ‘play’ the horn solo in Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks on a ‘controller horn’ or the bassoon solo at the opening of The Rite of Spring on a ‘controller bassoon’?” I must chime in to plead for a Carnatic Hero game, which could prove invaluable for amateurs seeking to understand how ragas work. What if I could “play” the “Ma Ma Ga Ri Sa” phrase of the Raga Begada or the pentatonic scale of Hindolam or the distinctively shaken Ni of Nayaki? They’d be imperfect approximations, but they would let players wander inside the framework of these ragas, touching and feeling the music around them.

Virtually real: Guitar Hero can teach you beats and chord patterns.

The other major, technologically inspired effort to break music into its constituent parts is under way at Pandora, a website that streams free music, at present, to listeners in the US. Pandora is an intelligent, inquisitive service. Analysing as many as 400 attributes of the music you like, it profiles your taste and serves up music that it thinks you’d appreciate. Often, as Rob Walker discovered in a terrific New York Times Magazine article, Pandora vaults past your conscious tastes into your subconscious preferences by giving you Celine Dion, however much you claim to abhor her.

In response to requests, Pandora is now beginning to include Indian music in its database. Walker watched its musicologists sit around taking apart and scrutinizing a Bismillah Khan rendition of Raga Ahir Bhairav. A website streaming the Indian classical music you like is exciting enough. But how much more exciting if, based on your affinity for the Carnatic song Endhuku Peddala, Pandora streams you some Scott Joplin ragtime, and you discover that what appeals to you, even across such disparate genres of music, is the use of deviant beats of syncopation. Despite being seemingly innocuous avenues of entertainment, both Guitar Hero and Pandora go some way towards explaining why we like the music we like.

Write to Samanth Subramanian at raagtime@livemint.com

Mind over matter In Seher Shah’s works, archaeology and history point to psychology

B Y H IMANSHU B HAGAT himanshu.b@livemint.com

···························· he “mother country” exerts a strong tug on the diaspora and pretty much defines their identity in the lands they migrate to. This also holds true for most artists who trace their roots to the Indian subcontinent—more often than not it is their dominant source of inspiration and ideas.

Born in Karachi, Seher Shah grew up in Europe and the US, and she currently lives in New York City. The intriguing black and white drawings and prints that comprise her latest show, Paper to Monument, are clearly inspired by the subcontinent’s history, and use its architectural heritage as their central prop. Much of the focus of the show seems to be on the colonial period, or at least much of the imagery employed in it has been borrowed from that

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Metaphysics: The Expansion Complex II by Seher Shah, Archival Giclee print. era—soldiers in period uniforms, people in period attire and impressive columns reminiscent of imperial Britain.

“The works use public archival memory as a process to build on the ideas, on the aesthetics of imperial power and monu-

ment building,” says Shah over email, describing how she searched for archival photos and other material at libraries and museums in England.

Besides the choice of elements that people her images, it is their composition—a

strong reliance on geometry and wide, open vistas which speak of structure and order—that evokes an utopian and imperial vision.

But Shah’s works are hardly a paean to our colonial past. The way images of monuments, sol-

diers and people have been employed in the montages makes her ironic distance from them immediately apparent.

Nor are the works an exercise in irony; they go beyond and, with their fantasy landscapes and transcendental tints, can be seen as a commentary or meditation on our minds.

As Shah explains: “I am very interested in working with two significantly different scales— the scale of the self and the individual—and in the same moment to explore the larger perspective of nationhood, historical moments and urban relics in the city fabric.” History, architecture and geometry come together in Shah’s vision and offer insights about our mindscapes and the ambivalences within with wit and intelligence.

Paper to Monument will show at Gallery Nature Morte, A1, Neeti Bagh, New Delhi, from 8 December to 9 January. For details, log on to www.naturemorte.com

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

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Travel TRIP PLANNER

An eternal day

THE LOUNGE CUT­OUT­AND­KEEP GUIDE TO

ROME planned through the year. On 13 December, there’s a Christmas-themed market at Valle dei Casali Nature Reserve and on 20 December, a jazz concert at Parco di Veio. For full details and schedules, visit www.parks.it

One of the most beautiful ancient cities of the world, Rome offers more than just history and architecture B Y C ARMELO S ALLEO ································ ome is not a cool or trendy place, it is timeless. In a way, this is a good thing: Without the pressure of looking for the new “it” place, we can focus on what works best for each of us. The rules of the game are simple: Avoid places patronized by tourists or kids. After that, anything goes.

The best season to be in Rome is May-June, when it’s not too hot and crowded and the whole city is blossoming. Alternatively, September-October, when it’s not hot and crowded any more and people are relaxed after their summer holidays.

Riding a scooter is mandatory; there’s no better way to enjoy a breeze and get to any place in 20 minutes (one of the many places to rent a scooter: www.amoromascooterent.it/en/).

I like to start my day early with an espresso at Caffè Sant’Eustachio (www.santeustachioilcaffe.it/en/); everybody knows about this place but it’s still considered the best in town.

A jog in one of our many parks gives me an excuse for later indulgences: Villa Ada when I want some incline, Villa Borghese if I feel like enjoying local beauties.

A quick shower and then maybe some sightseeing. The great thing about Rome is that everybody goes to the 10 or so must-see places (from the Colosseum to the Vatican museums—and if you do go, don’t queue, book your visit!). This leaves us dozens of wonderful, almost deserted places. Stendhal wrote that it takes seven lives to know Rome and I am (hopefully) less than halfway through my first, so I would go to the Etruscan

YOU CAN’T GO TO ROME AND SKIP…

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index.php?lang=en), near the Trevi Fountain.

(Some of the weblinks are available only in Italian.)

R

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Carmelo Salleo is an economist who has spent most of his lifetime in Rome, navigating its chaos and enjoying it thoroughly.

u Because the whole city will join in.

Rome’s street square parties are famous affairs, and very safe if you stick to the popular, centrally located spots. At the Piazza del Popolo, the site of the main celebrations, enjoy live rock and classical music and plenty of high-spirited camaraderie.

Be aware, though, that street parties attract major crowds—so plan your transportation and arrive early. u Not your scene? A little distance away from the Piazza del Popolo is the Hotel de Russie, where soft candlelight, live music and the services of Michelin-starred chef Fulvio Pierangelini will make for a night to remember at €700 per person.

Bookings are essential: Call +39-06-32888870 or email fb.derussie@roccofortecollection.com

Papal city: (top) St Peter’s Square is a popular tourist spot in Rome; and a fountain at Piazza Navona, at night. museum, set in a Renaissance villa and full of little-known masterpieces (www.ticketeria.it/villagiulia-eng.asp).

When it’s time for some appetizers and pasta, head to Pierluigi (www.pierluigi.it/index.php), right in the centre of the city, with a few tables outside and an excellent cellar.

Otherwise, there’s Ditirambo (www.ristoranteditirambo.it/), with a slightly more unexpected selection of dishes. In the afternoon, I might go for a walk to Via del Governo Vecchio, lined with quirky little clothes shops, or Via dei Coronari for antiques, prints, or plain old funky junk.

Before dinner sometimes I like to go for a drink with friends; for serious wine tasting, Trimani (www.trimani.com/calendario09.asp)— one of the oldest places in Rome and still run by the founder’s family—is a favourite; otherwise the Caffè della Pace (5, Via della Pace, tel: 06-6861216 ), right behind Piazza Navona, is a great meeting place.

From there I often go for the most local of foods, pizza. Only thin crust, brick oven, everything fresh will do and La Montecarlo

(www.lamontecarlo.it/index_eng.htm) offers all this plus traditional appetizers with a refreshing no-nonsense attitude. A great seafood place patronized mostly by locals is Ottavio (9, Via di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, tel: 06-7020520, 06-7028595; reserve ahead).

Friends from abroad often wonder why there’s so little ethnic food in Rome; the answer is that our idea of ethnic is a Neapolitan, Tuscan or Sicilian restaurant—you wouldn’t believe how different the regional cuisines are. Speaking of which, a place where food is (almost) as good as at my Sicilian grandmother’s is La Norma (731, Via Flaminia Vecchia, tel: 06-3330210).

For a cocktail and some people-watching, I might go to the Trastevere neighbourhood, Raffaello (Art Cafe Raffaello, 12, Via del Politeama, tel: 06-58340693) and Beige (www.beigeroma.com/home.htm) are adjacent to each other and both have competent bartenders and a good vibe. To end the day on a sweet note, it has to be ice cream at San Crispino (www.ilgelatodisancrispino.it/

u Exploring Ostia Antica: This harbour city of ancient Rome is an archaeological park some 30km west of the Italian capital, and a must-visit if you’re interested in history.

Download a map from www.ostia-antica.org and, after paying an entrance fee of €6.50, you can pretty much explore a site that, in its oldest parts, dates back to 400 BC. From three-storeyed apartments to wine bars and community baths, history comes to life here. u Visiting Montefiascone, on Bolsena Lake: The largest volcanic lake in Europe is located on the border between Tuscany and Umbria, about 140km from Rome. Most easily accessed by road, the Montefiascone village dates back to the Middle Ages.

If you’ve had enough of ruins though, drink in the 360-degree panorama of the historical region of Tuscia. Or simply drink the excellent wines produced locally—or even the extra-virgin olive oil. Visit www.lagodibolesena.org for more details. u Investigating the parks: Did you know 64% of the area under “Rome town” is actually parkland?

RomaNatura is in charge of 80,000 acres of archaeological sites, villas, castles and gardens that are home to around 1,000 species of plants and 150 species of birds, mammals and amphibians. More: There are guided tours, concerts and night walks

u St Peter’s Square: On Christmas Eve, all eyes are on St Peter’s Square.

You can catch the Papal Midnight Mass and one of the most impressive live nativity scenes. u Christmas shopping: Christmas season begins here on 8 December and so does Christmas shopping. One of the best Christmas markets is at Piazza Navona. Decorations, nativity figurines, street performances and Italian cuisine make shopping here an experience. Also try Via del Corso and Via Condotti for good deals. u One Hundred Nativity Scenes: A Christmas crib exhibition at Sala del Bramante, showcasing the works of almost 200 artists from around the world and with styles ranging from Sicilian to postmodern. Visit http://www.presepi.it/ u Blessing animals: To ensure that all pets and livestock go to heaven, the Romans bless them at a special ceremony on the steps outside St Eusebio Church after morning mass on 17 January. u Leonardo da Vinci Machines Exhibition: This show allows you to both see and use da Vinci’s machines, many of these being precursors to modern-day machines. The exhibition is on till 30 April. Go to http://www.mostradileonardo.com/ index.php?lang=EN for more information.

Blessy Augustine

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AAKAR PATEL REPLY TO ALL

Parsis have civilization; other Indians don’t

I

KUNAL PATIL./HINDUSTAN TIMES

ndians have culture but not civilization. Culture is how we entertain ourselves; civilization is how we entertain others. Culture is our attitude to beauty and ugliness, to power, to religion, and to family.

It shows in our music, in what makes us laugh.

Civilization is our attitude to mankind.

It’s defined as social development of an advanced stage, but civilization never actually arrives; it is only reached for. It assumes there is high purpose to life, to wealth, to culture. It believes that man will exhibit the signs of his evolution.

He will improve upon man. For this he must build—but what?

The Birlas built six temples (India always being in urgent need of more religion).

They built temples in Jaipur, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Patna and Kolkata. Most of these are to Lakshminarayan, and these are only the big ones. No Indian family has built more, or bigger, temples than the Birlas, and that is their contribution to our culture.

Mukesh Ambani is building on Altamount Road a structure called Antilla, the most expensive home in history.

Its architects Hirsch Bedner say their estimate for it is around $2 billion. That is Rs9,000 crore, and four people will live in this house. That is Ambani’s contribution to our culture.

The Birlas built schools for the rich, and the Ambanis made a school for millionaires.

BITS-Pilani’s fee is Rs1 lakh per year, Birla Vidyamandir’s fee is Rs1 lakh per year and Dhirubhai Ambani International School’s fee just for classes XI and XII is Rs7.57 lakh.

At the Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital (“Compassionate Quality Healthcare”), a check-up for headaches

costs Rs2,850.

At the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital (“Every Life Matters”), the wellness check-up costs Rs5,000.

At the Tata Memorial Hospital, which treats cancer, healthcare is free.

Rajashree Birla says Indians “don’t have the mindset to give away large amounts of money to charity”. The act of leaving “just a little bit for their children”, she says, “happens only in the US”.

“It calls for very large-heartedness,” she says, “I don’t see this happening in the Indian context in the near future at least.”

She’s right about our mindset and culture, but wrong in assuming that the problem is about large-heartedness: It is actually about a lack of civilization.

She’s wrong also about this not happening in future: It already has happened in India.

Of Tata Sons’ 398,563 shares, 65.8% is held by charitable trusts (Ratan Tata owns 0.84%).

How much money are we talking about? Tata Sons’ net profit last year was Rs3,780 crore.

Tata Sons owns 74% of Tata Consultancy Services and 84% of Tata Motors. If wealthy Indians want to give back to society, they need only buy Jaguar and Land Rover, and not Mercedes and BMW. Tata Sons owns 31% of Tata Steel, 20% of Tata Teleservices and 22% of Tata Tea. Indians should buy their books from Landmark, their phones from Tata Indicom, their television sets and

Exemplary: Parsi New Year celebrations at an Agiary in Mumbai on Wednesday. washing machines from Croma; and they should stay at the Taj. They should drink Tetley tea and Himalayan mineral water. They should watch TV on TataSky and get themselves insured with Tata AIG. Why? Last year, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust gave away Rs201 crore. Sir Ratan Tata Trust gave away Rs153 crore. This is not CSR (corporate social responsibility) or other corporate varnish: It’s pure philanthropy. Witness its quality: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Tata Energy Research Institute (Teri), Indian Institute of Science, National Centre for the Performing Arts. That is civilization.

In Europe, the ownership and efficient management of such a giant corporate by charitable trusts would be stunning.

But we use the phrase “Tata-Birla-Ambani” easily, as if the

words were interchangeable. One of them has nothing in common with the other two. JRD sent 81% of Tata Sons’ income to charity. We thanked him by nationalizing his beloved Air India, firing him as chairman and running it into the ground.

The Tatas set up Teri, India’s first green industry initiative, in 1974.

Under R.K. Pachauri, in 2003, the name Tata was neatly excised from Teri and replaced with the word “The”.

Now, Teri’s magazine and website are testament to the greatness of Pachauri, who will show up to collect any award you give him, including GQ Man of the Year. But that is our culture.

Parsis have civilization, but not culture. They cannot speak old Persian and their Avesta they cannot read.

For language, they lean on Gujarati, for music they lean on Brahms. Their beautiful women wear saris.

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Their last names are Gujarati: Broacha (of Bharuch), Anklesaria (of Ankleshwar), Surti (of Surat), Mehta (accountant) and Gandhi (grocer). Their first names are great names in history, names that made Athens and Sparta and Corinth tremble—Ksayarsa, Kurush Buzurg and Daarivush. Herodotus and Thucydides called them Xerxes, Cyrus the Great and Darius. Parsis cannot even speak their own first names.

From 500 BC, Parsis fought Europe.

They spilt and drew blood in history’s most famous battles: Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea.

Hollywood’s cardboard Leonidas looks heroic in 300 (Xerxes is shown as demented), but actually the Parsi Immortals butchered the Spartans at Thermopylae and the terrified Athenians abandoned their city.

Alexander the Great conquered the Parsis in 334 BC and the Arabs under Umar drove them from their lands in 644. But the real Parsi surrender came in Bombay when they submitted to the individualism of Enlightened Europe.

We hate sweeping statements about Indians, and generalizations about India. The problem is that everywhere in India the same evidence keeps slapping us in the face. We’ve become good at looking away. We think we are Aryans, descended from the Caucasus.

Parsis also believe that.

Zarathushtra’s god was Ahura and his demons were Daiva. But the Rig Ved says Deva must be our god and our demons Asura.

Aakar Patel is a director with Hill Road Media.

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